Page 15 of Maybe This Time
I hadn’t realized the distance between us had vanished and that he now stood right in front of me. Resting a hand on his arm, I searched his gaze and found it filled with an ache that seemed to build the longer I couldn’t grasp what he was saying.
“Talk to me,” I whispered.
“You broke my heart, Talya.” he said, his voice breaking on my name, the strangled sound shooting a lancing ache straight through me.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, bewildered. “I-I don’t…”
“I love you, Talya,” he confessed, his gaze never leaving mine. “I’ve always loved you. I loved you when we were kids, and I haven’t stopped ever since.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, the words fracturing the space between us. My hand slipped from his arm and I stumbled back a few steps. The oxygen around us thinned and something squeezed around my chest. I clutched it, desperate to anchor myself to something solid as my mind reeled from his words and the unfiltered agony swimming in his pupils.
“It tore me apart to leave for France,” he continued. “Knowing I wouldn’t get to see you, touch you,be near youfor three fucking years. I tried so hard to forget how much I loved you, but how could I do that when you’re all I can think about? So eight months ago, I couldn’t keep it in anymore. I wrote you a letter telling you exactly that, with a ticket for you to come see me.”
He took a shuddering breath, like it hurt him to finish.
“But you never came. I waited for you at the airport for hours and you never showed up. I stayed so long, security had to ask me to leave because every single person from your flight and all the other flights from Boston that day had already gotten off the plane.”
I tried to put more space between us, but nothing seemed to help bring the air back in my lungs. I’d dreamed of hearing these exact words from him ever since I could remember what love really meant, but all my mind could grasp was that I’d never got the letter.
Ezra raked a shaking hand through his hair before he reached for his back pocket, pulling out a weathered wallet. With trembling hands, he tugged out a folded piece of paper and shoved it toward me, a small polaroid picture of us at graduation falling to the floor in its wake.
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“You even returned it a few weeks later,” he said so quietly I almost didn’t hear him over the sound of my pulse thundering in my ears. “It breaks my heart that you don’t feel the same, but do you know what hurt the most?”
My heart was threatening to rip out of my chest, my vision growing more blurry with each passing second at the crippled browned envelope with three large words stamped at the front.
Return to Sender.
Was that the reason for all ofthis? Just some quiet, stupid misunderstanding? I’d never gotten this letter, much less returned it. All this time, I thought he’d stopped wanting me in his life. I’d tried calling after I’d moved into my townhouse, I’d written him letters, but every attempt came back unanswered. I’d considered taking some time off from Roots and going to Paris to see him, but with this stupid economy and life, I hadn’t been able to.
I even thought of asking Josephine to check on him, but what would I have said?
Hey, I’m in love with my best friend and he’s been ghosting me for months. Can you please hop on a flight to Paris and find out why?
But after she’d casually mentioned him in passing one day, him being dead was stricken out of the reasons why he’d been ignoring me.
Eventually, despite how hard it tore me apart, I’d forced myself to move on. To figure out a version of my life without him in it.
Not that I did a great job at it.
“That you didn’ttellme.” His voice scraped against my ribcage, leaving shallow cuts behind. It carried the same raw and unsheltered ache I’d been shouldering. “That after twenty years, you didn’t care enough about me to think I’d be able to handle it. Instead, you tossed me aside like I never mattered.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking my head. I tried to pluck apart each of his words, arranging and rearranging them into sentences that might eventually make sense. But my mind and chest swirled with an overwhelming storm of emotions that I couldn’t find one to hold onto. I’d always prided myself on my rationality and ability to sort through my feelings, but right now, everything I’d learned in therapy or from watching my parents’ sickly loving and healthy marriage was unreachable.
“I… I need air,” I managed to get out, clutching at my chest with more urgency. I felt my system shutting down and rushed toward the door. I needed to get out. I needed… Fuck, I didn’t know what I needed, but staying in this room made me feel claustrophobic and I needed out.
I barely wrapped my trembling fingers around the handle when a warm hand closed around it. “Wait,” he said on a low breath. I couldn’t see his face, but I heard the concern in his voice. Gone was the irritation from earlier.
“Don’t go.”
I closed my eyes and took in a shuddering breath as he stepped closer. His chest brushed against my back, and despite every part of me that screamed to guard myself, my betraying body instinctively leaned into him until I could feel the grounding thud of his heartbeat between my shoulder blades.
“Breathe,” he whispered, his breath scorching the sensitive spot behind my ear.
My head dropped to his shoulder, and his fingers slipped between mine, guiding our joined hands to rest over my heart. I knew he could feel my frantic heartbeat pounding in sync with his own as he guided me through taking deep breaths.
Slowly, my breathing began to steady despite the fact that my heart still galloped a million beats per minute from Ezra’s proximity. But that was something I’d grown used to.
