Page 89 of One More Kiss

“Yes.” Again, I took a step towards him, and again he moved away. “You knew this when I left for college. I want to teach.”

“I want that for you,” he told me as he sighed in resignation. “I just don’t think that you and I want the same things.”

“I want you.”

Cool blue eyes looked back at me. “No, Peyton, I don’t think you do, and if you’re honest with yourself, I think you know that too.”

He went to move to the door, and I grabbed his arm. “Ethan!” He turned his head my way, but he didn’t make eye contact. “What are you saying? You’re breaking up with me?”

“We need a break,” he replied quietly.

“A break?”

“Yes.”

“You want to see other people?” I was struggling hard with what was happening.

“No. I don’t know. Maybe?” He sighed. “It’s been me and you since we were kids. I…I don’t know.” He moved out of my hold, and his hand rested on the door handle to the front door. “All I know is that I, that this, used to be enough for you, and now I don’t think it is.”

“Ethan?”

“I’m not what you want, Peyton,” he told me softly, and when he was gone, he left me alone, confused and angry.

I had packed my things that night and left as soon as they were loaded in the car. I told Donna it was done, and she told me it was time I let him go. Let him go? I hadn’t realised I was holding him back.

I drove away that night, and I never came back.

Until now.

I hadn’t been alone in the five years that passed. A year after I graduated and I got my first teaching job, I had a brief relationship with a colleague. It came to an end pretty quickly. He had been fun, different, but there was something missing. My next relationship had been with a friend’s friend. He was sweet, funny, and attentive, but again, the spark was missing. Dating was weird. And hard. And exhausting.

I decided a year or two ago, despite my best efforts, I preferred my own company.

A loud bang made me look towards the barn, and I saw Ethan and another guy fussing over a four-wheeler. His hands were gesticulating wildly as he spoke, and the other man was laughing hard. The sight made me smile.

Maybe it wasn’t my own company I preferred.

One day of being near him, seeing him, talking to him, everything that had been left behind was right here in front of me again. I just didn’t know if I had the right to want it, never mind take it.

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