"I-I don't think that was what I really wanted, Emma."
"Oh, Harper." She pulls me in, wrapping both arms around me, and I bury my face against her shoulder and sob. Ugly, heaving sobs that shake my whole body and soak through her sports bra and make me feel twenty again. When I was terrified and so in love with a boy that the thought of a world without him in it, made me physically ill.
She holds me tight and rubs my back in slow circles. She doesn't say a word until the worst of it passes, and I'm just hiccupping against her collarbone.
"You're going to be fine, Harps. You're strong. You've got an awesome career here. A whole new life. You'll find a man whowill love you even more than he did. You'll find one that you'll love forever."
I pull back, dragging the back of my hand across my eyes.
"I guess I was kind of hoping that he wouldn't close the door on me," I say, staring down at the little flowers printed on my duvet because I can't look at her right now. "That maybe the stars would align, and we'd get our second chance, you know?"
One day, I’d get my shit together. Or maybe one day it would hurt less.
"Harper. Look at me."
I do. Her blue eyes are serious, and there's no teasing left in them. This is Emma at her most honest, which means I'm about to hear something I don't want to.
"I'm saying this as your best friend. Okay?"
Oh God.
"Okay."
"You need to let Ace go," she says it gently, but there's iron underneath. "You've done your job. You protected his family with that story. It's done. Over. He's fine. You're fine. More than fine. Live your life for yourself now. Please?"
I take in a shaky breath that rattles all the way down to my ribs.
Every morning, Ace Sterling is my first thought. Before the alarm. Before the coffee. Before I remember where I am and what my life looks like now. He's there, those dark eyes, the way he used to say ‘mornin', Goldie’ like the word was invented just for me.
Every night, he's the face I see as I fall asleep. The arms I imagine around me. The voice in my ear telling me everything's going to be alright, even when it isn't.
When I'm stressed at work, I hear him.Breathe, baby. You've got this.When I'm sad, I feel the ghost of his hand on the back of my neck, his thumb tracing circles on my skin,grounding me. When I'm scared, I reach for the space beside me in bed, and it's always empty, and it always will be because I'm the one who made it that way.
How do I let that go? It's been nearly six years, and I can't do it. I've tried dating. I've tried therapy. I've tried burying myself in work until I'm too exhausted to think. Nothing works. Nothing even comes close.
"Then how do I get him to let my heart go, Emma?" My voice comes out small and broken. "He's holding onto it so tight I can't stop loving him."
But I made the decision to leave him because I thought it was right for us both at the time. My parents put so much pressure on me to move to LA and live the life they had always dreamed of. The big city was their dream for me. The opportunities. Ace was ready to throw his whole life away to follow me here. And every time we spoke about living here, I saw that spark die behind his eyes.
I could not let myself be responsible for dimming that beautiful soul's sparkle.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand and pull up his messages. The thread is almost entirely blue, his texts, stacked one on top of another like letters slid under a door that never opens.
Merry Christmas, Goldie. Hope LA is treating you right.
Happy birthday. 24 looks good on you. Bet you're shining out there.
Hey. Just thinking about you. No reason. Always no reason.
Merry Christmas, pretty girl. Hope you're doing okay out there.
And last night, sent at 1:47 a.m:
Twenty-seven today. Got into a bar fight. You would've loved it. Miss you.
I feel so guilty ignoring them. Every single one lands like a stone on my chest, and I want to reply so fucking bad my fingers actually ache. But I can't. Because I know that the second I do, it's over. All of it. The distance, the discipline, the carefully constructed lie that I'm fine without him.
We're magnets. Always have been. Since the moment I literally bumped into him in high school. That was it. One conversation and I was in love with Ace. No matter how far apart we get, the pull doesn't weaken. It just stretches, gets tighter, more painful, until one of us snaps and closes the gap. And if I text him back, even one word, I'll be on a flight to Arizona by morning, and everything I tried to build here will crumble, or he'll throw away his career to come to me, and we'll destroy each other all over again. Because Ace won’t be happy here. And I don’t know if I can face walking back into New Falls a failure.
