In ten minutes, I was sitting in traffic.
If Indy thought she could just walk away from me without talking this through, then she had another thing coming. If there wasn’t anything left to fight for, then fine, she should leave. Just walk away and get on with her life. But there was something left to fight for. She’d let me know that the moment she had made love to me.
Lady said her flight was in just under an hour. But even if I missed her at the airport, I knew I would keep on riding—all the way to Seattle if I had to. Indy was my girl and I was going to ride to the ends of the Earth if it meant bringing her back to me.
She was lining up to board her plane when I found her. I slowed down as I approached, not wanting to startle her. But she must’ve felt me because her head lifted and she turned as if she was suddenly aware of me being there.
Her face fell.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
“Don’t what? Stop you from making the biggest mistake of your life. Stop you from walking away when I know you don’t really want to?”
She glanced around us. “I thought we agreed.”
“No, we didn’t agree on anything. I don’t want this. You can’t fucking leave.”
When the lady behind us gasped and covered her kid’s ears, I gave her an apologetic look and pulled Indy out of the line. To my surprise, she let me.
I took her hand and looked into her big brown eyes. “I love you more than I know how to handle. I can’t let you walk away from us.”
“I have a life back in Seattle, Cade.”
“I know. But I’m asking you to have a life here. . . with me. With your family and friends. Let me be the man you deserve.” My heart pounded in my chest. “I don’t want this to be the end.”
“It has to be.” She looked away. “You’ll find someone else.”
I grabbed her by the arms as if it would somehow make her come to her senses. “I want you! It doesn’t matter if I find someone else—they’re not you. So, I’m fucking doomed, do you understand me? Because I don’t want anyone else. And believe me, I’ve tried. But it seems that choice left me when I was five and my heart decided it belonged to you.”
She started to cry. “I can’t do this again.”
“You still love me. Somewhere behind that wall you’ve built, you still love me.”
“And what makes you so sure?”
“Because I still love you, just like I did when I was eighteen. It never ended for me. Do you understand that?” I knew I sounded desperate. But I needed her to understand. For me, there was only her. “It simply got stronger, day after day, year after year, and you know what that tells me? It tells me that what we had was real. That it was something special. Something strong. Something magical. That doesn’t just fade away.”
She took a step closer to me. “No, it doesn’t. But I can’t—it took so long to get over you. I can’t do that again. The pain…” Her eyes filled with tears and she squeezed them shut. “It would end me.”
Her words slayed me. I knew what I had put her through, and I was so damn sorry.
“Don’t go,” I whispered.
She shook her head again.
“Goodbye, Cade.”
And just like that, she was gone.
INDY—Aged 18
Then
Rain battered the window. I hugged the cushion tighter to my chest and stared out at the gray day. Outside, a cold wind moved through the trees, sending leaves falling to the ground.
It was my fifth day in Seattle, my third day of college, and six days since I had walked in on Cade having sex with the girl from the clubhouse.
Six days of a broken heart.
Six days of hibernating in my room, and only venturing outside to go to class.
My chest was heavy with heartache and longing. How was it possible to hate and ache for one person at the same time?
“Okay, enough is enough,” my roomie said, flopping down on her bed across from mine. Trinity was a New Yorker with a big smile and a halo of auburn curls. “This is your sixth day here, and apart from a couple of classes, you haven’t left this room.” She sat up. “Get your coat. We’re going out for coffee.”
“I don’t want to go out,” I murmured, still staring out the window.
I had no desire to be sociable.
“You know, people don’t believe me when I say I have a roommate. They think you’re a ghost.”
I knew I should be embracing college life. I had wanted it for so long. But not like this. Not without Cade. Another wave of grief crashed through me and I squeezed the cushion tighter to my chest. It was a hard enough putting one foot in front of the other, let alone making an effort. I missed him.