“Rachel, for God’s sake! For once, will you stop fighting me?”
From the expression on his face, I realize that he’s only a second from lifting me bodily and dumping me on the bench, so I take the few steps back and lower myself to the seat. Landon sits beside me, his body angled toward mine.
“Look at me,” he says firmly.
I lift my eyes to his, and a sigh almost escapes my lips. Why does he have to look so good? Even my nose is filled with the familiar scent of his skin, and my head with the memory of his touch. My eyes fill again, and he curses, reaching inside his pocket for a handkerchief, which he dabs at my tears.
After he puts the mascara stained cloth back in his pocket, he reaches for my hands, and this time I don’t pull back. “These past two weeks. I’ve been… I don’t know what I’ve been doing.” He stops. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know why you walked away before. I didn’t know how you felt. I didn’t know you thought you needed to get away from me. I didn’t know your feelings made you believe you needed to get over me, or that my behavior, pursuing you relentlessly, ignoring your requests for me to leave you alone, took away the space you needed to do that.” He looks at me. “I understand now. I get it. I get why you walked away that first time.”
I look from his face to my hands, nestled in his. I don’t know for sure if it’s my hands trembling, or his. I stay silent, waiting for him to continue.
“I’ve been trying,” he expels a harsh breath. “I’ve been trying to stop thinking about you. When I woke up and you had gone, I… I wanted to come after you, Rachel, you have no idea what it took to stay back and let you have the space I didn’t give you in the past.”
I told you I was in love with you, I say silently. I didn’t want space. I wanted you to tell me that you felt the same way. Why would he even assume that I wanted space? And if that’s what he thought, why was he here?
I hear the sound of his breath, and I feel his fingers tighten around mine, then loosen. He strokes my fingers gently, and when I raise my eyes to his face, he looks up too, into my eyes.
“There were so many times I wanted to come to you,” he says gently. “There were so many things I could have said, but Rachel, the last thing I wanted was for you to think I was telling you what you wanted to hear just so I get you to stay.”
I close my eyes. I wasn’t unaware how easy it was for some men to lie about how they felt, just to get what they wanted, but Landon wasn’t that sort of man. He would never make me believe that he felt more than he did, just to keep me hanging on to him. “I didn’t tell you I was in love with you because I wanted you to say some meaningless words back to me.” My voice is tight, almost breaking. “I told you because it was the truth. If you don’t feel the same way, I totally understand, I really do.”
“Will you let me finish?” He’s frowning now. “I’ve been trying to make sense of a lot of things. My feelings, yours… I was trying to make the best decision for both of us, trying to determine the right course of action… I didn’t want to pester you as I had in the past. So I decided to wait a while, but then you told Joe you didn’t want him picking you up anymore, I thought… I didn’t know what to think.”
“I didn’t want to be reminded…”
“Of me?” His eyes search mine.
“Yes.”
He nods slowly.
“Joe’s presence reminded me every day that even though you knew how I felt, you chose to stay away.”
He is silent. “I’m here now.”
I breathe, filling lungs that are suddenly aching and tight. “Why?” My voice is only slightly higher than a whisper.
“Because I couldn’t wait anymore. I’m crazy about you, Rachel. I’ve always known that much. I’ve always known that I wanted to be with you, that I’d protect you, that I’d give you anything you wanted, that I could never let you go.”
I blink back tears and start to pull my hands from his, but he holds on to them.
“I knew all that, but I’d never allowed myself to think about love, being in love. I’ve never wanted it. I never thought it was for me. I grew up in the devastation that kind of emotion can cause, and so I…” He stops and leans toward me, bringing his face closer to mine, “Then you told me how you felt, and it took me by surprise. I’d wasted so much time being jealous of your ex, being insecure about why you wanted to be with me, why you always walked away. I never thought it was possible that you had those kind of feelings for me.”
God! I’d loved him for so long, and he’d had no idea. I sigh. “And after I told you?”
He releases a low chuckle. “I was shocked. But more than that, even though I was so fucking scared of doing something wrong and hurting you. The fact that you felt that way about me... I can’t begin to explain how it made me feel. Happy, humbled, elated, and afraid. That night, I could have responded and told you that I felt the same way, and now I know that it wouldn’t have been a lie. At the time, I was afraid that you would leave, and I didn’t want to say those words just as a way to make you stay.
I don’t want to hope. My hands are trembling in his, and I wish they would stop, I wish my whole body would stop shaking. “What about now?”
He sighs. “I’ve been trying to take control of my feelings, trying to define them, to escape the… the vulnerability that comes with knowing that I’d give up everything else to make you stay, but the truth is, deep down, I’ve always known in a part of me, that there would never be anyone else for me.”
I close my eyes, letting the words soak into my body. When I look at him again, his eyes are on my face. “I think I’ve been a fool for a very long time,” he says, lifting one hand to smooth a stray strand of hair and tuck it behind my ear. “I’ve been in love with you for a while now. A long while.”
Something starts to unfurl inside me, like a flower, like a nimbus of happiness. I want to melt into him, to throw myself into his arms… My chest swells. “Tell me,” I breathe softly.
His throat works. “I don’t want to be without you,” he says. “I want us to make this work. I love you, Rachel. I’m helplessly, hopelessly in love with you.”
A tear rolls down my cheek, quickly followed by another, and then a chuckle escapes my lips, because I’m so damn happy I feel like I’m going to burst. I realize that I’m grinning stupidly at him through my tears, and he’s smiling back.