This isn’t about her leaving. It’s about melettingher.
About standing still when I should’ve moved. Choosing distance because it feels safer than wanting something enough to fight for it.
Dakota reaches the gate. Her hand closes around the latch.
“Dakota.”
My voice cuts across the space between us. She stops, then turns slowly.
Her once-bright expression is guarded now. I did that. I deserve it.
I pause a few feet away. Close enough to see the question in her eyes. “I saw you out here,” I say. It’s not what I mean to say. It’s what comes out.
She nods once. “Saying goodbye.” The word lands heavier than it should.
“Don’t,” I say.
Her brows pull together slightly. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it’s done.”
Silence stretches between us.
She arches a brow. “Isn’t it?” she asks.
There’s no accusation in it. That’s worse.
I drag a hand over my jaw, searching for words I’m not used to saying.
Not out loud. Not where someone can hear them and expect them to mean something.
“I thought I was doing the right thing,” I say.
She doesn’t answer.
“For a long time,” I continue, slower now, “I figured if I kept things at a distance, I wouldn’t have to deal with what happens when they go wrong.”
Her gaze sharpens slightly. “When they go wrong,” she repeats.
“Yeah.”
“And the other night… in the barn?”
I meet her eyes. “That wasn’t wrong.”
Her breath shifts almost imperceptibly. “Then why?—”
“Because I don’t trust it,” I cut in. “Not you. This. What this turns into.”
The words aren’t clean. They’re not polished. But they’re honest.
“That’s not the same thing,” she says.
“I know.”
