Page 92 of What Happens in Amsterdam

“Because yesterday,” he continues—andgod, was that only yesterday?—“it felt like we were on the same page. And I don’t want to be the idiot who hasn’t realized you’ve changed your mind.”

The fierce vulnerability in his eyes is enough to tear me in half.

“You’re not—you’re not an idiot,” I say quietly. “I feel it too, okay? Whatever this is between us—I feel it too. And it’s really fucking terrifying. Because there’s too much we haven’t talked about, and I don’t know what we’re supposed to do right now.”

“Why can’t we be terrified together, then?” He reaches out to thread his fingers with mine. “It’s complicated, sure, but we’d figure it out, wouldn’t we?”

“And our families?” I ask, because it’s impossible to avoid the topic. “Maybe yours was quick to forgive, but I’m fairly certain mine isn’t going to do the same. I just…I can’t see a world in which they’d accept it.”

“We’d talk to them. I think if they got to know me again, they might realize I’m not actually that terrible.” One side of his mouth kicks upward, and while it’s adorable when he’s this optimistic, there’s no way he can be this naive.

I drop his hands and rake a frustrated hand through my hair, ruining all of Phoebe’s hard work. “Wouter,stop. It’s not a question of whether they like you or not. It’s that they treat me like I’m this doll who could break at any moment.”

“And you let them.”

“What?”

“Come on, Dani.” Now his arms are crossed, fabric straining over taut muscles. “Have you ever really stood up to them? I saw it when I lived with you, and I thought they were a little overprotective, but it seems like nothing’s changed. They might put you in bubble wrap, but you’re not exactly clawing to get out.”

You’re wrong, I want to spit back at him—but the gruesome truth is that I’m not sure he is.

I’ve ignored it for years, letting myself be quietly frustrated, pushing back only gently. Maybe I was worried there’d be nothing out there to protect me if I let them go. Maybe I didn’t realize I could protect myself.

Now I’m getting another surge of adrenaline, one that’s raw, ugly. We’re lucky this is a small town, that there’s no one else in front of the train station to watch this play out. “What would this relationship even look like?” I fire at him. I snatch up the hem of my dress so I can put more space between us without tripping over it. “We’d date for a while and eventually break up, and then what?”

“In my mind, I guess,” he says, “we wouldn’t break up.”

“Oh, okay, sure. We decide to stay married, because why the hell not, we like each other? And then it just magically works out?”

“Maybe! Is that so fucking awful to imagine? Someone loving you enough to want to stay with you long-term? Someone wanting to spend forever with you, because they never thought they’d see you again and by some miracle, you came back into their life?” His voice is hoarse now, and the amount of pleading in it could bring me to my knees if I’m not careful. “I’m sorry if that seems like the worst thing to you, Dani, because to me, it sounds pretty damn wonderful.”

Something foreign works its way up my throat, something I’mnot sure I could name if I tried.Someone loving you enough. In all our late-night hookups and conversations, we never said that word. We haven’t, not for thirteen years.

“I don’t even know how long I’m going to be here,” I say at last, because maybe my parents were right. Maybe the smart thing would be to get a quick and simple divorce, just like we promised we would, and go back home. “Or if I’m going to get that job.”

“Then you’ll get a different one.”

“Because it’s that easy? I’ve been trying for months, and I’ve barely gotten further than a first interview. And maybe I needed that time to cope with burnout, but—I didn’t come here thinking this would be permanent. It was only ever supposed to be an escape. A change of scenery.”

“Ah. I get it. You got what you needed, and now you’re done?”

I don’t say anything. I want to rewind to ten minutes ago, when he was holding me to his chest and the rest of the world seemed to stop. I want to be able to take a breath before time starts back up again.

During the few months I’ve been here, I’ve gained so much. Learned so much. There are too many places I haven’t traveled, languages I haven’t heard. The idea of packing up my life again sounds absolutely brutal.

But so does the inevitability of this relationship falling apart, the way it was always meant to.

“You were right,” he continues. “There’s a lot we haven’t talked about. If you really want to go back to California, I won’t stand in your way.”

“Wouter.” I stop just short of telling him I’m not going back to California—because even if I know in my soul that I’m not, I can’t force the words up my throat.

I’m not sure what I want: for him to cling to my dress to keepme right here, or for him to let me go. Either way, he’d be making a decision for me that I’ve always needed to make on my own.

“What, Dani?” He yanks at his tie to loosen the knot, but there’s a resignation in the way he grabs at it. It takes a few tries before he can get it undone. “I’m not going to try to convince you to feel for me the same way I feel about you. If you don’t—it’s as simple as that. Even if you decide you want to stay here, we don’t have to be anything to each other. Just like you said.”

The hurt that knifes through my stomach is so intense, I have to fight the urge to clutch at it.I do feel the same, I try to say.I’m just scared of what it means. Scared of doing this again, when the first time went so horribly wrong.

“I don’t know what to say.” Somehow it’s the most honest sentence I’ve uttered all day, after a full afternoon of mistakes. The three words he must want from me are buried somewhere deep, rusty from lack of use. I want so desperately to be brave the way he told me I was—“a fucking fighter,” he said.

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