“Hey.” Summer pushes onto her elbow to look at me. “It wasn’t all on you.”
She’s wrong. That’s just what people say when they don’t want you to carry the burden of guilt. But I’m used to its weight. I’ve mostly made peace with it, but it doesn’t change what happened.
“It was.” I shake my head, talking before she can break the silence with comfort I don’t deserve. “That night, seeing you at my game, with my friends… it made me realize just how much I wanted you there. Christ, how much I was starting toneedyou. I’ve become more and more attached to you, Starling.”
I stop. Swallow. “All I could think that night was how badly this is going to hurt when you leave. I thought I could stop it, pull back, protect us both.”
I run my fingers through her bed-tangled hair. “But I was wrong. That fucking hurt.”
“It hurt me, too,” she whispers.
“I know.” I kiss the top of her head. “I’m sorry. Even when I think I’m doing the right thing, I?—”
I take a breath, but it doesn’t settle the rapid drum behind my ribs. The weight of it all crashes down on me—how I messed up with my ex, what I did to Summer, all the ways I could hurt her in the future. I squeeze my eyes shut. “Fuck.”
Summer’s moving, straddling my hips when I open them again. “Stop.” Her hands hold the sides of my face, her grip firm. “Stop beating yourself up.”
I reach up and cup her jaw. “I watched you tonight on stage, and I knew.”
Christ, she was perfect. So in her element. So fucking talented. So everything.
“Knew what?”
That I couldn’t hold you back. Couldn’t keep you. As much as I want to.
“That you are going to be something big. That you’re something special. And the world deserves to have it, to appreciate your talent, your light.”
“Miles—”
“In four months, you’re leaving?—”
“We don’t know that. Look at what happened tonight—we can’t even know what’s going to happen five minutes from now.”
“I know it.” I brush my thumbs along her cheeks. “When your music takes off, you’re going to leave.”
My throat tightens, but I force the words out. “You’re going to leave, and I won’t hold you back. I won’t be the reason you make yourself smaller. I won’t ask you to stay.”
I know how it goes if I do. I’ve lived through it. I barely survived it. When the wanting became a weight, and staying was a sacrifice, and leaving was the only relief. I’d rather this end cleanly. I’d rather she leave with all of it intact—us, what we had, without ever looking at me the way Vanessa did at the end.
Summer shakes her head. And again. Her eyes shine, filling with tears she doesn’t let fall, but they never leave mine. “I can’t stay,” she whispers.
“I know, baby.” I kiss her palm. “I know.”
“But we don’t have to stamp this with an end date?—”
I press my thumb to her lips. “It’s better not to make promises we can’t keep,” I hear myself say, and I hate it.
“Who says we can’t keep them?” Her voice rises. “You don’t know that, Miles.”
But I do.I remember all the broken promises I exchanged with my ex. Every single one of them.
She sits back slightly, still straddling me, but putting space between us.
It’s better to leave things on good terms. I won’t risk the past repeating itself. I couldn’t stand to have Summer look at me with anger and resentment in her eyes.
“Just until you leave,” I murmur with great effort.
The lie tastes like ash.
