Page 62 of Tell Me You Love Me

“How did we end up here, Lana?” He drags his lips between his teeth,swinging his head from side to side. “How were we those kids, so fucking in love, and now we?—”

“Can’t we just stop?” I plead. “Stop trying so hard to pick through it.”

“I’m not trying to argue with you.” He brings aching eyes back up to mine. “I swear, I’m not gonna shout or cuss or imagine throttling your pretty little neck—which is something I doa lot. I just don’t understand how this happened.”

“It just…”God, it just did. The choice was taken out of our hands.“I don’t have better answers than the ones I’ve already given, and it breaks my heart that we keep going around and around and around on the same thing.”

“It breaksyourheart?” He growls. “Yours? Really?”

“Your pain is my pain,” I rasp. “My heart breaks because yours is breaking. I can’t be what you want me to be, and I can’t change how we ended up here. All I can do is move forward,notwith the life you wish we could go back to, but with the life I now have. With my son. He’s my future, Tommy. He needs me.”

“I never stopped needing you.” He drops his gaze again, kicking rocks. “I never got to a point where I could thrive without you holding my hand, Lana. And I know we’re not supposed to rely on other people like that. I know I’m supposed to be strong and able to stand up on my own, but?—”

“You are strong. You’ve been standing on your own this whole time.” I knuckle a fresh tear that rolls onto my cheek. “I know it hurt at first, and I know you were mad, but at some point in the last ten years, you were able to move on. You created a gym and a family and a career. You feed hungry children and teach clumsy little boys how to kick above their heads. You’re literally the world champion in your weight division and going back in a few months to defend your title. Youarestanding. You’re strong. And I’m so proud of you for doing that.”

“I came looking for you.” He brings a hand up and scratches his stubbled jaw. “In New York.”

Stunned surprise floors me. It sends my heart skittering and my knees weak. “What?”

“You left me here all alone.” His voice crackles with an ache I feel in my soul. “Without saying goodbye. Without taking much more than a backpack full of clothes. You said nothing to your mom, or if you did, she wouldn’t tell me. You said nothing to Chris or Oliver or Caroline. You just left. And at first, I tore the town apart trying to get to you.” He searches my eyes. “I’m not proud to admit I broke Ollie’s arm and Chris’s nose. It tookboth of them to pin me to Plainview. But eventually, they had to go back to living their lives, too. The second they turned their backs, and I scraped enough money together for a flight, I went to New York and tracked you down at your school.”

My breath comes out in an aching shudder. “Tommy…”

“I was gonna grab you,” he groans. “Literally toss you over my fucking shoulder and steal you back. But when you turned around, not even realizing I was right there, all I could see was your… your…” He touches his stomach, lowering his gaze. “You were carrying someone else’s baby and had a shiny rock on your finger.”

I look down at the ring I wear now. Still. Though I can’t be entirely sure why. I should send it back to Colin. It was his mother’s, and even if he’s not quite ready to give it to Tasha yet, the ring still belongs to his family.

I’ll send it back. I have to.

“I’d spent all those months back here, Lana, wondering what the fuck happened and what I did to deserve that kind of pain. I was so scared I’d said something or done something that broke us, and the fact I was too stupid to figure out what it was made it all so much worse. I was in hell. Meanwhile, you were in New York, falling in love and starting a new life with this other guy. I couldn’t throw you over my shoulder. I couldn’t even say hello, because you’d already moved on.”

“I’m sorry.” I lose my battle against tears, droplets falling to my cheeks and tracking toward my jaw. “Truly. I’m so, so sorry, Tommy.”

“Istilldon’t know if I broke us. Was it my fault?” He drags his hand up and clutches at his heart. “Was I not enough? Was I mean and didn’t even realize it? Insensitive to your needs and too self-absorbed to notice?”

I shake my head, frantically answering these questions at least. This, I can give him, even if words fail me.

“Was it because of where I came from? Was itwhoI came from? Was it the cockroaches in my house or the moths that ate my clothes or the fact I didn’t have enough food for me and Chris, so you knew in your heart you could never rely on me to feed you, too?”

“Tommy…”

“I wouldn’t have let you go hungry,” he groans. “I swear to you, there’s nothing I wouldn’t have done to keep you safe and warm and fed.”

“It wasn’t you, Tommy.” I should walk away. Turn and run before I make things worse. But his pain is my pain. His heartache is because of me. So I push off the wall and crash against his pounding heartinstead, wrapping my arms around his body and whimpering when he does the same. “It wasn’t you. I’m so sorry you’ve spent ten years not knowing this wasn’t your fault.”

“Tell me what happened.” He rubs my back, long strokes of his broad hands. “It’s not too late to fix this.”

“I can’t.” I squeeze as tight as my aching arms allow and bury my face against his chest, inhaling his perfect scent and trapping it in the base of my lungs. Maybe later, when I’m all alone, I can call upon the memories that smell brings me, revisiting the only person I’ve ever known—besides my son—who loves without reservation. “I can’t, Tommy. And I’m so sorry for that, too.”

“It’s not too late?—”

“It is.” I pull back and swipe my cheeks, wiping the tears away and inhaling a shuddering breath. “Itistoo late. But I’m setting you free. I want you to find happiness.Please.”

“The girl I used to know would never have wanted that for me.” He grabs my wrists and pulls me closer. “ThatAlana would laugh at the thought of me being with someone else. Then she would have mopped the floor with whichever idiot stepped forward to take her spot.”

He’s right. He’s absolutely, completely, heartachingly accurate.

“I’m not her anymore. I can’t be her. That Alana died ten years ago, and no matter how many times you ask for a different outcome, death is death, and there’s no coming back from that. Move on.” I take a step back and twist my wrists out of his grasp, swallowing the sob that tries so fervently to break free. Then I look anywhere but into his eyes. I can’t. It hurts too much. “You’re love,” I murmur, rolling my bottom lip between my teeth. “I’m war. The two were never supposed to coexist.”

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