Spencer’s hands come up and he takes hold of my upper arms, but doesn’t step away. His thumbs rub back and forth over my skin. “Are you ok?”
“I think so,” I murmur into his chest. “You?”
“I will be.”
I nod and take a deep breath, breathing him in one last time before stepping back.
“Did you want to come in?”
I look up at him with a slight cringe. “No, I, ah…shouldn’t.” I dig through my bag and pull out the ring which only makes him cringe. I hand it over and his fingers linger on mine for a moment too long. “I wanted to give you this back.”
He takes the ring from me as he presses his lips into a tight line and stares down at it. “Thanks,” he says slowly before looking back up at me. “Listen, Tully. I’m sorry about how I ended it. I didn’t mean for it to be…you kno, so quick.”
I shrug my shoulders. “Just like ripping off a band-aid. Sometimes things are better done quickly.”
He shakes his head. “Not this. I was insensitive and only thinking about what I was feeling and I think that meant hurting you more than what was necessary.”
“No,” I tell him. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I’ve realized that you were right. I should have ended it with you when I first realized that it wasn’t right. I strung you along for so long because I was terrified of getting hurt and in doing that, I hurt you. I treated you unfairly and you deserve so much better than that.”
“I can’t disagree with that, but you’re not the only one at fault,” he says with a slight smile before reaching out and tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. “I knew from the very start that you’d already given your heart away, but I wanted to make you happy and I think for a while that maybe I did. After the second proposal was when I realized that I could be fighting a losing battle, but I saw how much you needed me in your life and I wasn’t ready to let you go. In hindsight, maybe it would have been healthier for you had I left back then. Maybe you would have had a chance to heal on your own, but I liked the idea that you depended on me. I liked that I was your constant and even though I shouldn’t have, I gave you all of me because I held onto hope that maybe one day you’d be able to do the same.”
“I’m so sorry, Spencer.”
“Don’t be sorry, Tully. That was my mistake and it was a risk that I was willing to take. But don’t think for one second that I regret any of it. I loved you so much and every day with you was an adventure. I was happy to share the spotlight with the memory of a man that I was certain was never coming back…”
“But now he is,” I finish for him.
“Now he is and I don’t think there’s enough spotlight for the two of us.”
I step back into him and raise my chin so I look up into his pained eyes. “I don’t think you deserve to ever have to share the spotlight with anyone.”
Spencer’s arm curls around me and his lips gently brush over mine. “You’re right,” he whispers. “I don’t and I won’t ever do that to myself again.”
I nod until he drops his forehead to mine and holds me in silence once again, just the sound of our breathing between us. It’s almost the perfect goodbye, that is until he goes and ruins the moment. “Are you going to get back together with him?”
I shake my head. “No. I’d be a fool to allow him back in just as you’d be a fool to do the same with me.”
“You say that now, but when it comes down to it, I don’t know if you’ll have the strength to tell him no.”
“I have to,” I whisper. “I can’t go through that with him again.”
“As much as it kills me to say it, but maybe you should. Your heart has always belonged to him, Tully. Maybe you’re not going to find your happiness until you go back home.”
“No.”
“At least do yourself a favor and think it over,” he tells me before releasing me once again. “Has he come and made his intentions known?”
I look down at the floor, feeling a little uncomfortable talking to my very recent ex about another man. “He has.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I’m not prepared to go back there,” I tell him. “Are you just pushing this because you feel bad about your date with Lacey?”
Spencer’s eyes fly open and guilt instantly begins coming over him. “How’d you hear about that?”
I mask my pain. Ever since I first heard about it, I’ve been holding onto the hope that maybe they’d been hanging out as friends, but the look on his face tells me that maybe there’s a little more to the story, and I think it’s a story that I’m not ready to be listening to. “Candice has a big mouth,” I remind him.