Page 161 of Colliding with Ten

Only a week ago, Jace had joked that I'd never seen Lennox cry. We’d laughed until our sides hurt. Watching him now, nothing about it was funny.

“You didn’t make this easy.” I closed the space between us. He still wouldn’t look at me, his gaze fixed somewhere over my shoulder, like meeting my eyes might finish breaking him.

I took his head in my hands. One cupped the side of his face, my thumb stroking the rough stubble along his jaw, while the other slid around the back of his neck.

“Look at me.”

He resisted before meeting my gaze.

“If this were about you, we’d be making dinner right now because I wouldn’t want to leave. Instead, I’m confessing something I couldn’t have done six months ago. That’s not you being easy to leave. It’s the very opposite.”

He searched my face before speaking again. “Tell me what I can say, Ayla.”

I frowned. This was one of the only times he’d ever called me by my first name.

He looked at me, desperation in his voice. “Tell me what words get you to stay. Tell me what argument I haven’t made yet and I’ll make it.”

I shook my head before he’d even finished.

“There isn’t any.”

“There has to be something.”

“You’ve already been everything I needed.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, the fight had disappeared. His jaw tensed, but he nodded to himself, like he’d made a decision.

“I hate this,” he said finally. “I want you to know that. I’m not going to fight you on it, because I don’t actually think fighting for you now is fair. But I hate it.”

I smiled. It felt wrong to smile while my heart was breaking, but we’d always reached for humor when things got too heavy. “I hate it too.”

He dragged a hand across the back of his neck, then reached into his pocket for his phone. “Let me get you a flight and somewhere decent to stay, at least until you’ve got your own place sorted. I’m not asking permission on this part.”

I shook my head. “Lennox, I still have AJ’s card⁠—”

His hand stilled around his phone. He looked at me, eyes rimmed red. “I need to do this.” His words were rough. “I can’t fix any of the rest of it.” He swallowed hard, gaze never leaving mine. “But I can make sure you land somewhere safe. And I am going to do that, and you’re going to let me . . .” His voice cracked on the last few words. “. . . because it’s the only thing I have left to offer you.”

My chest caved. I couldn’t fight him, not when kindness had been the one thing he’d never run out of.

There was nothing left to say that wouldn’t make leaving harder. He carried my bag to the car himself and wouldn’t let me touch it. The drive to the airport passed in silence. Every now and then, I’d catch him glancing at me, like he was trying to memorize my face. I did the same when he looked back at the road.

He parked in the short-term lot and came around to open my door. Then he pulled my suitcase from the trunk. He took me as far as security would allow. When we reached the end of the line, he stopped. Travelers streamed around us, wheeling suitcases and hurrying toward departures. As the world moved, our lives stood still. His hand never left the handle of my suitcase, and I knew why. As long as he was carrying it, I wasn’t gone yet.

He didn’t kiss me goodbye. I think we both knew that if he did, I wouldn’t get on the plane, and maybe we’d both spend the rest of our lives wondering.

“Go get your life back, Ayla.” His voice treated it like a fact, a foregone conclusion, instead of hope.

He gave me one last sad smile. Then he stepped back and let go of my bag. My fingers curled around the handle of my carry-on until they ached. Every part of me wanted to cross the distance between us and throw my arms around him. I wanted to tell him I’d changed my mind and we’d figure it out together. But wanting something and accepting it weren’t the same thing, so I forced my feet to move.

When I looked back, he was where I’d left him, hands in his pockets, watching me with the devotion that had undone me from the beginning. I wanted to remember him like that. Not as the man I walked away from, but as the man who loved me enough to let me.

I turned before I could choose differently. My life was waiting for me in New York, and I didn’t know if there’d ever be room for the one I was leaving behind.

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AYLA