Page 47 of Bachelor

“This. Ski together. What did you think I meant?” The way he said those last words hurt me deep down in that spot where I kept those memories of my nights with him hidden.

When I didn’t answer, he let the silence grow between us until it was unbearable. To make matters much, much worse, the chairlift swung to a halt, and we sat there for a full minute in awkward silence.

I felt something snap, some of that tension that had been coiling between us for weeks now, ever since we returned to campus and found out how closely we’d have to work together.

“I’m sorry, Whitney.”

“Don’t—”

“I regret how things ended between us—”

“Rhys, please—”

“I regret that it ended at all.”

I fought to swallow; my mouth suddenly as dry as sandpaper. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t let him see the hurt on my face.

“I can’t stop thinking about you. Every single second of my day is spent wondering how I could have made this right, made it work for us. Because that’s what I should have done instead of pushing you away, telling you it was because I didn’t want you to ruin everything you’ve worked for. I did it because I knew the second I saw you, that you were it for me.”

I closed my eyes, my throat contracting against the hard lump that had formed there.

“I fucked up, Whitney. I miss you. And I don’t deserve you, I know that. Hell, I probably sound just as bad as Christian right now groveling at your feet.”

“You’re not like him,” I managed to say, looking at him for the first time.

We stared at each other for a long moment, suspended twenty feet off the ground and trapped together with nothing to do but tell the truth.

But I couldn’t say it.

I couldn’t. The three words I’d been whispering to myself for weeks would not form on my tongue to the person they were meant for.

“You were right,” I whispered, the words echoing in the snowy stillness. “We can’t do this.”

“I was wrong, Whitney.”

“But you weren’t wrong. You were the logical one. You didn’t give in to the fantasy we were living in over fall break.” Tears burned my skin. I blinked them away. “I was wrong, Rhys. It was my fault. I let it go too far.”

He reached for me, but the chairlift lurched forward and started moving again. I swallowed whatever else I had to say and turned away from him.

“Whitney, the way I feel about you... I want to try to make this work.”

“We can’t.”

“What if we could?”

I looked at him, seeing the desperation in his eyes.

But then we reached the top of the hill. He reluctantly raised the bar, his lips parting to say something else.

I acted before my mind had a chance to catch up to what I was doing. I leapt from the lift, my skis hitting the ground, and shot off like a rocket in a random direction.

I didn’t anticipate the sudden dip and waist-deep snow I skied right into, however, and went flying head over heels before rolling to a stop.

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