Page 108 of Meet Your Match
I glanced at Maven, who had the strangest look on her face then — like she was sick or sad or both.
“We’ll see, Mom,” I said, guiding them all toward the door.
Everyone hugged again, and I noticed my dad speaking to Maven in a low voice while Grace and Mom asked me about the International Mall in town. I tried to make out what he was saying but had no luck, and when he patted Maven’s arm with a grin, she smiled, but that same sad look was etched into her expression.
My stomach tied up in knots at the sight.
The goodbye dragged on for twenty minutes before they were gone, and as soon as the door shut, silence fell over me and Maven like a cold, wet blanket.
I stood there with my hand on the knob for a moment before swallowing and turning to face her. She looked as if she were in a daze, her eyes unfocused where they stared at the floor between us.
“Sorry about that,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck with a smile. “They can be a lot.”
“They’re lovely,” she whispered.
And then her eyes welled with tears.
I’d never seen her like that, never watched as her face warped and all the walls she held so firmly around her crumbled into dust. It tore through my chest like a gunshot, seeing her sad, seeing her in pain.
“Mave,” I said, crossing the room to where she stood. I wrapped her up in my arms, which made her go stiff before she softened and gripped onto me, burying her head in my chest. I held her tight for a long time, feeling the air around us growing heavier, colder.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, over and over, sniffing before she pulled away from me. “I’m going to go. It’s late.”
I blinked as she swiped the tears from her face and grabbed her purse. “What? You’re leaving?”
“You have practice tomorrow. You should get some rest.”
Her voice sounded detached, dead.
“I can think of a more fun way to energize,” I said, hoping the joke would make her laugh, that we could slip back into the place we’d been on the tarmac when she was teasing me and I was trying not to kiss her in public.
Instead, her face warped, and she turned away from me so I wouldn’t see as more tears broke through.
“Hey,” I said, slipping my fingertips in the crook of her elbow. She wouldn’t look at me until I tilted her chin and gave her no choice. “Talk to me.”
She shook her head, over and over, swiping furiously at the tears that kept coming. She was the strongest, most stubborn woman I knew — andshe was crying.
It fucking wrecked me.
I lifted my hands to take the place of hers, thumbing away each tear, and that made her sob before shoving me away. “Stop,” she pleaded, the word croaking out like it pained her.
“Tell me how to help.”
“Stop looking at me like that, stop touching me, stop…” She buried her face in her hands.
I didn’t dare reach for her again.
After a long moment, she let her hands fall to her thighs, her eyes pitiful when they found mine. “We can’t do stuff like this, Vince,” she whispered, licking the tears from her lips. “Because when we do, I… I feel like…”
My heart stopped in my chest before firing back to life with a thunderous kick. “You feel like what, Maven?” I asked, nostrils flaring as I took a step toward her. “Like I love you?”
Her eyes snapped to mine, wide and terrified.
“Like I am compelled by you, by everything that you are, by how you have annihilated whatever version of my life existed before you?”
“Don’t,” she whispered, but I couldn’t stop now.
