“You hurt me,” he says finally.
“I know.”
“Two weeks, Eleanor. Two weeks of you lying, of watching you pull away and not knowing why, of feeling like I was losing you and not understanding what I did wrong.”
“I know, and I hate myself for it.”
“I don’t want you to hate yourself,” he says. “I just want you to understand. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was afraid that if I said it out loud, I’d have to make a choice. And I just wasn’t ready. I was scared of choosing wrong, scared of giving up the life my mother wanted for me, scared of—” I stop and swallow hard. “Scared of wanting this too much. Wanting you too much. Because if I let myself want it and then it didn’t work out…”
“You’d be devastated.”
“Yes.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then, slowly, his fingers finally close around mine.
“I know something about being scared,” he says. “About wanting something so much it terrifies you. About building walls because it feels safer than being vulnerable.”
“I know you do.”
“And I know something about making mistakes. About hurting people you love because you’re so wrapped up in your own fear.”
“Wyatt—”
“Look, I’m not saying it’s okay what you did, keeping the secret. It’s gonna take some time for me to trust that you won’t do it again.” He steps closer. “But I also know that you’re here at seven in the morning after staying up all night making the hardest decision of your life. And you chose this. You chose us.”
“I did.”
“Then I think,” he pauses, and a small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “I think I can work with that.”
I feel so relieved that my knees go weak.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
His free hand comes up to cup my face, his thumb brushing across my cheekbone. “But Eleanor…”
“Yes?”
“If you ever keep something like that from me again?—”
“I swear, I promise, I won’t. No more secrets, no more walls. We’ll figure that out, figure everything out together.”
“Together,” he repeats.
We’re standing so close now, close enough that I can see the exhaustion in his eyes. And some hurt, but underneath it all, the hope, the love.
“I meant what I said last night,” I whisper. “I love you.”
“I know,” he says, his voice rough. “I love you too. Even when you’re infuriating. Even when you make the most terrible decisions. Even when you scare the heck out of me.”
“Wyatt—”
“Eleanor, I really want to kiss you right now.”
“Then kiss me.”
