Page 129 of Devil in Disguise
His nephews. The way the twins jumped for his pockets, the way it felt to take Ethan out riding, to take Matt fishing for some one-on-one uncle time, because you could tell your uncle things you couldn’t tell your dad, not in all the noise of four boys.
They couldn’t be gone. That couldn’t happen. The thought sent a twist of anxiety straight to his gut.
Dyma said, “It’s not just that. I mean …” She sniffed, then rolled over and found a tissue and sat up, hugging her knees to her. Like she couldn’t take his embrace anymore and was retreating back into her shell, where she was safe.
Where she was alone.
He sat up, too. There was that dread, knocking at his heart again. “Tell me,” he said, because what else did you say? If tonight had shown him anything, it was that you couldn’t paint over the cracks. Next time it rained, the cracks would be right back.
She said, “I love you so much. Do you know how hard it is to find people you know all the way through, and can still respect that much? That’s you. I love this place, too. All I want is to be here with you.”
He could have told her that she hadn’t been here in the snow yet. Instead, he said, “But.”
She raised her head and looked him in the eye. “But I know I can’t. And it hurts. It just …” She had a fist against her heart. “It hurts in mychest.It hurts in mythroat.And I can’t see how it’ll stop hurting.”
He could have said,Let’s give it some time.He could have said,Let’s be here in the moment. Why do we have to decide anything now? We’ve been long distance this long, so why not keep doing it?Instead, he said, “Because you can’t see a way out.”
“Are we fooling ourselves?” she asked. Still looking right at him. Facing the truth head-on. How could you stand loving somebody for who they were, and knowing that was exactly why they were walking away from you? “It was OK when I just wanted to have fun,” she told him. “That feels like a long time ago. When did you start mattering this much? Last summer, at least, and since then, it’s only gotten worse. I’ve been thinking about it like, is my relationship with you holding me back, but that’s not it at all. You’re holding meup.You’re pushing me forward. I have to face it. It’s me doing it. It’s me keepingyoustuck.”
“You don’t get to do this.” He was furious, suddenly. “You don’t get to tell me you’re walking away for me.You’re not. You want to do it? Own it.”
“I am. I am owning it. It’s the exact wrong time to say it, when it hurts you the most, and I’m saying it anyway, because I can’t ignore it anymore.” She was shaking some. Trembling, and he wanted to hold her, to pull her into his body and shelter her and keep her safe. But he couldn’t do that, could he? She didn’t want his shelter. She wanted to be out alone in the storm.
“So that’s it,” he said.
“Owen.” Her hand was on his arm now. “I don’t want this. I don’t. I want … I want anything else. I wantyou.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Just not enough.”
55
Falling
She leftthe ranch the next morning.
The drive back to Denver was horrible. Horrible. Almost the worst day of her life. Only her grandma dying had been worse. She still remembered how cold she’d felt when she’d walked into the principal’s office, and the way her mom had looked standing up from the chair, how her face had crumpled.
She wanted to tell somebody how bad this was, and that she could actually feel her heart cracking. The problem was, the person she wanted to tell was Owen.
It was the trip up here in reverse. Going from the tumbled rocks, the jagged skyline, Pete’s breath in your cupped hand, down to the flat, bare, windswept emptiness. On and on, into the morning. There wasn’t even sun today, because it was snowing. Not big, fluffy flakes that made the land look magical, but dry, hard granules that smacked into the windshield and blew across the highway.
Desolation.
Owen got out when they reached the curb at the airport, pulled her suitcase from the back of the pickup’s cab, extended the handle, and swiveled it the right way around. Taking care of her even here, even now.
She said, “I’m sorry.” Her arms wrapped around herself, and his sweater-coat pulled around her, but it wasn’t comfort anymore. It was just some alpaca’s wool. She felt like she’d never be warm again.
He said, “I know.” Then he leaned down, kissed her cheek, touched her face, and said, “Do good up there.”
She didn’t cry until she got into the building. She didn’t know how she made it.
What did she tell Pavani, when she got back to Seattle? As little as possible. What did she tell Annabelle? The same. What did she tell her mom, when she finally got back from Australia? Nothing at all. She knew that the not-telling wasn’t any kind of help. It wouldn’t make this any less real, and it wouldn’t make it hurt less, either. But she couldn’t say the words.
Owen and I broke up.
It’ll get better,she told herself as she worked her shift at the dining commons on Monday, then went to her first class, which was Compressible Aerodynamics. Concentrating had never been harder, but she did it somehow, and that was how she moved through her classes and her work and her life for the next week. If Owen could have his heart broken and still play football, she could do this. Nobody had ever died of a broken heart. It just felt that way.
That is, she did it until Saturday.
