Page 63 of Love Story
“Don’t, Cody.” She stood and walked to the nearest tree. She leaned against the trunk and hung her head. “Please. Don’t.”
Cody could do nothing but go to her. With every fiber of his being he wanted to hold her. But he couldn’t. The walls she’d placed between them were too great. “I won’t hurt you again, Andi.” His voice was little more than a whisper. “You have to believe me.”
When she lifted her face, when her eyes met his, the pain there was so great it sliced all the way to his soul. “For a while this morning... I let myself go there.”
Of course she had. They both had.
She had to finish her thought. “I let myself believe things were different. That we were...usagain.”
“Andi...”
“No.” She couldn’t bear to hear his explanation now. “I can’t take the chance, Cody. You always hurt me. Every time.”
“I’m sorry. I know what went wrong and now... now I’d do better. We can make it work.” Frustration took a swing at him. He fought back. Steady, Cody. Stay calm. This was no time to let his emotions get in the way.Give me the words. Please, God. He shook his head. “The thing is, Andi, it was never your fault. There’s things you don’t know about me. About how things were after our second engagement.”
Andi looked at him for a long time and she shook her head. She made a sound that was more cry than laugh. “This can’t happen.” She grabbed a quick breath. “Don’t you see, Cody? Can’t you hear yourself? Things fell apart after oursecondengagement. If that isn’t a sign that it’s never going to work, I don’t know what is.”
He tried to think of the right words, the best way to explain the past. ThePTSD, the dreams, the obsessive feelings that plagued him in crowds. The sporadic episodes. She needed to know how the terror had come back after their second engagement. The way it could always come back as long as he lived.
Then Cody thought of something. There had been no episode this morning, no flashbacks. Usually stressful situations acted as triggers. But not today. That was at least an improvement.
But when he looked at her face, he knew. Her heart was clearly too far gone. And only here and now did Cody understand how very hurt Andi was. When she said she couldn’t go through another round of losing him, she meant it. “So... you won’t give me a chance to... to fix this?”
A single tear rolled down her cheek. “Haven’t we tried, Cody?”
Haven’t we tried?Her words lodged in his heart and stopped him from wanting to tell her anything more. He couldn’t fight for something she was so afraid of. Not if she was still this hurt. Cody took his place on the bench again. “You want to be my friend, is that what you’re saying?”
It took her a minute, but finally Andi shook her head. “No.” She returned to the bench and reached for his hand, closing the distance between them. “I’m saying I can’t be your friend. We can’t be anything, Cody.” Her tears came harder now. “We need to move on. Have our own lives.”
Cody worked the muscles in his jaw. There had to be a way to ease her heartache, a way to tell her that he’d never be closed off to her again. But he couldn’t think of the words. “I get it.” He studied her eyes. “You want a fresh start, right? Someone new who... who hasn’t broken your heart.” He paused. “Someone like that... that Caleb you work with.”
For the first time since he’d gotten there, uncertainty clouded her eyes. “No... Maybe... I don’t know what I want.”
“Just not me.”
“You don’t get it.” She slid a few inches away as she stared at him. “I love you, Cody. I always have.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “But you have a pattern. A pattern of breaking my heart, and I can’t stay here and let it happen again.”
He touched her cheek and then let his hand fall back to his side. “So what now?” His tone was softer than before. Kinder. “You spend the rest of your life wondering what if? Is that what you want?”
“I know what I want. I’ve made up my mind.” The anger had faded from her voice, too. She stood and took a few steps back. “Not everyone gets the happily ever after, Cody. You and I, we weren’t meant to be. Can’t you see that?”
“No.” He was on his feet now, walking to her, erasing the distance between them. “I love you, Andi. The way I’ve never loved anyone in all my life.”
She looked down and for a moment she covered her face with her hands. “Don’t say that, Cody. Please.”
“Andi, look at me.” He took a step closer. So close he could smell her sweet breath, see the way her eyelashes curled on their own. “I need to see you.”
Clearly she didn’t want to do as he said. But after a minute she lifted her face and looked at him.
He wanted to take hold of her hands. But he didn’t dare. Not the way she was feeling now. Their eyes connected, almost like they used to when they were together. “When I tell you I love you still, I mean it. I’ve been praying for you... for us... for the chance at this. I’ve been praying ever since you left.” He put his hand on her shoulder and removed it almost as quickly. “I’ll always love you, Andi. What happened before... that was my fault, it was—”
“Don’t.” She pulled back from him. “I don’t want excuses, Cody. I’ve written a thousand of them for you. The reasons you might have forgotten I existed after our second engagement. The bottom line is this... it doesn’t matter what you were going through. You didn’t tell me.” She turned away for a moment and then faced him again. “Don’t you see? If you were having some real issue, you should’ve told me. I was your fiancée, Cody.” She took a quick breath. “And if it wasn’t big enough to tell me, then it shouldn’t have been big enough to come between us.”
Every word she said made sense. Sure, he could explain himself. He could tell her now about thePTSDand the horror of the dreams. But she was right. It was too late. He should’ve told her back then.
“I need to go, Cody.” Her eyes brimmed with tears again. “I heard that Adele song the other day. The one from a few years ago. ‘All I Ask.’ Do you know it?”
Everyone knew it. He nodded. “Yes.” His heart was already racing, the panic already setting in. Andi was standing right here, but he was about to lose her. The way he had lost her every time they were together, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. In a few minutes she would be gone.
