Page 144 of The Spring in My Heart

She chuckles. “You checked all the boxes in the beginning, and I made the mistake of holding on to that. It wasn’t until later, when the time had passed and I was out of the haze, that I began to see how absent you were even as you made promises to me.”

My stomach tightens, and I want to deny all she says, but I’m here to listen. “I really did care about you.”

“You did. Like I did for you. But you weren’t present. You were not vulnerable or open. You didn’t even want to go away for the weekend together,” she says, catapulting me to our last argument, when she yelled that Ayla would be fine for forty-eight hours. I just didn’t want to put the effort into our relationship.

“That’s the day you left and didn’t look back. Ayla missed you like crazy. She still remembers you.”

She dabs at the corner of her eye. “It hurt my heart not to be able to see her or say goodbye.”

“You could’ve kept in touch.” I can’t keep the bitterness from coating my tongue.

She shakes her head. “That would’ve meant keeping in touch with you.”

The skin on my cheeks begins to tingle like she slapped me across the face. I rear back. It was me. She didn’t want contact with me.

Her hand shoots out to cover mine. “It would have been too painful. To see you or have to hear your voice, and not have you…it would have destroyed me. I was aficiá de ti, so madly in love. I couldn’t be near you without going back to you and risking it becoming a mess for all three of us.”

“Three?” I manage.

She bobs her head up and down. “You, me, and Ayla. You were going to move on eventually. I loved myself enough to remove myself from the situation before you started seeing someone else.”

I swallow the knot in my throat. “That was the last thing on my mind.”

“Yeah, but hot contractors in Baltimore don’t stay unattached for long.” She chuckles. “It worked out the way it was supposed to. I moved down here, got a loan for the bakery, and met Joe. He’s a good guy and a contractor too. He helped me build all of this.”

I look around at the beautifully built shelves and the dollhouse architecture. “It’s a work of art.”

Her smile widens. “High praise coming from you. Tell me about you. Have you given someone the chance to love you?”

Another punch, to the chest this time. I think of Lux and the way she walked away from me. She can’t trust me with her heart but still wants to be a part of A’s life even if I loom in the background.

“I messed it up,” I blurt out. “I wasn’t open with her either. Ayla was my excuse.”

She squeezes my hand tight. “Do you love her?”

I nod. “I do, and she loves my girl.”

“Does she love you?”

The sadness in Lux’s eyes as she walked away haunts me.

“I think so.”

She leans in. “Then fight for her. You’ve waited for this love for too long. If you had shown me this kind of emotion, we would be in another place right now.”

“I’m sorry,” I say because I never wanted to hurt her.

“Don’t be. Our breakup freed me to be the happiest I’ve ever been. Joe and I are made for one another. Since I’m happy, I think it’s your turn. Don’t waste this opportunity."

She’s right. I can’t waste my chance. I’m going to wait for Lux to come back from her trip, and I’m going to enamorarla, court her, until she gives me another chance. She may say no, but I won’t go down without fighting for her. For us.

Twenty minutes later, I’m driving back to Baltimore when my phone rings on my dash. It’s Adri.

“Ollie, I need a favor. Can you pick up Bron from school today and bring her home?”

Her tone is subdued and downright sad.

“Yeah, of course. Is everything okay?”

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