“Not great.” I sit forward on the couch, my feet on the floor and my elbows on my knees. I hold the phone to my ear with one hand and press my face into the other. “She was given a lot of information today. Way more than anyone should ever have to carry. Now she just…” I loathe the words trekking across my tongue. “She hates herself. She’s so focused on what she thinks she did wrong, she can’t even hear the rest.”
“Eliza said she’s engaged.”
“Mmhm.” I scratch my face. My hair. The back of my neck. “Yep.”
What the hell else am I supposed to say aboutthat?
“I don’t even…” She exhales a noisy, heavy sigh. “Jesus. I don’t know what to say. How do I make this better?”
“Wish I knew.” I hate that my voice crackles. I detest how fucking much it hurts. All of it. “I’m gonna lose her,” I groan. “He’s claiming her, Raquel. And she’ll go, because it’ll make her feel bad to tell him no.”
“And what about you?” she demands savagely. “You’ll just stand there with your hand on your heart, sacrificing yourself for what youthinkis best for her?”
“Yep.” I drag my fingertips across my scalp, crushing my eyes closed as I search for something,anythingother than the ache I feel in my soul. “Without even thinking about it.”
“Ollie!”
“She’ll stay if I tell her to.”
“Exactly! She will. That’s the whole damn point!”
“She’ll stay because I told her to. Guilt will make her obedient. But she’ll forever long to fix the man she left behind.” My lungs rattle and shake as I exhale. “The least I can do is let her go without forcing her to carry the burden ofmyfeelings on top of everything else.”
“This isthe door, Ollie! This is Jack sacrificing himself to the ocean to save Rose.”
“If that’s how it has to go, then?—”
“No!” Her voice breaks with the ferociousness of her temper. “There was enough room on the door for both of them.Everyoneknows that!”
“That’s not true.” I sigh, dropping my head and letting it dangle between my shoulders. “Him climbing up put her at risk, remember?”
“You’re infuriating! You’re not even trying. She loves you, Ollie! It doesn’t matter who she lovedbefore, because that doesn’t exist anymore. It doesn’t matter if she agreed to marry him, because that woman, the one who said yes and accepted his ring,shedoesn’t exist anymore.”
“Raquel—”
“She’s not in love with him! But she needs your help to work through this. She needs to know you want her, too.”
“Stop.” Groaning, I glance right and watch helplessly as Rose whimpers in her sleep. As she drags her legs higher, tighter against her chest, and Poopy shifts in the small space before she’s crushed. “I won’t hurt her, Raquel. I won’t be a regret she carries for the next seventy years.
“You’re choosing wrong!” She slams a door on her end of the line. “You’re putting too much stock in this dude like he’s a current man in her life.”
“He’s her fiancé!”
“Washer fiancé! We have no clue what happened in the months between October—when they got engaged—and February—when she turned up in Plainview. We don’t know if this dude is telling the truth, or if she ranwiththat other guy, or if he took her. But we know she was free of Liam in February, and shedidn’trun toward Seattle. She had a chance to call home, to tell Darcy she was okay and ask him to come get her. But she didn’t. Now she’s here, and she choseyou. She lovesyou.”
Rose releases her legs, extending them along the couch and grumbling under her breath. Her thighs flex with the stretch, her toes lengthening. But the second the heels of her feet touch my leg, she springs back into a ball.
I sit back against the cushions and tilt my head toward the ceiling. “I’ve already lost her,” I rasp, pinching the bridge of my nose. Anything to stop the hurt. “She lost her parents, her grandpa, her career, this guy she was friends with, and her entire life, all in the space of an hour. Her grandma isn’t her grandma anymore, and fuck knows how long she’s got left. Her fiancé has an entire lifetime of memories that include her, and dammit, Raquel, she deserves to remember them. She was happy before. She can have that back again.”
“That woman I met, Ol? The one I spent a couple of days with? She was happy, too. She was feisty and had a spine. She was intelligent and witty. She was scared, too, but she was ready to fight foryou. And ya know what I saw that night at Tommy’s?” She exhales a noisy, irritated breath. “She lit up when you walked in to save her. She went from brave and witty and silly and fun to a damn supernova, bursting with light. She needsyouto be truly happy, and you need her, too.”
“She’s perfect as she is.” I swallow the ache in my throat. The nasty lump of dread. The pain. “She’s whole and fulfilled and pure and amazing. She doesn’tneedanyone.”
“So maybe it’s you who needs her? I’m afraid of what’ll be left once she’s gone, Ollie. I’m afraid you won’t be whole and perfect anymore, because you handed her pieces of you these last few months, and you’re too friggin’ proud to ask for them back.”
“It’s not about pride.”
She sighs. “Too selfless, then. Too noble. But there’s no trophy at the end of this life. We just have our time here on Earth, and if we’re lucky, we find the right people to spend it with. She foundyou.She choseyou. But instead of honoring those choices, you’re tossing yourself overboard, likeyou think one less body on the ship will mean she’s guaranteed a safety raft.”
