A frown shifts on his face. ‘Can I come in?’
My eyes narrow, my heart trips. I want, more than anything, to say yes. To offer him a coffee and a hug, to hold him and stitch his hurts back together, but I know the futility of that. His wounds need to be repaired from inside his own heart, not mine.
‘Why?’
He shakes his head. ‘To talk. About last night.’
But pain is in that prospect, pain and danger, because it’s very possible that he could string together enough of the right-seeming words to make me forget why this won’t work, and I can’t do that. Because I know it won’t. I love him, and he doesn’t love me.
‘Honestly, Holden, I meant what I said when I left. If you think sleeping with me was just a way to forget, if you think you were just using me for sex, that sex with me could easily have been replaced by sex with any other woman you just happened to pick up, then I suggest you go and do just that. Run away, just like you have been.’
A muscle jerks low in his jaw. ‘Isn’t that what you’re doing?’ Again, he looks towards my rucksack.
Heat stains my cheeks. ‘I’m not running away.’
‘Really?’
‘I’m doing the exact opposite. I’m going home, to Sundown Creek. I’m packing up my dad’s house so I can finally move on with my life. That’s not running away; it’s confronting something I’ve been avoiding for years.’
I’m satisfied by the surprise in his features, the look of frustration too.
‘When are you going?’
‘Any minute.’
His nod is disjointed.
‘So you can move on, guilt-free. If you hook up with some other woman tonight, you don’t even need to think I’m in the same city. I won’t be here. You’re free to do whatever you want.’
‘I don’t want to sleep with anyone else.’ His words still me. ‘You’re different, Cora, so different.’
I refuse to feel anything at that admission.
‘Sure, but it’s still just sex.’
‘No, I’m trying to tell you—’ He shakes his head, his eyes haunted. ‘Fuck, Cora, just give me a break for a second, okay?’
‘Why?’ The word is barely a groan.
‘I’m trying to tell you that we have to end this.’
My heart stops.
‘I’m trying to tell you that you were right to leave me last night, and you’re right to walk away from me, but before you go I need to tell you that this is so much more than sex. I hate that I said that.’ His admission is raw. ‘At first, I wanted to use you to forget, and Christ, you made me forget even my own name. But then I got addicted to you. Not just because of your ability to push the past out of my head but because I got addicted to everything about you in the present.’
My heart stands still. My blood stops rushing. My knees feel weak.
‘You were right about a lot of things last night.’
I close my eyes for a second, breathing deeply, tasting him in my lungs. ‘I know that.’
‘I can’t keep doing what I’m doing. I don’t want to keep living like this. You were right.’
‘So don’t.’ I swallow, wishing I could make him see what I’m offering, what I want. ‘Stay here, get help, let me help you.’
‘No.’ His expression is grim. He takes a step backwards, closer to the footpath, and his voice is cold, resolute, as though he feels nothing. ‘There’s a million reasons I’m not right for you, Cora. Not the least of which is I have no idea if I’m ever going to change, and I won’t put you through this.’ His eyes hold mine, as if willing me to understand what he’s not saying, what he feels deep inside.
‘But I—’