In a way, it’s perfect timing.
I wrap my arms around her from behind as the late summer heat of the day fades.
“It’s beautiful up here,” she says. “I don’t ever want to leave.”
To the left, a small town twinkles in the distance. But to the right—nothing. A dark void of dense trees, maybe. Not a hint of light to illuminate their shapes. It’s as if there are two paths, one of them crystal clear, the other vast and mysterious. Perhaps much of life is like that. We can go with the familiar and the recognizable, the sure bet … or we can jump into the unknown and hope it’s worth it in the end.
“I wish I could’ve met you sooner,” I say.
She hums. “I don’t think it would’ve mattered. Fate screwed us both before we were ever born.”
“Run away with me.” The words leave my lips before I give them an ounce of consideration, and my chest tightens to the point of near suffocation, but the thought of living this bullshit life without this woman by my side is more painful than any emotional asphyxiation I can imagine.
She peers up at me through a fringe of dark lashes, laughing through her nose. “Another one of your insane ideas.”
“I’m serious. We could start fresh somewhere. Give ourselves new names. Be whoever we want to be … together.”
“I couldn’t do that to Mama. I can’t break her heart like that.”
“Then we’ll take her with us.”
“She’d never leave Meredith Hills. Or my Dad. They’re her home. And if I ever made her get in a vehicle with you, she’d have a heart attack, and I’m being completely serious. She’s got a weak heart. The thing’s a ticking time bomb and seeing you would set it off, I know it.”
I wouldn’t know the first thing about fragility or weakness, only enough to know her mom’s in a perpetual delicate state, and what affects Sheridan ultimately affects me.
“Okay, so what’s your solution to all of this?”
She inhales, turning toward the view again. “If we stay together, we’re going to hurt a lot of people in the process. And your dad … who knows what kind of repercussions there will be for you? I don’t know that there’s going to be a happy ending for us.”
I spin her toward me and tip her chin until our mouths align, brushing my lips against hers.
“You’ve changed my life from the second you walked into it, Rose girl,” I say. “This can’t be the end for us. Now that I’ve met you, I don’t want anyone else.”
“You’re caught up, that’s all.” Her fading tone is less persuasive than her words, like maybe she’s trying to convince herself as well. “We’ve been having fun.”
“I’ve had plenty of fun with other women … and none of them made me feel an ounce of how I feel when I’m with you.”
She buries her cheek against my chest, wraps her arms around me, and closes her eyes. That warm fullness floods my veins again, but the thought of taking her home, of saying goodbye to her next week, turns it into an unbearable tightness.
“It’s strange, feeling like I’ve known you my entire life.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “And I’ve only just met you.”
“I don’t pretend to understand it.”
Gazing up at me, she bites her lip, eyes searching mine. “I don’t know what happened back then, between our families. I mean, I know what the newspapers say and what my parents have told me. But neither of us knows what really happened. August, if my father was responsible for what happened to your mom … I’ll never forgive him. And I know that doesn’t change anything. It can’t bring her back, but I mean it. And I’m so sorry for your loss. It makes my heart hurt just thinking about what that must have been like for you, growing up without her.”
A million people have spouted off their condolences over the years, but not once has it ever felt like more than a greeting card line.
Someday I’ll tell her about my childhood.
About my verbally abusive father, psychotic brother, absentee other brother, and the string of coke-addicted nannies who raised me. I’ll tell her how we rarely had a Christmas tree. How my father always took vacations without us because he couldn’t enjoy anything if we were around. None of us ever got along. Holes were punched in hundred-year-old walls more times than I can remember.
But I don’t want to stain this moment.
“Let’s get that hotel,” she says. “Screw it. I’ll tell my Mom I’m staying with Adri tonight. She saw me run out upset earlier. She knows I got into a fight with my dad, and I’m sure he gave her some vague excuse. It’ll be fine. Let’s do it.”
“Yeah?”
She nods. “Yeah.”
We drive toward the lights in the distant town and stop at the first hotel we see—some three-star chain with a sign that boasts about a recent remodel, not that it matters. I’d spend the night in a junkyard Airstream if it meant having more time with her. She texts her mom while I get us a corner room on the top floor for privacy.