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TREY

She’s not coming. I mean, why would she? She has no reason to. The way we left things last week didn’t exactly cultivate the most welcoming environment to elicit her return.

I shouldn’t have said some of the things I said.

I shouldn’t have walked away like that either.

What I should have done is given her more time to think about it.

After a whole week of brooding over this, I realized that I pushed her too far, too fast. I got too caught up in the moment and all the feels of having her back that I didn’t stop to think about how I was making her feel by asking her to drop her husband for me.

Just because I’d be willing to drop everything for her doesn’t mean I should expect the same.

I confided in Liz about the whole situation.

At first, she was ticked that I never told her about my Sundays with Arella.

Then she told me I was an idiot for thinking Arella would up and leave her marriage in a snap.

At the end of the conversation, Liz encouraged me to write a letter with all the things I’d like to say to Arella the next time I see her— if I ever get to see her.

Slumped against our oak tree, I take my earbuds out of my backpack and shove them into my ears. I need to calm my mind because it’s eight thirty. If she was coming, she’d be here by now.

The sun has almost set for the evening. If she’s not here by midnight, I’ll head to the airport and accept that I’ll never see her again. And if this meditation doesn’t work, I’ll go for a short walk through the woods. Short because I don’t want to miss it if she does show up.

I find a meditation that’s an hour long because that’s how much time I’m gonna need to calm my mind.

“Focus on your breaths,” the lady on the app says as I lie back on the grass and shut my eyes. “Breathe in deep. Breathe out slowly.”

I do what she says as relaxing music plays in my ears. I’ve got the volume all the way up because I need it loud enough to block out the screams in my head telling me I’m not good enough. Maybe if I was, she’d be here.

I haven’t gone a single second without thinking of her or regretting the way I stormed off.

I was just hurt, and I didn’t know what else to do.

Staying there with her when I knew she wasn’t leaving with me felt like torture.

Even so, the second I mounted my bike and rode off, I wanted to go straight back.

But there was nothing to go back to. She told me I was a mistake.

I stood there offering her my whole heart and soul, and she didn’t want it.

I still don’t know what she wanted from me or why she would let me make love to her without any intention of staying with me.

Maybe she just wanted to feel loved because she’s not getting it at home.

Maybe she wanted to see how easy it’d be to seduce me.

Turns out, I’m easy. All she had to do was ask, and I was all over her. She should have known that I’m a weak man—especially when it comes to her. She could ask me to do anything, and I’d?—

“Ah!” I scream when something pokes my arm. I jolt upright and yank my earbuds out. What’s left of my shattered heart thumps wildly in my chest. “Arella.”

She offers me a tender smile. “Sorry.”

I stand and stash my earbuds in my jeans pocket. “You came back.”

“Yeah. I didn’t want to leave things the way we did.”

“I didn’t either. That’s why I wrote down a whole list of apologies and other things I want to say to you.” From the inner pocket of my leather jacket, I pull out a folded sheet of paper and hold it up.

Arella smiles warmly as she slips a piece of paper out of her back shorts pocket. “I wrote down some things I want to say to you too.”

I hope that’s a good sign. I mentally prepare to hear what she has to say. “Would you like to go first?”

“No, you go first.”

“Sure. Would you like to sit?”

She hesitates, making my eyes drift to her empty arms. Where’s her blanket? Its absence makes all my hopes deflate. Before I can think about it too hard, she plops onto the grass, and I join her.

With shaky hands, I unfold my letter and read it aloud.

“Arella, I’m sorry for what happened. I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable or push you to do something you didn’t want to do.

I’ll never make you feel that way again, because I don’t ever want to make you feel like you have to be with me.

What I want is for you to want to be with me.

“That’s why I’m going to give you time. It was wrong of me to try to force you into making a big decision that night.

I should have simply told you how I felt about you, then let you make that decision yourself.

So please, take as much time as you need.

In the end, if you choose me, I promise I’ll love you until my last breath. I promise I’ll?—”

I stop reading because Arella’s face drops.

That’s not the reaction I was hoping for.

I’m not even halfway through my letter yet, and I don’t think I should continue.

The rest of it includes all the reasons why she should choose me, but maybe it’s too much to ask her to love me back this soon.

I’ve been in love with her for years, but she’s only gotten to know me within the last nine weeks.

This might be moving too fast for her. I guess I don’t need her to love me back right now. I could settle for less...

With a long sigh, I crumple up my letter and shove it back into my inner jacket pocket.

“You know what? I just realized that I don’t need much from you to be happy.

I don’t need you to choose me, if that’s not what you want.

Seeing you once a week is enough for me.

Actually, even if you only come once a month or once a year, I’ll be fine with that.

Honestly, I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me. ”

I pause for a moment to see if she’ll say something.

She doesn’t, so I continue speaking from the heart.

“Arella, you’ve made me feel so alive lately, because without you, I always feel like I’m missing something.

I think you kept coming here because you felt like you were missing something too, and whatever that was, you were getting it from me.

“So tell me what you want from me, and I’ll give it to you. If you want me to pretend like last week never happened, I can do that. If you want to go back to being friends and live in our little bubble where we just talk and answer question cards, I’ll make it happen.

“Hell, I’ll even let you use me, if that’s what you want.

Just tell me what you need me to be for you.

Whether that’s a big part of your life or a small one, I’ll learn to accept it.

I’ll learn to be happy with it. Because the bottom line is, I just want you .

However I can get that, I’ll settle for it. ”

“Oh, Trey...” She rubs her hair between her fingers, barely looking at me. “Maybe I should have gone first.”

That doesn’t sound good.

She unfolds her paper and is about to read it when I push it into her lap.

I hold back the tears threatening to fall as I choke out, “I’ve got a feeling that your letter is your way of letting me down softly.

” I give her a moment to deny that. When she doesn’t, the shattered pieces of my heart break more.

“This gaping hole in my chest can only take so much, okay? Can you just skip the fluff and give it to me straight? Did you come here tonight to say goodbye to me?”

The way she creases her eyebrows together with sorrow is all the answer I need, but she verbalizes it to me anyway. “I came to give you a proper goodbye because I didn’t want to leave things the way we did last week.”

The world stops turning and fades to gray as Arella continues talking. She goes on for a while, but I don’t catch it all. What I hear are snippets of her explanation as to why she can’t see me anymore.

“I owe it to Caleb and our marriage to try to make things work.” She says some other bullshit about how she spoke to him last week, and how they’ve agreed to work harder on their relationship.

She even gives me some examples, like how they’re going to have more date nights and make an effort to actually converse with each other.

The more she talks, the more I spiral into a deep hole I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to crawl out of.

Since this is the last time I’m ever going to see her, I stare at her face as she continues explaining shit to me.

I memorize the curve of her cheeks and the shape of her nose.

I reminisce on how it felt to finally kiss her plump lips again.

I try to ingrain every little detail of her into my head so that whenever I need it, I’ll be able to conjure up an image of her at will within seconds.

During our years apart, I started to forget what she looked like because I never got the chance to memorize her face.

Maybe doing so now will help me remember her ten, twenty, or even fifty years from now.

Fuck. Fifty years without her? That sounds like hell.

Can I make it that long? Probably not. At least, not without some self-medi?—

She pats my forearm. “Trey?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you hear me?”

I nod slightly as an invisible snake slithers around my lungs, strangling me from the inside out.

“What did I just say?”

“You said that you’re...” The words get caught in my dry throat. “That you’re never coming back.”

“Did you hear anything I said after that?”

Mostly, sorta, not really. “Yeah, I heard you.”

“What did I say?”

I swallow thickly, then bite the inside of my mouth. You said that you love Caleb and that... My tone comes out broken. “Please don’t make me repeat it out loud.” I can’t even do it in my head.

“Did you hear my question?”

I suck in a ragged breath. “What was your question again?”

“I asked if you understand why I made my decision this way.”