He didn’t respond. He didn’t move. He just licked his lips and let me have my drunken tantrum. My eyes began to prick, and my throat tightened.
“I hate you,” I said.
His eyes didn’t move from mine. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do!” I yelled; tears I couldn’t fight falling from my eyes. “I hate you!” I screamed as I pushed and punched his hard chest.
He took each blow like he deserved it. Like he’d been waiting for them to come and welcomed each one. When my strength weakened and my tears fell harder, he grabbed me by the wrists and wrapped his arms around me. He held me close against his chest while I cried.
I let it all out. All the heartbreak and pain. All the loss. All the shattered pieces of me—I let them all out, knowing there’d be no way to put them back together again.
At some point, I laid down in the grass. He settled beside me. We were silent for a long time. Hours, maybe. We laid there with nothing but our own pain and the weight of each other’s swarming around us. The rest of the world didn’t exist, and I was happy it didn’t, because I needed to be alone in my pain. I needed to be alone with him.
After what could have been forever, he broke our silent oath. “I miss you, Syd,” he said. It hurt and healed me all at once.
I closed my eyes and released a deep breath. “I miss you, too.”
Of all the times I felt those words, this time felt different. It felt like acceptance—like we weren’t fighting it anymore. Like we finally stopped pretending and just accepted what was, and what would never be.
I turned to him. “Are you scared?”
He blinked a few times before he turned to meet my gaze. “Yeah, but… not for the reasons you think.”
My heart was heavy at the meaning behind his words, but I buried it deep inside. We grew quiet again, staring into each other’s eyes with all the love and loss the world could hold between us.
“Did I ever tell you there’s a chocolate named after me?” He said it with a smile that took the weight of the moment and tossed it away.
I smiled back with tight lips and looked away. “No.”
“Well, there is.”
“There is no chocolate named after you,” I giggled.
“You think I’m lying?” he asked, his brow arched.
“Uh-huh.” I nodded, amused.
“Come on,” he said as he sat up. “I’ll prove it to you.”
He stood and offered me his hand, his beautiful, grinning face shining down on me with the lit skyline behind him, shimmering from the golden hour of the low-setting sun.
“This ought to be good,” I said, and I took his hand.
Ten minutes later, we were walking down the candy aisle of the local market. He scanned the aisle as I looked around aimlessly, trailing behind him. I thought for a moment how we’d never been in a grocery store together, and wondered what it might be like to go food shopping for our own home, the one we would never have. My hands shifted to my back pockets as I willed the thought away, not wanting to ruin the lightness he’d given us.
“There,” he said with a clap of his hands. “Boom.”
He grabbed a chocolate bar and held it in front of me. I brought my hand up to hold the bar with him as I focused on the name. My brows knitted together.
“That saysGhirardelli.”
“Exactly.” He shrugged with a smile.
“That’s not your name.” My eyes caught his, and he smiled wider.
“Yes, it is.”
I grinned at him with a questioning look. “Your last name isFirrardelli.”
