Page 30 of Crossroads

TWENTY-NINE

It takes four days to get to my college campus. And it didn’t take nearly long enough. I’m not ready to let him go yet. Of course, I know I never will be, but that’s beside the point.

Still, he’s agreed to stay two days here with me. We got a hotel room because I can’t officially move into the dorms until tomorrow, and I have a roommate—yay, me. But I doubt they want my boyfriend staying the night.

Our hotel is close to the campus though, so we walk all over it. Looking at the tall buildings where I’ll be attending class, and somehow, even though classes don’t start for a couple of days, it’s fairly crowded.

It takes a minute for me to get used to it here, having been on the farm all summer. I keep expecting to hear a chicken or a cow, but nope. Just people. And cars. I know Jasper is trying to enjoy himself, and he asks a lot of questions and seems interested, but it’s clear he doesn’t love it here.

He could never love it here.

He’d be miserable if I asked him to stay. So I do my best to just enjoy our time together as the hours and minutes tick by until I’m driving him to the airport. I promised myself I won’t beg him to stay.

I had to bite my tongue all morning, but it didn’t stop me from wishing he’d ask me to go. Because even though this is my dream, this is what I’ve worked for, what I’ve fought my parents for, I’d give it up in an instant.

I know I would.

I could find a way to be happy in Kensley. Maybe I could go to community college with Millie. I can travel here and there and then come back . . .

“Don’t,” Jasper says softly, his hand squeezing mine. I look up at him, seeing his sad smile and watery eyes as we stand outside of security.

“Stay,” I say, my throat dry and my voice cracking.

He lets go of my hand but then wraps his big arms around me. “You know I can’t.”

I nod, hugging him tighter and resting my head on his shoulder. “Then ask me to go.”

“I can’t,” he says again, his voice so broken, it nearly kills me. Tears well up in my eyes as I cling to him. “If I stay, it wouldn’t work. How could we make it work?”

I think he wants an answer. A good one and one I don’t have because I know in my gut it never could. There’s just no way he could be happy here. “We could find you a farm to work on. I’ll go to college for four years, and you can work on a farm, and we can be together.”

It sounds like a lie, even on my own lips. He wouldn’t be happy. “I would, Emerson,” he breathes, and his hand smooths down over my back. “But my parents and Logan . . ” he starts but doesn’t go on, and I squeeze my eyes shut tight because I know that.

“I could get a job too, and we can send them money,” I try.

“I can’t, Emerson,” he says softly.

“Then let’s just go. We’ll drive back to Kensley. I’ll go to college there and come home to you at night—” He pulls back enough to put one finger over my lips and shakes his head.

“You need to do this. You need to go to college here in California, far away from your parents and their rules. You need to figure yourself out.”

“I know what I want,” I say firmly, looking into his eyes, despite the stupid tears that have started to fall down my cheeks. “I want you.”

“You have me,” he says firmly. “You have me, Emerson. You’re going to go to college, and I’m going back to Kensley. But you will always have me.”

I shake my head. “No. You’ll go back there, and you’ll fall right back into your routine. You’ll . . ” I nearly gasp, trying to catch my breath because it hurts too much. “You’ll marry Lucy, and she’ll pop out a couple of kids. And that will be that.”

“I don’t want to marry Lucy anymore.” But he seems resigned, like maybe I’m not so wrong, and it kills me.

“But you will.”

He sighs softly and then grips my face in both his hands, using his thumbs to wipe at the tears, fruitlessly because they keep coming. “No. I won’t. I want you too, Emerson.” He kisses my cheeks over the salty tears. “We’re just different. From two different worlds.”

“You’d never be happy here,” I say the inevitable.

“And you’d never be happy there,” he says softly.

“But I lov—” He stops me, pressing a hard kiss against my lips, halting the words I was trying to say because I feel them. Because he needs to hear them but clearly doesn’t want to.

“Don’t say it.”

“But I do,” I say, standing up tall, my shoulders back and my chin lifted. “I do.”

“I do too,” he says, making my shoulders start to slump slightly because if he does, then why can’t we say it?

Why does it have to be so hard?

I can just go with him.

But I know I can’t. He’s right.

I just need to let him go and then go back to campus and go back to being me again. To who I was.

A miserable, reckless shithead who didn’t care about anyone else.

He grips the back of my neck and pulls me to him, pressing a kiss against my forehead and forcing my eyes closed. The pain blooming in my chest is worse than anything I’ve ever felt. “Go and enjoy your time here, Emerson. You have my number. Call me.”

“And make breathy sounds into the phone?” I joke, and it makes us both smile, his lips still on my forehead and his hand still gripping my neck. Not letting me go.

“Of course.”

“I don’t know how to do this.” He pulls away from my forehead but still holds onto the back of my neck. “How do I just let you go? And who the hell am I? I’ve never needed anyone else in my life.”

“Me neither,” he says, looking almost as surprised as I do. “You figure it out, and you let me know.”

I nod and then press my lips against his lips softly. “I do, you know? I need you to know.” I love you.

He nods, swallowing hard. “I do too.” He says it firmly, like it’s a fact that can never be disputed.

And for now, it has to be enough.