Chapter 33
Of all the times in her life, this was the one when she
needed her cell phone most and of course, it was the one time that it wasn’t
working properly. She had never had this
big of problem getting a signal for her phone before. She almost wanted to ask the cab driver if he
could pull over somewhere or drive in another direction. She stared at her
phone, waiting for her service to come back.
She didn’t need this kind of anxiety.
She had been specifically instructed to call first, to call to make sure
everything was lined up. It was a huge
night in his life, and neither of them really knew what all would happen. She didn’t want to barge in there if he was
having a party and didn’t want to go if there were lots of important people
around she didn’t know. In fact, she
wasn’t quite sure if she could do this at all.
It was going to be awkward and hard, and talking to Trace about the
situation the past week, while easing her mind a bit, also worried her. Trace said he was in poor, poor shape. In a sick, pathetic way it made her feel a
little good to know he was still hung up on her and probably still in love with
her. But she never, ever meant to hurt
him that badly.
She never meant for him to get depressed, especially with
all the wonderful things that were happening in his life.
She was proud of him, very, very proud. And she was a
little proud of herself, too for having the courage to try and fight for him
and get him back in her life. As soon as
Trace had answered the phone that night a week ago she had clamed up, but he
knew it was her and when he started talking to her and telling her how good it
was to hear from her, she started bawling.
She told more to Trace than she did her mother or to anyone else. And she didn’t really understand why. They had never been close. It took him so long to warm up to her that
summer and even after that they were merely friendly to each other.
But he was there and she had the courage to tell him
everything about how she felt about Justin, herself, what she wanted, how angry
she was with herself. And after several
rambling, crying, mumbled minutes, she took a breath, sniffed, took the tissue
her mom had handed her and waited.
And finally, after a bit of silence, he had sighed deeply
into the phone and whispered, “We’re gonna fix this.”
He didn’t know how and he didn’t know when. And he told her that, but they kept in touch
and he told her that sometime while they were in the city would probably be
best. Justin’s schedule was so busy and
for some reason Trace didn’t want him to have any clue what was going to
happen. Darcy didn’t really understand
that at first. But slowly she started to
realize that if Justin knew she was coming to see him he wouldn’t want her
there. He’d shut her down and push her
away. He’d make excuses.
And that….that really, really worried her.
Was he that scared?
Was he that upset?
Did she break his heart that bad?
She began to realize that her mistakes were going to cost
her a lot more than she initially realized, and she suddenly stopped viewing
this as a reunion or a second chance and started realizing that all this could
be and all she could hope for was a chance to apologize and a chance to try and
explain what happened, something she had yet to really figure out.
They were approaching the hotel much faster than she had
planned and she flipped her phone open again and prayed that her signal would
magically reappear. Her prayer worked
and as soon as she saw that her phone was ready, she dialed the familiar number
and waited as it rang. She had called
him a lot lately and was surprised that every time he greeted her with a
friendly tone and not one of annoyance.
Trace seemed to always have some relief when he was on the phone with
her, as if she had some power to make something better.
She hoped Justin wasn’t as messed up as Trace’s voice
seemed to convey. He had really only
told her that Justin was really lonely and still hung up on her. But she could tell by his eager, relieved
tone that Trace thought she had some cure available that she could provide
Justin. She hoped it wouldn’t be false
and she hoped that whatever happened that night wouldn’t mess things up even
more.
She had this fear, this horrible fear that she was about to
walk into a huge mistake.
“Hello?”
She sighed. Hearing
Trace’s voice, on the one hand, made her at ease, whether it was the deep
southern tone or the fact that Trace had reassured her everything was going to
be ok everyday for the past six days.
But it also ignited that fear that was twisted in her belly.
“It’s me.”
He laughed slightly, “I figured. You on your way?”
“Y-yes…”
“Look…” She bit her lip and closed her eyes. That wasn’t a good way to start off. She knew whatever he was about to say
wouldn’t be good and wouldn’t help her out.
“He’s worked up really bad. We
kind of just argued. He’s not in the best mood and he’s trying to get all of us
to get out of here and go drink or something.”
Her entire being was torn.
Trace had just given her an easy out and no matter how much she wanted
to see Justin, anything small and simple could send her running and could give
her an escape.
“Oh, well…maybe we
should try this another—”
But Trace didn’t give her the chance to escape. “I’ll stall him. How close are you?”
“Several blocks, but traffic isn’t too bad.” She prayed for a wreck, for something to get
in between her cab and the hotel. She
needed more time.
“Ok, as long as you can be here in fifteen we’re good.”
“I’ll…I’ll try.”
“Don’t back out on this girl. I promise this is a good thing.”
Her breath was shaking and when she looked down at her lap
she realized so was her left hand. She grabbed onto her purse to keep it from
shaking so bad. “Right.”
“You sound terrified.”
“I am.”
“I know him better than anyone, better than you know him.
Trust me. This is the right thing. He needs you right now.”
“Yeah, but what if he doesn’t want me?”
He groaned over the line.
“Don’t do this.”
“S-sorry. Is he busy
tomorrow? I mean maybe it would be
better—”
“Yeah, I don’t know…”
His voice trailed off and then came back fully, “Wait, hold on a second
girl….”
She could hear talking in the background and couldn’t
handle it. She knew he was talking to Justin. She just knew it. She couldn’t be
left hanging. She was on the verge of
telling the cab to turn around. Fear was
consuming her. It was like when she was
being taught how to swim when she was little.
She was terrified of the water, even though she had on floaties and her
dad was in the pool waiting for her. She
didn’t want to get in, not even just easing in over the side. She stood on the edge of the pool crying and
crying as her dad slowly started to get frustrated with her. It wasn’t until Alden ran by and pushed her
in did the fear leave her.
She needed Trace to push her in because she knew if he
didn’t, she’d remain on the edge, crying.
“What’s going on?
What’s he saying? Are ya’ll about
to leave?”
She was frantic.
Trace’s voice came back through the line. “Yeah, no. We’re
not going out…”
“Shit. I mean,
that’s good. I just…I’m kind of
paranoid. It’d be kind of bad if I got
up there and a whole group of you were leaving.
I just don’t want this to be more awkward than it has to be.”
“I know, right?” She could tell by the sound in his voice
that Justin was still nearby and he was trying to sound inconspicuous over the
phone.
She felt the car slow down and veer off to the right. She looked up and gulped. She was there, staring up at the many floors
of the high-rise hotel, wondering if he was up there looking out one of those
windows. Only a few minutes separated
her from, from…from whatever would happen when he saw her again. “I’m pulling up now. You’re gonna be there, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll be here.”
“Trace…I just…” She
wanted to tell him thank you. She wanted
to ask him to come down and hold her hand and go with her up to his room. She wanted to tell him to call the whole
thing off. But she couldn’t do any of
that with the cabby turned around staring at her, waiting for his cash. “I’ll see ya in a few, ok?”
“See ya.” She turned
her phone off and slipped it into her purse, then opened the door, breathed in
the air and looked up at the hotel. This
was a mistake. She could feel it in her
heart. This whole damn thing had been a
mistake.
“Miss…”
She shook her head and cringed, not looking the cabby in
the eye. “Oh right, sorry…” She paid him as quickly as possible, stepped out
and tried to smile at him. It didn’t
work. “Thank you.” He didn’t say
anything to her because there was someone else ready to enter the cab. They didn’t look pleased with her. No one did.
Everyone walking down the sidewalk, even the doorman at the hotel looked
like they were frowning down on her. She
was taking too much time. She felt like
she was in slow motion, but she could hear her heart beating rapidly.
She remembered being here a few months before, their first
time in
What if Trace had lied?
What if this was all some huge joke?
What if he hated her like he had when she first dated Justin? What if this was some elaborate revenge?
It was too late. And
if it were some horrible, mean joke to make her feel miserable about her
actions, then she felt that in some weird way she deserved it. She should give him the chance to treat her
that way to make her feel as pathetic as she apparently made him feel.
Her self esteem had plummeted lately. She knew it was her own fault, her own
sickened mind plaguing her with these thoughts.
She needed to stop. She knew
Justin hated self-degrading people, and acting this way in front of him would
only make him hate her more.
She prayed he didn’t hate her.
Her eyes opened when the elevator started to move. Her mind was in a daze and she leaned back
against the wall, happy she wasn’t alone in this elevator, happy that people
were there to keep her in check, to make her not go completely ballistic. She took a breath. Her mind was wandering too fast and she
needed to calm down before she made an ass out of herself. In fact, the whole place seemed to be
speeding up. She was at the floor she
needed to be at much quicker than expected.
And his room was only a few doors from the elevator.
It took too long to get there, yet way, way too fast.
She stood in front of the door to his room and immediately
all her courage was gone, all her nerves went limp in her body and she felt
like a dead lump of flesh, tired, used, and vacant. She couldn’t do this. Not to herself, not to him. There was no point in getting her hopes up
like this. It wouldn’t work. Misery was a state of mind: she could think
herself out of it. She could forget it
all.
God, how she wanted to forget it all. Even the happiness, even the perfect moments
of that summer. If it just vanished from
her memory then, then she would be back to normal, back to molding herself into
whatever fashion whatever guy wanted her to be.
Back to hating her mother, back to being with
She sucked in a breath when the door magically opened
before her. But it wasn’t magic and she
gulped when Trace’s tired brown eyes met her own. He sighed, still holding on to the door.
“Hi…”
The ability to speak left her immediately, along with the
ability to move. She didn’t even feel
him pull her inside the doorway, but soon she was there, staring at him,
begging him silently to tell her what to do.
He had told her he would fix this, he would make it right. But right then all he did was pass her a
disbelieving smile and roll of his eyes.
“Good luck…” He said and moved to leave.
She whispered his name. “Trace?” But the door was shutting.
He was leaving her, alone and defenseless.
This was not a good sign.
And when the door clicked shut it all hit her at once. She was there, in the same room as Justin,
and she was going to see him and talk to him.
She was really going to see how much she had broken his heart. It was starting to come back to her how much
she had damaged her own heart in this process.
She closed her eyes.
He was there. He was
looking at her, waiting for her to turn around.
She knew it. And when she did
finally turn and open her eyes he was standing a few feet away, mouth slightly
open, color drained from his face, completely paused, only blinking slowly.
“Hi,” she said quietly.
He gulped, “H-hello.”
This was it. It all
had boiled up to this moment and she had no idea what to do. She was oddly drawn to him and stepped
further into the room, staring at him, hoping he wouldn’t disintegrate in front
of her like a mirage or a horrible dream.
No, no not a dream. “Are you ok?”
“What are you doing here?” She sucked in a breath when he
said that. He sounded in shock, like he
couldn’t believe she was there, like she was some weird ghost. His stare broke hers and he ran a hand over
his head, clearing his throat and then moving back to look at her, but not
letting his eyes fix on her for a long time. “Did…did he put you up to
this? ‘Cause I swear I didn’t ask him to. You don’t have to be
here.”
A distant smile came to her. Even after all this time he was thinking
about her, putting her first, thinking that Trace had forced her to do
this. She couldn’t look at him any more
and stared at the marble floor of the entrance to the hotel room. Yes, he was thinking about her, but at the
same time it seemed that he didn’t want her there, or at least, he had no idea
how much she wanted to be there, how much she still wanted him.
“I want to be here.”
“What?”
Even though she knew this had to be hard and that this had
to be difficult and that she would have to fight for him, fight to get him
back, part of her, some part somewhere, had hoped it would be easy. She hoped she would walk in, he would see her
and everything would just wash away, all the hurt and the drama, and he’d pick
her up and kiss her and it’d be like a damn movie or a fucking romance
book.
But he just stared at her.
She stepped forward and realized how close they were. She took it as a positive sign that he didn’t
back away, and she pulled off her knit hat and set it on the floor by the wall
and put her small purse there as well.
She looked up at him and bit her bottom lip. He was chewing his as well and she moved to
run her hands through her hair.
She didn’t know what to do and the more she stared at him
she realized she didn’t have a fucking clue how to fix this.
“Can we talk?”
He didn’t answer her and she couldn’t stand it. So she walked past him and made her way
straight to the couch. This wasn’t going
to be easy and she wanted it over with now.
If…if he wasn’t going to just take her back then she wanted to get her
shit off her chest and get out of there.
She couldn’t breathe, and as she sat on the couch and looked over at him
and waited for him to move and come to her, she felt like her lungs were
folding inside themselves and she tried to swallow down her feelings.
But they were glued in her throat.
He looked at her for a long, long time. He looked tired, he looked sad, and he didn’t
look at all happy to see her. He walked
over and sat down on the couch a few feet away from her and she stared at him
and he stared at his knees, wiping his thumb over one of them, as if there was
an imaginary smudge on his jeans that he was trying to rub out.
Finally, she leaned forward and ran her hands over her head
and laughed at herself. “I don’t…God, it’s funny.”
It was the moment she had been waiting for and here she
was, speechless. She couldn’t even
figure out what to say.
“What?”
“The past week, actually the past month I’ve thought over
and over and rehearsed in my head what I would say to you if I saw you
again. And now it’s like, I just, I
don’t know.”
He didn’t respond immediately, and when he did, he sounded
confused and spoke slowly. “So what made you want to come see me tonight?”
She pulled her body to sit back against the couch and
relaxed a little bit. He was looking at
her now and he didn’t seem as sad and shocked as before. “Trace and I have been planning this for a
week.”
“Oh…that explains some things.” He smiled for a moment, but
it quickly faded away. “Why didn’t you
just call me? You didn’t have to keep it
secret.”
“That was Trace’s idea and, and I was afraid if I called
you, you’d…you’d hang up. I figured it’d
be harder for you to turn me down in person.”
He shook his head and stared at her intently. She looked away quickly and had the urge to
get up and pace. She couldn’t handle
this anymore. “Turn you down?”
She stood up and slowly started looking around and walking
all over the den area of the room. “I…I just want to talk, to try to explain
myself.”
“You don’t have to.
I kind of figured out what you meant.
So, what’s up now?” She stopped
where she was looking at some books that were on a small table and turned to
glance at him. His arms were over his
chest, he was staring right in front of him, and he didn’t look happy. “I mean, is there another reason you came up
with to tell me about why we can’t work?”
“Justin…”
“What?” His eyes
narrowed at her.
She looked at him for a while and finally he moved his gaze
away from her. She sighed and covered
her face in her hands. This was too
hard, too much for her to deal with right now. “I…I fucked up, ok?” She said in
a loud, pleading voice. “I got
scared. I was paranoid and terrified
and, and I was, I guess somewhere I was looking for an escape.”
He looked at her a little softer now, and his voice didn’t
have the bite that it previously did. “You could have just told me to back off,
to give you some space.”
“I thought I did.”
He shook his head and the bite and the bitterness were
back. “No, no you broke up with me, Darcy.
You broke my…you didn’t want me.
So excuse me if I’m finding all this a little weird and hard to
understand.”
She went to him, sat right down beside him and touched his
arm. But it was too close too soon and
her hand snapped away.
“I’ve always wanted you.
I got scared. I couldn’t believe
that that you were this perfect and this good for me. That’s not supposed to happen and I knew
somewhere somehow it would mess up and it wouldn’t be perfect and I’d lose you
and I couldn’t handle that. I…I didn’t
want to become my mom so…so I just I made an excuse and gave up on us.”
“We never were perfect, Darcy. Ever.
Even without the whole dream shit, we wouldn’t have been perfect.”
“I…I know that now.
But I mean, I also know that…that in a way we are perfect. We are.
I just, it took me a while to realize that.”
She watched him. His
shoulders slumped and he moved his hands over his face. He turned and looked at her dead on and it
made the last little bit of her heart sink to see him looking at her like that,
with no emotion, with no care, with just a bit of annoyance. “You really make
no fucking sense.”
He moved to stand up and started walking away from her.
She began to beg and wiped at her eyes to keep from crying.
“Justin….I’m sorry, ok? I’m…I’m so
sorry. I…” But it was no use. He was walking away from her, walking into
another room and she knew now that this was a mistake. Coming here was a mistake. She said she was sorry and that’s all she had
tried to hope for.
But she had hoped for so, so much more. And her hopes were crushed.
She licked her lips and stood up as well, moving to walk
back towards the entrance. “Well, I…I’m sorry.
I’ll leave you alone. I know it’s
a big night for you. I didn’t mean to
bother you.”
She was in the foyer, bending down to pick up her purse and
trying to hold back the tears when she heard him say her name softly and
drenched with emotion.
“Darcy…”
She didn’t look at him and continued to get her stuff. “I’m
supposed to fight for you. And…and
you’re making it really hard. Too hard
for me to do anything with, or maybe I’m just not able to do…”
“I apologize.” He cut her off and she glanced at him
standing there, close to her. “I shouldn’t have gotten that defensive and upset
with you.”
“No, you have every right to be mad at me. I just…I don’t
know what I was expecting tonight.” She shook her head and laughed at
herself. “But I was hoping it wouldn’t
be this. But I…I gotta be a big girl now
and accept what’s happened and, and know that you’ve moved on and you don’t
want—”
He cut her off again and stepped closer. “I haven’t moved
on. I haven’t moved on at all.” She saw
that he was holding a hand out to her and for the first time that night the
fear left her and she put her hand in his and let him help her stand. He held her hand and she dropped her purse as
they walked back through the room, dodging the couch and heading for another
room, the room he was retreating to earlier.
When the door shut behind her she saw that this was his
bedroom and tried not to let all the memories of their time that summer come
back to her, exploring each other on the bed late at night, taking baths
together, sleeping in his arms. She
closed her eyes and wiped her thumbs over her cheeks.
She had to stop doing this.
She had to stop thinking about how he looked when she slept and how he
always stuck one leg out of the covers, how he hated mornings and how his voice
would sound deep and raspy during those times when he was given the luxury to
sleep in.
“Every day I rethink, rehear, relive that night in
the car. I think over every word you
said and I said and I analyze and I look back on everything I’ve done and I try
to figure out where I went wrong.”
She turned to where he was standing a little behind her,
still holding on to her hand. “You didn’t go wrong though, Justin. It was me.
I was scared.”
Her hand was dropped and as he stood there and spoke to
her, she went and set herself on the edge of the bed, wondering if she was
allowed to and wondering why in the hell he brought her in here. “I know that.
But I still, ya know, I wonder if it hadn’t been for the dreams and all
this mess if, if then maybe you wouldn’t have had an excuse, and I would have
been able to help you get over this fear you have. And then sometimes I think that if it weren’t
for the dreams we would have never met, really.
I’d still be with Britney probably.
And…and I have no idea where my life would be. I think about this, about us, a lot. A whole lot.”
He stopped from where he had begun to pace in front of her
and stared right at her. “And, and I
think about you and I worry about you.
And half the time yeah, yeah I’m so fucking pissed off at you because
you just gave up on us, on…on me, on me when, when I need you most.” He began
to pace again. “But then, then I think
about you, about how you are, and how you try to be strong, and you try to be
what you think I want. You try so hard,
and you lost yourself in that process.”
“I just wanted you to love me for me.”
He sighed and it sounded more like a frustrated groan. “But
that’s it Darcy! You didn’t have to try
with me. You didn’t have to do
anything.”
He was standing in front of her, just staring at her and
she couldn’t help it and looked back at him. Despite the tiredness in his eyes
and the fatigue in his posture, he looked good.
His hair had grown a bit, nothing too noticeable to most people, but she
noticed it, and his shirt fit his upper body and, and she suddenly wanted to
touch him.
But she couldn’t. He
was off limits now and that very thought made her bite her lip and whisper,
“You…you look good.” The tears came
quickly and she looked down and tried to hide them from him. “I’ve missed you.”
He whispered back to her. “Please don’t start crying.”
“I’m sorry.”
She had always thought of herself as a strong person,
individualistic, able to watch out for herself.
But now she realized how wrong she was, or at least, how much she had
changed. She used to be that type of
person who was ok by themselves and was her own best friend. But then she met him, and then she lost him
and in some way, some people might think that was bad, that her break up with
him, her relationship with him caused her to lose all the strength she had.
But when she was with him she felt stronger than ever. She mattered and she meant something to
someone else. She wasn’t just living her
own life in her own little bubble of a world, she was apart of the world
outside of that, part of someone else’s little bubble. And that was a very beautiful and positive
thing.
Things changed, though.
And now, even though she was in his world, she was an imposter.
“It’s just hard to see you like this.”
She sniffed and looked up at him. “It’s hard to see you
like this.”
“Like what?”
She swallowed the lump in her throat and looked down at the
floor. “Blank…”
The bed shifted and she saw that he was sitting beside her
now, turned toward her with one leg over the end of the bed and the other bent
on the mattress. “This isn’t very easy
for me, Darcy. I mean, I just…I don’t
know how to act. I’m happy you’re
here. I…I’ve missed you, but…but you
fucking broke my heart. So you can’t
just expect me to fall down at your feet.”
“I don’t expect that.”
“It’s like, all….”
He laughed distantly and she watched him smile to himself, watch it fade
and watched him shake his head and mumble, “All I want to do right now is…”
He didn’t finish and she was hanging on to his words,
begging to hear what he wanted to do and whether or not she was apart of that.
“What?”
“I can’t…I can’t deal with you getting back with me and
then in two weeks have you finding another excuse and leaving me again. I just, I can’t put myself through that.”
She sniffed but the tears kept coming, and she grabbed his
hand and pleaded with him. “I promise, I
won’t.”
“Don’t make promises. Don’t, ok?”
She grabbed his other hand and squeezed them both tight
within hers. They felt good against her,
strong like they always did. Comforting and solid. That’s what she needed in her life, comfort,
strength, something solid and that something was him. “Then…then what will it take?”
“God, stop it.” He
pulled away from her and moved both his legs off the bed and sat forward with
his head in his hands. “Don’t do that.”
The tears wouldn’t stop and she grabbed his shoulder. She needed him to look at her. She needed to see what he was thinking. “Please…don’t make me be that girl. Don’t make me beg and…”
“Dammit Darcy. Stop it!” He yelled at her.
She stared at him and pulled her hand slowly back to her
lap. “Wh-what?”
“Please, please stop crying…” His voice was thick and he shook his head and
she saw then how watery his eyes were, how much emotion was there. No longer
was his face blank and uncaring. “I can’t…I can’t handle it.”
“Please take me back,” she whispered. He looked away from
her and she laughed at herself and wiped at her eyes. “That…that sounded pathetic, didn’t it?”
“I just…I just don’t know.”
“I need you. I
thought I’d be better without you, without the possibility of losing you. But, but then…I just can’t do it. I’d rather lose you for…for whatever other
reason than for me just giving up and throwing it away.”
“Do you blame me for being cautious?”
“No…I just, I want you back so bad.” She laughed at herself again. She had never been this way. Every other boy she had been with break ups
would hurt for the day, but then it’d be over with. It would end and she would move on. And she had never, ever begged for anything
in her life. She had never had to. And doing it now made her feel awkward and
pathetic. “I feel like I’ve been
drowning for a month and now, now you’re here and…and it’s like I can almost
breathe, like I’m almost at the surface.”
“What?” She looked
at him, and he was staring at her intently.
She knew he didn’t like pathetic people and she knew he didn’t like
people that begged. He liked people who
went with their gut, who were confident and she knew right then she had to show
him a bit of confidence or this would all be a bust and she’d end up back at
her apartment, alone and crying. “What
do you need to breathe?”
She licked her lips and stared at him for a moment, judging
the look in his eyes and fighting with her chances. And then she went for it, pushing away the
fear that he might push her away or kick her out. She had to go for it ‘cause it very likely
would be the last time.
She grabbed his shoulder and pulled herself close to him,
whispering, “T-this.” She kissed him
hard and cried. She tried to show him
how much she missed him, how much she loved him, how much she needed him back
in her life.
He didn’t do much for a moment, just sat there in
shock. But finally his hand came up to
her face and held it there against his.
He slowed her down and kissed her back softly. It was like nothing had happened, like they
were still together; but so much had happened, and as sweet and perfect as
kissing him was, somewhere it seemed wrong because she wasn’t his and he wasn’t
hers.
And as soon as it began it stopped. He pulled away with a slight gasp, hand still
on her face, lips red and his eyes looking down.
“Darcy…”
“Please, please Justin….just give me another chance.” She pulled him against her and held him
against her in a hug, embedding her face against his neck and shoulder. “Let me fix the mess I made.”
He pulled her gently from his body and in a deep, raspy
voice and tears on his face he said, “I just…I just don’t know right now.” She tried to hold it back, but this…this was
the one thing she couldn’t handle. She could handle him kicking her out, at
least she thought. She could handle him
not wanting her, but…but this—she knew he wanted her. She knew that he still loved her.
But…but he just wouldn’t take her back. And that was something she wasn’t prepared
for. “I’m sorry,” he said, holding her
hands in his.
“Right, well…” She pulled away from him, ran a hand through
her hair and wiped at her eyes and her nose.
She forced a smile and stood up.
“I’m sure you have things to do so I’m sorry I bothered—”
“Dammit Darcy…” Her
back was facing him and she cursed herself for stopping, for hanging on to his
every word. But she did and the tears
she had just wiped away started to come back.
“Stop running away from me!” He shouted at her. She heard him sigh and now, now he was the
one begging her, “Don’t go.”
And the tears she was holding back fell when she felt his
hands on her shoulders and she couldn’t stop them when he pulled his arms
around her and hugged her from behind.
She didn’t know what had changed in those few seconds, or if anything had
changed, but suddenly he was there, holding her and she was leaning against him
crying while he kissed her head and whispered in her ear, “Please stay.”
She fell limp against him and started crying so hard she
could barely breathe. She didn’t do
anything she had wanted. She had barely
been able to apologize or explain her thinking and feelings. And she had lost the ability to fight for
him. She was confused and hurt and
didn’t understand why he wanted her to stay yet didn’t want her back.
But it didn’t matter.
Nothing did.
He was holding her, holding her like she meant something to
him, like he needed her. And in that moment she crashed into him and let it all
go. He was with her and that was all she wanted and all she needed to begin
with: him right behind her, holding on.