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“We do exist.” He licks his lips, stealing my focus as my eyes drop to the movement.

“We’re standing right here, Lana. You’re still love, and I’m still war.

And even though it feels like you’re trying to flip that, like you think it’s a badge of honor and a way to break us, I’m still saying it’ll work out.

You be war if you need to. I’ll be love.

The pieces are still there. They still fit. ”

“Tommy—”

“Was it a lie?” His eyes flicker between mine, searching and sorrowful. His hands slide down to caress my hips. “I know what I said. I know what I asked for. But was it a lie, Alana, or do you still love me? ”

I still love you! I never stopped loving you.

New York Alana never existed, because one cannot live without their heart inside their own body.

But those are words for me. They’re selfish and mean, and they serve no purpose except to extend the time a man is expected to suffer.

Tommy deserves to heal. To move on. He deserves to find love with someone better.

So I look straight into his eyes and tell the worst lie I’ve ever muttered. “I don’t love you.” God, it hurts. It hurts so bad . And when his eyes shutter with pain, I almost lose my nerve. My willpower. My resolve. “Not the way you mean, and not the way you deserve.”

“Alana—”

“I have love for you. For the boy who saved a girl. For the friend you were, and the safe haven you created when I needed it. Those kids existed, and they needed each other more than they needed anything else in the world.”

“Stop—”

“I sincerely think we saved each other in a time we might not have survived if things had been different. And we’re so blessed, Tommy.

” I loathe the tears that sit on my lashes.

The ache in my throat. “Because those kids still live within us. Memories of what was once really, really beautiful. Those are our gifts, and no one can take those away.”

“Kids?” His jaw clicks with tempered rage. His hands squeeze my hips, perhaps tighter than he even realizes. “Memories. That’s it?”

“I have love for you. And Chris. And Oliver. And even Eliza, though she wants to kill me.”

“But you don’t love me anymore?” He barrels straight past my attempt at a joke and searches my eyes with a devastating intensity instead.

His heart pounds visibly in my peripherals, and his Adam’s apple bobs with the nerves in his throat.

“You’ll stand right there, my hands on your body, and yours on mine…

You’ll look into my eyes and tell me, without so much as a fuckin’ stutter, that you’re not in love with me? ”

“No.” I swallow the tears that desperately try to drown me. “I don’t love you. Not the way you mean. Not the way you deserve.”

He drops his hands, their absence as devastating as if he’d just slapped me. He places them on his own hips and stares down at the ground, his nostrils flaring as he takes a single step back. Then a second. He nods in the silence, then looks up again.

“How did we end up here, Lana?” He drags his lips between his teeth, swinging his head from side to side. “How were we those kids, so fucking in love, and now we?—”

“Can’t we just stop?” I plead. “Stop trying so hard to pick through it.”

“I’m not trying to argue with you.” He brings aching eyes back up to mine. “I swear, I’m not gonna shout or cuss or imagine throttling your pretty little neck—which is something I do a lot . I just don’t understand how this happened.”

“It just…” God, it just did. The choice was taken out of our hands. “I don’t have better answers than the ones I’ve already given, and it breaks my heart that we keep going around and around and around on the same thing.”

“It breaks your heart?” He growls. “Yours? Really?”

“Your pain is my pain,” I rasp. “My heart breaks because yours is breaking. I can’t be what you want me to be, and I can’t change how we ended up here.

All I can do is move forward, not with the life you wish we could go back to, but with the life I now have.

With my son. He’s my future, Tommy. He needs me. ”

“I never stopped needing you.” He drops his gaze again, kicking rocks. “I never got to a point where I could thrive without you holding my hand, Lana. And I know we’re not supposed to rely on other people like that. I know I’m supposed to be strong and able to stand up on my own, but?—”

“You are strong. You’ve been standing on your own this whole time.

” I knuckle a fresh tear that rolls onto my cheek.

“I know it hurt at first, and I know you were mad, but at some point in the last ten years, you were able to move on. You created a gym and a family and a career. You feed hungry children and teach clumsy little boys how to kick above their heads. You’re literally the world champion in your weight division and going back in a few months to defend your title.

You are standing. You’re strong. And I’m so proud of you for doing that. ”

“I came looking for you.” He brings a hand up and scratches his stubbled jaw. “In New York.”

Stunned surprise floors me. It sends my heart skittering and my knees weak. “What?”

“You left me here all alone.” His voice crackles with an ache I feel in my soul.

“Without saying goodbye. Without taking much more than a backpack full of clothes. You said nothing to your mom, or if you did, she wouldn’t tell me.

You said nothing to Chris or Oliver or Caroline.

You just left. And at first, I tore the town apart trying to get to you.

” He searches my eyes. “I’m not proud to admit I broke Ollie’s arm and Chris’s nose.

It took both of them to pin me to Plainview.

But eventually, they had to go back to living their lives, too.

The second they turned their backs, and I scraped enough money together for a flight, I went to New York and tracked you down at your school. ”

My breath comes out in an aching shudder. “Tommy…”

“I was gonna grab you,” he groans. “Literally toss you over my fucking shoulder and steal you back. But when you turned around, not even realizing I was right there, all I could see was your… your…” He touches his stomach, lowering his gaze.

“You were carrying someone else’s baby and had a shiny rock on your finger. ”

I look down at the ring I wear now. Still. Though I can’t be entirely sure why. I should send it back to Colin. It was his mother’s, and even if he’s not quite ready to give it to Tasha yet, the ring still belongs to his family.

I’ll send it back. I have to.

“I’d spent all those months back here, Lana, wondering what the fuck happened and what I did to deserve that kind of pain.

I was so scared I’d said something or done something that broke us, and the fact I was too stupid to figure out what it was made it all so much worse.

I was in hell. Meanwhile, you were in New York, falling in love and starting a new life with this other guy.

I couldn’t throw you over my shoulder. I couldn’t even say hello, because you’d already moved on. ”

“I’m sorry.” I lose my battle against tears, droplets falling to my cheeks and tracking toward my jaw. “Truly. I’m so, so sorry, Tommy.”

“I still don’t know if I broke us. Was it my fault?” He drags his hand up and clutches at his heart. “Was I not enough? Was I mean and didn’t even realize it? Insensitive to your needs and too self-absorbed to notice?”

I shake my head, frantically answering these questions at least. This, I can give him, even if words fail me.

“Was it because of where I came from? Was it who I came from? Was it the cockroaches in my house or the moths that ate my clothes or the fact I didn’t have enough food for me and Chris, so you knew in your heart you could never rely on me to feed you, too?”

“Tommy…”

“I wouldn’t have let you go hungry,” he groans. “I swear to you, there’s nothing I wouldn’t have done to keep you safe and warm and fed.”

“It wasn’t you, Tommy.” I should walk away.

Turn and run before I make things worse.

But his pain is my pain. His heartache is because of me.

So I push off the wall and crash against his pounding heart instead, wrapping my arms around his body and whimpering when he does the same.

“It wasn’t you. I’m so sorry you’ve spent ten years not knowing this wasn’t your fault. ”

“Tell me what happened.” He rubs my back, long strokes of his broad hands. “It’s not too late to fix this.”

“I can’t.” I squeeze as tight as my aching arms allow and bury my face against his chest, inhaling his perfect scent and trapping it in the base of my lungs.

Maybe later, when I’m all alone, I can call upon the memories that smell brings me, revisiting the only person I’ve ever known—besides my son—who loves without reservation.

“I can’t, Tommy. And I’m so sorry for that, too. ”

“It’s not too late?—”

“It is.” I pull back and swipe my cheeks, wiping the tears away and inhaling a shuddering breath. “It is too late. But I’m setting you free. I want you to find happiness. Please. ”

“The girl I used to know would never have wanted that for me.” He grabs my wrists and pulls me closer. “ That Alana would laugh at the thought of me being with someone else. Then she would have mopped the floor with whichever idiot stepped forward to take her spot.”

He’s right. He’s absolutely, completely, heartachingly accurate.

“I’m not her anymore. I can’t be her. That Alana died ten years ago, and no matter how many times you ask for a different outcome, death is death, and there’s no coming back from that.

Move on.” I take a step back and twist my wrists out of his grasp, swallowing the sob that tries so fervently to break free.

Then I look anywhere but into his eyes. I can’t.

It hurts too much. “You’re love,” I murmur, rolling my bottom lip between my teeth.

“I’m war. The two were never supposed to coexist.”

“Alana—”

“I’m sorry.” I spin and stride away, leaving him behind again— again and again and again.

Stalking up my mom’s porch steps, I wipe my face clean and yank the door open.

Then I grab Franky’s hand, startling him when I continue walking.

Through the kitchen, then the living room.

I keep going to the laundry at the other end of the house until we emerge on the porch again, but far and away from where Tommy lingers.

“Mom?” Franky stumbles on the steps, grabbing onto the porch railing so he doesn’t fall. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, honey.” Cool. Lie to him, too. “Grandma wants us to collect the eggs and feed the animals. Once we’re done, we can go inside and relax. ”

“The eggs?” His eyes flare in panic, his shoulders coming up as he searches the yard for his arch-nemesis. “Whacky always hangs out around the coop, Mom. If he knows we’re coming, he’s gonna?—”

“I’ll protect you.” I wipe my face and ignore the rumble of Tommy’s truck engine.

The crunch and scrape of his wheels on our gravel driveway, and then the roar that echoes back when he hits the tar and gains speed.

“Whacky won’t bother you, okay? I’ll come outside with you every single day to make sure of it. ”

Unconvinced, but trusting—barely—he tiptoes toward the coop and casts a wary eye back to the front fence, right where the damn rooster sits, choking out his morning song.

When he’s sure the coast is clear, he flips the catch on the coop and opens the door, releasing the dozen hens that escape into the yard to spend their day pecking at the worms that live in the grass.

“Are there any eggs, honey?” Stop crying. Stop crying. Stop crying. “Do you see any?”

“Yeah.” He pulls the front of his shirt forward, creating a pouch, and lays each collected egg inside to take into the house. “We should cook some up for breakfast, don’t you think?”

“Sure.” I wipe my face and yearn for a shower. Time alone. Privacy to cry and clean the mess I made last night. Tommy’s dried cum on my thighs. His handprints on my legs. “We can make eggs.”