Page 62 of Chasing After You
“Look, I’m not saying you would do all of this intentionally, I’m just saying, what if subconsciously, you were lonely and lost and just wanted to go back to something that made sense to you.” I step back without thinking, instantly breaking contact between us. “What if that’s all we’re both doing? And we just can’t tell because we’re here in Hawaii, in this beautiful setting, reliving some of our best moments. But what if it’s just fantasy, Matti? What if we go home and find out we’re still just as far apart as we were before we let ourselves get wrapped up in memories.”
Matti looks dumbstruck. His mouth just hangs, speechless. And his eyes, God, his eyes look like I just stabbed in the back, straight through his heart.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MATTI
“Listen to me,” I take a step toward her, trying to reason with her, but she moves back the second I move in. Fuck me. I knew this was coming. I knew it and I still couldn’t stop it. “I am not lost. Or lonely,” I say as calmly as I can muster under the circumstances.
Out of the corner of my eye, I take in the rest of the party. We managed to move just out of earshot by coming down to the water. Part of me can’t help but wonder if that’s what set her off, knowing we were alone. Alone but not so alone a scene wouldn’t go unnoticed.
“How can you be so sure?” she bites out through clenched teeth. She’s trying just as hard as I am to keep her emotions in check. I can’t tell which one of us is actually succeeding. Maybe neither of us is.
“Because, Ness, everything that happened, happened becauseyouwere lost. And you were lonely. And part of that was my fucking fault, and I’m sorry, God, I am sorrier than you will ever know, but the other part of that was on you. And I didn’t really get that until after we split, and I watched what being on your own did for you. Saw what you needed that I failed to provide. What I couldn’t provide, even if I’d wanted to.”
“This isn’t about why we split,” she’s practically spitting the words at me. “This is about what’s happening now.”
“Don’t you get it? What’s happening now is a direct result of why we split.” I try taking another step toward her, but she backs up again the second I try. “Neither has shit to do with my being lost and lonely.”
“Right, because only I experience those things. You’re somehow immune to these basic human weaknesses,” she scoffs.I’ve triggered her stubborn side. I knew it was only a matter of time.
“I’m not immune.” I rake my hands through my hair, running my fingertips over my scalp. This is exasperating. We were so close.So goddamn close. “I just sorted all that shit out way earlier. I spend most of my life crammed into a tin box with three other people. I don’t get a chance to feel lonely. And not just for lack of space, but because those three people know me inside and out. They’re my family. More than that, they’re my people. The souls I chose somewhere before time to do life with. And I didn’t get lost in my thirties because I found myself in my twenties. On the road. In my music.”
“Oh, but not in being with me.”
“No.” I know it’s a trap. And she’s going to be pissed about my answer either way. But she’s getting the honest one. “Not in being with you. I was able to be all of me with you because I found myself outside of you, outside of us.”
“And you’re saying I wasn’t able to do that for you. Wasn’t able to give you all of myself?” her screech-whisper sounds like she’s about to explode. “I gave you everything I had, Matti. Everything. Every breath, every heartbeat I poured into you and your dreams and our family.”
“I know.” There’s no denying that. Nor would I ever want to. “And I’ve been grateful to you for all of it. I’ve never taken for granted all you gave to us,stillgive to us. But you’re missing the whole point of what I’m saying. You gave us everything, and you kept nothing for yourself. No part of you was anchored in your passions outside of our family, outside of us. Until we split and you had a chance to feel the other things your heart could beat for. Things that had nothing to do with me.”
“And what, now that I’ve found myself, we have nothing to worry about? We can just get back together and live happilyever after because every existential crisis has already come and gone?”
She’s doing it again. Backing away from the ledge, unwilling to leap.
I could coax her back. I know I could. I know her well enough, know what she needs to hear. But I don’t want to. Not this time.
If we’re really going to have a second chance, one that will count for more than twenty-four hours in Hawaii and a few beautiful moments of traveling through time, I need her to leap. I need her to want to leap. To be fearless. About us.
“No, we can’t just get back together.” I swear, something inside me breaks saying the words out loud. “We can’t get back together at all if you’re always going to be afraid of where we’re headed. Of the reasons we showed up to be here together in the first place.”
She rolls her bottom lip over her teeth. She’s been crying since halfway through the conversation, but I’ve stopped trying to reach out to her. It just takes her farther out of my reach and more distance between us is the last thing we need.
“So, what, now you don’t want to do this?”
“Do you?”
Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. I think her silence startles her more than anything. Her hand moves for her lips, tracing them as if they hold the map to the words she’s lost.
Her blue eyes seek mine and it’s impossible not to drown in the helplessness spiraling in them like a whirlpool in the ocean. After an agonizing silence, she finally finds her voice. And her words are worse than any emptiness hanging between us.
“I don’t know.”
Then she spins around and takes off. Running down the beach until the darkness swallows her out of sight.
She’s gone.
Again.
