“It was nothing,” I urge. “I wanted to help.” That lump in my throat is a cantaloupe now; it’s a fucking Fall Fest pumpkin.
“He’s going to ask about how this place started; you don’t have to mention your parents, but if you’re comfortable doing so, it would add a human element to your story—but only if you’re comfortable.
You should tell him about all the work you’re doing on the lodge.
I’ve got Kyle writing you up a list of the remaining projects as talking points.
And if you get stuck, just—” I catch the way he’s looking at me, a sort of wistful smile at his mouth. “What?”
“Nothing, it’s nothing,” he says, looking down at his feet. His lips curve upward, but his smile doesn’t meet his eyes. “I just miss when you kept saying ‘we.’ ”
The organ in my chest feels like it’s in a vise. Like all the air in my lungs has whooshed out at once. “I could still stay,” I start. “I could talk to Heidi, and I could—”
“No,” he says gently. “You can’t.”
My eyes sting, traitorous tears collecting there. I can feel something like anger brewing in my belly, and I can’t be sure if it’s directed at his aloof demeanor or the situation as a whole.
“Just like that, huh? It’s that easy?”
He frowns. “I told you it wasn’t easy.”
“Yeah, well.” I plop down on the bed, shoving my socked foot into my boot. “Could have fooled me.”
“That’s not fair,” he says.
I scoff. “Well, I don’t think it’s very fair that this morning you were touching me the way you were and now you’re shoving me out the door.”
“What do you want me to say, Tess?” His voice has taken on a slightly harder edge. “That I don’t want you to go? What the hell would that accomplish? We both knew this had an end date. We both knew that you were going to leave once you wrapped this up, one way or another.”
My mouth drops open. “Now who’s being unfair?”
“I’m starting to figure out that life isn’t fair,” he says bitterly.
“Why does it feel like you’re pushing me away?”
“Because deep down…you know there’s nothing for you here. You have this whole big life to live, important things to do, and that doesn’t involve some dingy little lodge in some nowhere town.”
He doesn’t say it with malice. No, his voice actually sounds fond. Like it’s a joke between the two of us now.
“It’s more than just some dingy little lodge,” I tell him. “And you are too. But you have to realize that. I can’t fight to make this work if you don’t want it to.”
“What is there to make work?” He averts his gaze. “I told you, Tess. We shared a heat together. That’s the only reason you’re feeling this way. In a week…you’ll feel differently.”
“Oh, fuck that, Hunter,” I snort. “You don’t get to hide behind that because you’re scared.”
“Scared,” he echoes.
“Yes, scared,” I assert. “You think it’s inevitable that you’re going to lose me, so you’d rather let me go without a fuss to save yourself the trouble later on, right?”
His mouth forms a tight line, and I know I’ve hit the nail on the head.
He clears his throat, looking down at his feet. “You have so much ahead of you. You and I both know that I would just hold you back. Deep down, you know that, Tess.”
“Sounds like a crock of shit to me,” I rasp, my voice sounding rough.
Hunter sighs, stepping deeper into the room and gathering me up in his arms. I go easily, nuzzling my face into his chest, inhaling his scent and trying to commit it to memory.
He kisses my hair, and I soak up the simple gesture like a flower in sunlight. I almost whine when he pulls away, his hands cupping the backs of my arms as he peers down at me, studying my face as if maybe he’s doing a little memorizing of his own.
Ask me to stay, I scream silently. Ask me.
“It’s just your hormones,” he says soothingly. “That’s why it feels like the end of the world. By tomorrow…you’ll feel much better. You’ll see.”
I hear him, and I hear the sense in his words, but I don’t feel it. Not even a little bit.
I’m opening my mouth to tell him so—to beg him to ask me to stay, to beg him to come with me, I have no idea what—but he robs me of all rational thought when he brings his fingers to his face, turning them into a square over his eyes and making a soft clicking sound as he takes a pretend picture.
“Really?” I say with a sniffle. “You want to remember this?”
His eyes are soft, his smile softer. “I told you, Tess. I want to remember everything.”
“But not keep it,” I say petulantly.
I can almost feel the way he wants to say something, and at this moment, I’m so close to begging for him to do so.
But he doesn’t, and the hurt I feel at his silence keeps me from saying anything more.
If I’m honest with myself, I know why he’s being like this.
I know Hunter thinks he would just hold me back, that he would trap me here with no future, but I don’t know how to tell him that isn’t how I feel.
I can’t make him see that he’s worth staying for, and…
I know he’s right about at least one thing.
I can’t throw everything away for him.
But it would be nice to know that a part of him might want me to, as unreasonable as it sounds.
“I think”—he composes his features into something more manageable—“I’m going to go for a run.”
“You’re leaving? You won’t see me off?”
The facade cracks, and I can see a sliver of pain—the same pain I’m feeling—bleed through in his eyes. “I can’t watch you go, Tess,” he says quietly. “Please don’t ask me to.”
“You’re having an easy enough time watching me do it right now,” I say quietly, feeling childish and hurt.
Hunter levels me with a look, his expression grim. “You were always going to leave, Tess,” he tells me. “Maybe it’s better this way. Easier, even. I’m sure you’ll move on before you know it.”
He gives me his back, leaving me there with my suitcase and a whole roomful of regret, and I feel his words cut at me like a knife, so final in their delivery. It’s like he’s counted on my leaving being inevitable. And I realize that he most likely has, if I really think about it.
I’m sure you’ll move on before you know it.
It makes me wonder how much of a chance we ever stood in the face of that.