Page 108 of Lost Then Found
“I can’t do this,” she whispers, her voice tight as she pulls her hand from mine.
I just stand there, hand still half-raised, like I’m holding on to something that’s already gone.
And I feel it—this tight, hollow ache opening wide in my chest. Not because she stopped. Not even because I didn’t see it coming, but because Idid. Because part of me knew she’d pull away again. Knew that no matter how close we got, there’d be a line she couldn’t let me cross. Still, I let myself believe for a second that maybe this time was different. Thatmaybe I wasn’t the mistake she keeps trying not to make again.
I don’t want to go back to pretending I’m fine without her, like this didn’t just crack me open. I want to reach out, pull her back in, say something that makes her stay.
I catch her wrist before she can walk away, my grip firm but gentle. “Why?”
She stares at me, breathing hard. For a second, her shoulders stiffen. “I can’t be with someone who could leave me again, Boone.”
Her voice wavers just enough to gut me.
She shakes her head, like she’s trying to clear something out of it, like she’s trying to keep herself from slipping back under whatever spell had her pressed up against me just seconds ago.
“I need to be with someone who stays,” she says, voice quieter now but no less firm. “Someone who chooses me. Every day. No matter what.”
Her throat bobs with a swallow, her hands curling into fists, like she’s holding herself together by sheer force of will.
“I can’t do this if I’m always waiting for you to walk away again. And I think a part of me always is.”
It breaks my fucking heart. Watching her shut down, watching this slip through my fingers again, knowing I’d take anything she’d give—anything—but she won’t give me her. Not fully. Maybe she never will again.
Before I can say a word, she slips out of my grip.
Gone.
She’s already halfway up the stairs, her footsteps quick—too quick. Like if she moves fast enough, I won’t have the chance to stop her. To say something that would make her stay.
And maybe she’s right.
Maybe if she looked at me for one more second, I’d let it all out. Every word I’ve kept locked behind my teeth and my heart since the day I left.
So I just stand there.
Frozen.
Heart pounding.
Jaw clenched so tight it aches.
And I think—God, I think—of all the things I should’ve said.
I never stopped choosing you. Not once. Not even when I walked away. Especially not then.
I never stopped loving you. Not in the quiet. Not in the lies I fed myself just to survive. Not in the nights I spent trying to forget you.
You’ve ruined everyone else for me. No one laughs like you. No one listens like you.
I think about you. Still. In stupid ways. In constant ones. When I hear a song I know you’d hate. When I order coffee and pause—because yours came first for so long, my body still moves that way.
You live in the unfinished parts of me.
In the memory of your hands. Your voice. Your steadiness. No one has ever felt like you. Not before. Not after.
And if you asked—if you so much as looked at me now and said stay—I would.
I would drop everything and build a world around you, one heartbeat at a time.
