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She huffed. Not a laugh. Not a sob. Somewhere in the god-awful in-between. “I don’t recall proposing to you.”

“You know where that was headed.”

“You are so full of yourself,” she said, and then suddenly she was shouting. “You’re still trying to be a legend, instead of a man. Wake up, Gideon! The only person that needs you to be perfect isyou.”

“Rory—”

“No! Don’t interrupt me. Don’t you dare. You’re the one that still can’t let go of this idea that you need to be the hero. You’ve done enough for me. I don’t need you to tell me what I need, too. You helped me climb the mountain. You helped me climb up the rope. I’m grateful for that. But you don’t need to tell me what I want. What’s good for me. You don’t get to do that.” She took a breath. “This isn’t just the Summer of Rory Sullivan, this ismy life. And I make the decisions. I’m in charge of what I want, not some guy who poured beer on me in college, not some kids who bullied me in middle school. Don’t treat me like I’m fragile after all that. Don’t build me up and then try to tell me what I can and can’t handle.”

She got up and went into the kitchen, and he could hear her dressing. He got up off the bed and went to stand in the doorway.

“Do you have something to say?” she asked.

He was frozen.

He hated that.

And all the rage that welled up inside him was only directed at himself. He couldn’t blame her. He couldn’t blame anyone but his own damn self.

Fuck.

“I want everything, Gideon.”

“I can’t give you everything.”

She let out a primal scream and picked up an apple in the bowl on the counter and threw it. It didn’t hit him, not even close.

“I deserve everything! I’m not beige. I’m not insignificant. And my feelings are not stupid. They aren’t. I’m allowed to feel them and I...” Tears ran down her cheeks. “I have checked off every item on my list because of you. Mountain climbing and makeovers and kissing and now this damned tantrum. And I hate you for this. I really do.”

She turned on her heel and she walked out the front door, slamming it behind her.

He put his hands over his face. He tried to breathe.

She would thank him. She would go to Boston. Because she had to. Because if he made her into a quitter, she wouldn’t want them anymore. Because she would realize at some point she had passed up something good for something broken.

But this felt like a bomb blast and he ought to know.

And the only thing that shocked him was there wasn’t literal shrapnel lodged in his chest right now.

So he lay there, bleeding out. Like he was lying on the ground in Afghanistan.

But he knew there was no medic to fix this.

Because nothing ever could. Nothing at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

RORYDIDN’TWANTto go to Boston. She wasn’t going to stay there. But she had her plane ticket to get there, and she had some money saved up, so she had felt like she really should go. At least see it. At least to get moving for a while, rather than sinking into depression. Because that’s what the last few days had been. Nothing but crying. She had really gotten her heart broken.

It was strange, though. Because it wasn’t over a breach of trust.

It wasn’t like her dad leaving, it wasn’t like getting bullied.

It wasn’t because she’d quit.

She’d checked off all the items on her list, after all.

It waslife.