Page 177 of Ice Darling
“I’m saying this, so we can be clear and not hurt each other.”
“Cordelia, I’m not confused. I want to take care of you. I want to protect you. I want to worry about you riding that bike and check that you get home okay every night. I want to bring you lunch and worry about whether or not you’ve eaten, and be upset if a restaurant I take you to doesn’t serve seafood. I want to fuss over you when you get hurt and make you smile and hug you and kiss you and talk to you for hours. I want you to be my girlfriend.”
“I want to do the same.”
“Then you want to be my girlfriend as much as I want to be your boyfriend.”
She shakes her head and pulls away from me. “We don’t need a label to spend time with each other.”
I follow her. “But you were okay with a label in front of your mother?”
“That’s different. That’s fake.”
I laugh, flabbergasted. “Cordelia, I don’t want an unlabeled relationship with you. I want to be with you for real. We can keep it private if you need that, but I don’t like it when things are unclear. I want you in my life. For the long haul.”
“And then what?”
I blink. “And then…we figure it out.”
“No.”
My eyes widen. “No?”
“I don’t want that.”
“Cordelia—”
“I don’t want to be a wife.”
“Okay, then we don’t have to?—”
“And I don’t want to be a mother,” she blurts.
My body freezes in place.
It feels like she slapped me.
Cordelia licks her lips and speaks slowly, “You made the mistake of building a life with a woman who didn’t share your values once.” She maintains eye contact. “Do you really want to do that again?”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Cordelia
The words sound harsher once they hit the air than they did in my head, but I don’t take them back.
“Okay.” Renthrow shifts backward, flinching like I shot him. “If that’s how you feel then…” He seems to lose his train of thought and takes another step back. “Maybe I was too hasty.”
I take a tiny step toward him. Every part of me wants to reach out and unveil my heart. To test if he meant it when he said he trusts me. To tell him everything.
“You think you deserve happiness?”
“I’m going to find you wherever you are and remind you.”
I don’t want Ray here, in Lucky Falls. I don’t want him anywhere near Gordie or Renthrow.
My feet scrape to a stop.
I allow myself to go no farther.
