Page 77 of When You're Gone
He let out a resigned sigh. “I don’t have a good answer for you, beautiful. I don’t expect to have to come rushing back here again anytime soon—”
“No,” she interrupted. “You won’t.”
“So I’ll go back to Virginia now. Give you that space I keep promising. And just try to be patient, I guess.”
She craned her neck back to protest. “I don’t want you to go. I don’t want or need space, Rhett. I don’t know what else I have to say to make you believe me.”
He ran a hand down his face in anguish. “I want to believe you, beautiful. And part of me does. But I refuse to let us fall back into old patterns of using each other as a crutch. What I told you last weekend is still true. I need who you are right now to choose who I am now, too.”
“So this is it?” she quipped. “You’re just going to leave me here?”
He scoffed at the idea of leaving her anywhere. “Of course not. I’ll drop you off at home.”
“No, I don’t want to go home. I’m staying out here when you leave.”
“V… No. I can’t leave you out here. I won’t.”
“You can. And you will. I’ll figure something out when you’re gone.”
Silence transformed into tension as her words landed like a threat. He resisted asking the question that rippled through his body. But she read him like a book and answered it anyway.
“I won’t call him,” she vowed just above a whisper.
He closed his eyes and forced himself to make her understand that this was an out. “If you did—if that was your choice—I would find a way to accept it.”
Without missing a beat, she declared, “I won’t be calling him ever again.”
Rhett felt the tension melt out of his muscles as he blew out a low breath. He hadn’t been willing to make that demand of her, but he was beyond relieved that she had come to that conclusion on her own.
His phone dinged in his pocket before he could reply. He pulled it out and glanced at the message from Charlie. They had planned to be on the road an hour ago.
“I’m so sorry, beautiful. But I really have to go. Are you sure I can’t drive you back?”
She just shook her head and let him pull her to her feet. They both brushed off their pants, then made a show of looking everywhere but at each other. He inhaled deeply, savoring the smell of fresh air and damp soil, reveling in the comfort of being in a place he loved, with the only woman he had ever loved. He closed his eyes and blinked back tears before taking the first step toward the meadow.
Tori reached for his hand and halted his progress before he had made it two strides.
“Wait. Last weekend… when I showed up in Virginia… you said you believed in us.” Her question came out in a reverent whisper. “Is that still true?”
He turned to face her head-on. He closed the space between them, took her face in his hands, and leaned down until their foreheads met. He spoke his truth as solemnly as he had recited his marriage vows.
“I havealwaysbelieved in us. And I always will. But we have to turn the page, V. We have to move forward together or not at all. When I think about the last few years… We made such a mess. You pushed, I clung. You grasped, I crashed. I almost destroyed the one thing I swore I wanted most… and you’ve been punishing me ever since. We broke each other. We broke each other in ways only we could. And what a beautiful mess we made.”
He thumbed away her tears before continuing. This time, there was no sorrow, only determination.
“Now it’s time to decide if we’re going to stay broken or if who you are today wants to pick up the pieces and start over with who I am right now. If your answer is no, I’ll figure out a way to accept it. But just know this: I willneverregret any part of loving you. We had forever once. That will be enough for me if you decide that’s all we get.”
He kissed her forehead before pulling away once and for all. “I’ve gotta go now, beautiful. I’ll see you soon.”
Chapter thirty
Tori
Shetoldhimshewanted to stay out here. That wasn’t the truth. She just didn’t want him to go. Closer to the meadow, away from the drop-off, she found a defiant evergreen that had sprouted up between the sheets of shale rock. She slumped down on the hard, cold earth and used the trunk of the tree for support the same way she had just been leaning on her husband.
Gone.
He was gone.
