You’re not going to save him. You’re going to ruin, ruin, ruin him like this.
I threw on a sweater in the cabin. I use the sleeve to mop up my face and clear my eyes. I blink a few times into thescalding sun. I wish it could burn everything away and make me new.
Take a breath and use your head.
I check my rear view mirror before I shift into reverse and throw the backup camera on.
He’s there.
Like a stolid wraith. He’s a wall of solid misery, a black hoodie, and denim clinging to muscle. His face is stark and pale while silent tears track down his cheeks. His hair is wildly mussed, a backdrop to his drowning, glittering eyes. I’m about to collide straight into his heartbreak in more ways than one. He looks like a pillar. I turned him to stone even though I never looked back. His eyes. They don’t flash with betrayal or accusation. God, they’re still so hopeful. So painfully broken but still glistening with that same irrational wish.
Stay, stay, stay.
There’s no way out of here except to back out. I can’t drive over the grass. It’s lumpy and I could tear something off the bottom of the car.
But also, I can’tleave.
“Esme.” My name falls from his lips on a sob. The tears aren’t so silent now. His pain isn’t private.
I will remember the sight of him like this for the rest of my life. Why was I so fucking cursed the day I was born?
You don’t have to be. There’s no curse. Only your own decisions. Stay. Find the courage. Do what he said. Just try. He wouldn’t be hard to love. You’re more than halfway therealready. Far, far more than halfway. Get out. Go wrap your arms around him. Hold him and let him hold you.
My heart is a wild animal trying to break out of my chest. I’ve never done anything half so stupid as listen to it. I made my choice and I chose wrong.
There’s still time.
I grasp my steering wheel for a moment, trying to suck in air and failing. I want to collapse and I’m already sitting. It’s my insides, my thoughts, my ribs, my chest, my whole life that’s tumbling down, burying me in the wreckage.
“Fuck.”
I stab the button again, shutting the car off. I crack the door, then throw it open and stumble out.
Wizard doesn’t move. What would it be like to claim him as my home? Not Hart, buthim. Wherever he is, I’d be blessed and warm in the safety of his love.
Something wild surges in my chest. The beast in my heart has moved to my lungs. It’s clawing shreds into their thin lining.
More silent tears track down his face. They break my heart. It’s like he doesn’t even realize he’s crying. “You’re just gonna leave?” His voice doesn’t even waver. He doesn’t pour himself out or break into loud, messy sobs.
My own cheeks are hot and pinched. “I need you to be okay. Me leaving is the only way that I can think of how to do that.”
He falters back like I just hit him with my car. Hisface. It’s absolutely destroyed.
I can’t stop myself. I’m moving. Hurtling myself at him. He opens his arms and stands with his feet apart, but he still rocks back from the force of me slamming against him. I seek his shoulder, turning my wet face into it, drinking in all the complex scents that clung to his plaid jacket. I want to be coated in it. In him.
One arm bands around my shoulders and the other fists in my hair. “Are you fucking crazy?” His voice is finally so wet and clogged that he has to clear his throat before he can speak. “That’s not gonna make me okay. That’s the honest fucking truth. If you leave, I might never be okay again.”
A sob rolls through me, shaking us both with its brutality. “You think I want to know that? I do, and it’s killing me. What if we try and you love me, and then it all goes to shit and I hurt you past what you can ever recover from? It’s obvious that I overthink the negatives and all the wrongs, but it’s not just that. I overthinkeverything. All the good too. I wreck everything.”
His lips brush over his hair and he whispers the softest words. I can’t make any of them out. I’m so undeserving.
“I want to ask you all these questions, but I’m afraid that if I do, I won’t want to hear the answers.”
“Ask,” I whimper. Anything to stop his heart from breaking. It’s more painful than I can even fathom.
“Is it—is it that you don’t think you could love me? If that’s it, then there’s no fixing this. I’d still want you to stay and be okay. I’d still beg you to let me keep you safe and let you find where you need to be. I’ll always be your best friend, but if there’s no chance that you could ever feel more than that, I’m so sorry for putting you in this position. For asking. For wanting. It’s not—fuck, it’s all wrong and I’d die of shame.”
“Shame?” I hiss. “No. There’s no shame. You haven’t done one thing other than be amazing. Listen to what you just said. ‘If you can’t love me, it’s okay, I’ll still be your whole world.’ Do you know how impossibly incredible something like that even is?” I shift back to the road I’ve travelled for so many years that I’ve worn craters clean through the ruts. “It’s not a question of if I could love you or not.” I inhale deeply into his shoulder. “I’m halfway there already. So many things I didn’t understand or realize what they were until you said it and then it all made sense. Could I fall in love with you? Who on this earth could know you and not love you?” That’s it for me. My voice cracks and breaks. All the fight drains out of me. He bows around me like an apostrophe, equally as exhausted.
