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I scoffed. Or sobbed. Thesound could have been both at once. “I’m not supposed to be on thisplanet. I’m not supposed to have been born.”
He opened my mouth to argueagain. We were back on schedule, back on ground I’d already trodbefore. He wouldn’t be the first person to tell me that wasn’ttrue. And he would think that somehow, this time was different.That he would be the person I believed.
Instead, he said, “Tellme.”
I hated him for that,because I wanted to tell him. And I couldn’t resist. “I had onepurpose. One. And I failed at it before I could even walk. Do youknow what that’s like?”
“I don’t,” he admitted.“But I do know what it means to be born with a purpose alreadythere and waiting for you.”
“But you didn’t fail,” Iargued. “You didn’t disappoint anybody.”
“I’ve disappointed plentyof people. I’ve disappointed you, clearly.”
I laughed, a snotty, sniffly laugh thatshocked me. Why did he keep saying, doing, the right thing? It madeall of this so much harder.
“There’s nothing I can sayto heal a wound that’s been festering since you were a kid.Therapists get paid way more to do that,” he went on. “But I loveyou. And you’re not a disappointment to me. Don’t push meaway.”
“I’m not pushing. I’mwarning you to run.” I turned and walked to the windows, stillhugging myself. It would be easier if I couldn’t see the sincerityin his expression.
“Not a chance.”
I wouldn’t look at him. Hecouldn’t make me. “You love me now, because I’m part of yourrunning away. You admitted that you came here because you couldn’tdeal with…the leg of it all.”
“You think I’m using you asan escape?”
I did. It hadn’t beenenough to make me want to leave before, but I was glad to have itin my arsenal now.
My head drooped. “I thinkthat if we weren’t here, in your escapist fantasy, you’d be lookingat me a lot differently.”
“Bullshit.” It wasn’t afierce denial but a matter-of-fact one.
I’d run out of weapons touse against him, and I was dangerously close to losing the fight. Ilobbed my flaws at him, hoping one would strike a target that wouldconvince him of my rightness in this. “I’m flaky. I’m moody. Ican’t make decisions, and, if I do, my instincts are alwaysterrible. You’d be tired of me in a week. And my heart wouldbe—”
“Broken?” he suppliedbefore I could finish. “Your heart would be broken because you loveme too.”
Fuck you.How dare he know that? How dare he use it againstme?
How dare he winthis?
I couldn’t hold back mysobs anymore. I folded in on myself as though I could compress intoa ball of nothing but pain.
He took me in his arms witha hesitancy that implied he expected me to push him away. I didn’t,but I didn’t open myself up to his embrace either. Now that we werehere, in this moment, I wanted it to turn out okay. I wanted it tobe a happy ending. What if this was the moment it fellapart?
“If you don’t love me,fine. You don’t have to. But I’m not going to stop loving you.” Hemurmured against the top of my head. “I don’t care whether or notyou think you can be loved. I love you, Charlotte. So, either I’mdoing the impossible or you don’t know what you’re talkingabout.”
“I’ve seen you do theimpossible,” I said, a reluctant laugh burbling up my throat. “Yougot that bear to the wedding, remember?”
“Of course I fuckingremember the bear,” he said, resting his hand on the back of myhead, cradling me to his chest. “Half my leg meat ismissing.”
It was too easy. Too light,suddenly, to be in his arms like I belonged there. “You’re in thebusiness of making people’s fantasies come true.”
“If your fantasy is beingloved by someone who will be exceptionally needy and codependentfrom an emotional standpoint, then today is my lucky day.” He wentquiet, but his heart thundered under my ear. “If you don’t want tobe here anymore… I’ll leave with you. I just need to know if thisis the end or the beginning.”
I looked up at him. My bottom lipwobbled. So did my resolve.
And a solution presenteditself, an escape hatch. “One week.”
“A week?”