She nodded, but despite a flash of uncertainty in her face, she was resolute. “He shouldn’t have made me think we had something special.”
“Feelings can change,” Rowe said softly. “Just because something is special, that doesn’t mean it will last forever.”
Her face twisted with misery. “What am I supposed to do, then?”
“Let it go,” Rowe said. His voice was soft, so soft, and sympathy was written in every line of his face. “If you don’t, you’ll never open yourself up for the next special thing. There’s something – someone – out there for you.”
“Do you really think that’s true?” she asked. She looked down at herself: the wedding dress, the paint, the mess she was in, and flared her hands out to the sides. “Even for me?”
“I have to believe it,” Rowe said with a gentle smile. A rueful one. The kind of smile that made me wonder if he had been hurt before, and how I could stop that pain, and how I could find and punish the person who had made him feel it. “Because if I’m wrong, then maybe there isn’t someone out there for me, either. And I don’t want to be alone forever.”
She swallowed hard. The wrong kind of excitement flared behind her eyes. “You’re…”
“I’m gay, sweetheart,” he said sadly. He paused for a beat, then held out his free hand towards her. “But that doesn’t mean you have to give up on everyone. You’re not going to find the man of your dreams here. You’ve got to get yourself better before you can go out and find him.”
There was a long moment when I thought she wasn’t going to do anything at all. Or maybe turn and throw herself over the balcony. But finally, she reached out and took Rowe’s hand, and gave him the bravest, shakiest smile I had ever seen.
“I guess I don’t have any paint left, anyway,” she said. She twitched her head slightly as if she wanted to look down over the balcony at the grooms dancing, at the regret she still felt, but she held herself back. “I suppose someone should escort me from the building.”
“Someone should,” Rowe agreed. He turned to help her pass us in the corridor but made no move to follow. “Just not me, I’m afraid. I’m going to need to stay here and take a break for a minute. You don’t mind, do you?”
“No,” she said, and there was an almost serene kind of smile on her face now. I jolted, realizing that if Rowe wanted to stay here, it would have to be me who walked her out. I didn’t want to leave him, especially if he was struggling with fatigue. But if we let her go alone, there was no way to be sure that she would actually leave – that she wouldn’t see something triggering and head off on the warpath again.
I was going to have to go.
I looked reluctantly at Rowe, trying to find a way to tell him what I was thinking –
“Hey!”
Tara stopped dead at the sight of two men rounding the corner. Two big, burly men who weren’t able to walk side by side in the corridor without bumping shoulders. Two ex-football players.
Olly and Caleb.
Everything in my body sagged in relief.
“It’s okay,” Rowe called out. “Tara’s ready to leave. It’s okay.”
Olly looked at him hard for a second. “It’s over?”
Rowe nodded. “You’re going to head out of here quietly, aren’t you, Tara?”
“Yes,” she nodded. She let go of Rowe’s hand, then, like she was about to fall and needed support, reached out for Olly’s. He took it with a curious expression, glancing over to us one more time. Just like that, I had the feeling he got what had happened completely.
Which was fantastic, because I fucking didn’t.
As Olly and Caleb led Tara away, making a strange and surreal passage, they left us behind. I slumped against the wall next to Rowe, then rolled my head to look at him. His suit was splattered from head to foot. There was no way of salvaging it.
“You were…” I trailed off, shaking my head. “You were fantastic.”
Rowe shrugged awkwardly, leaning his head back against the wall. He looked exhausted. “I just told her what I thought I would need to hear if the positions were reversed.”
“I mean it,” I murmured. “That was really amazing. What you said…”
Rowe dragged his eyes to mine. I had the feeling it took some effort. “We’re all just looking for someone to love us, aren’t we?”
I couldn’t stop myself.
I took one single step forward, enough to close the distance between us, and I leaned in to kiss him.
