I swallow.
Pat is free now, free to unfasten his seatbelt and move around the cabin. The only thing tying him officially to Sheet Cake is our marriage license. That piece of paper has never felt so thin. I’m not even sure where it is. But it still counts in the state of Texas, even if I lost it. Right?
“You’re not breaking up with me, but you’re also not coming home with me and Jo.”
Pat touches my shoulder, once, briefly, then drops his hand. “Lindy, I love you.”
So, why does this sound like an apology? Or a goodbye? I swallow down what feels like a mouthful of sawdust while he continues.
“Like I’ve said from the beginning, I want a second chance. I’ve wanted nothing more than to convince you this could be real. It could be so good.”
I sort of thought it WAS good.
There is a ride at the Sheet Cake Festival every year called the Scrambler. I begged Mama to let me ride it once, and once was enough. The jerking, spinning, twisting car left me heaving up my dinner behind the ticket booth. I feel like I’m on that ride now, being yanked into one whiplash after another.
“But? I can feel the but. Just say it, whatever it is. Please. Put me out of my misery here.”
“I am all in, Lindy.”
He meets and holds my eyes, his expression sincere and intense, like a laser searing going straight to my soul. And I’m frowning in confusion, because he sounds anything but all in. His mouth is saying one thing while his body language says something totally different.
“I don’t know where you are,” he continues. “And I can’t keep doing this until I know it’s what you really want. Now that you don’t need me for something, I have to know you still want me, just for me.”
Of course I still want you! I want to shout. I want you and I need you not for legal reasons but because you’re like my oxygen! You’re the sun! You’re everything to me!
The words are all jockeying for position until there’s just a lot of noise and confusion in my head. I say nothing. I just stare at Pat, willing him to know the things I’m feeling, willing him to not do this right now.
Pat waits, like he hopes with a tiny shred of himself I’m going to answer right here, to declare my love for him.
And I do love him. I know it now more than ever before.
I am also a fifty-car pile-up of emotional overwhelm. I know—I KNOW—Pat has given me so much these past few weeks. More than I asked for and probably deserved. But today, I just need one more thing. I need time.
A day to process, a night to sleep—even in his arms, feeling safe and a few degrees too hot when I wake up.
“Do we have to do this now?” I ask, hating myself even as I do. I know Pat deserves all of me. He deserves an answer. I want to give him that. Just not RIGHT NOW. Not standing in the crowded, too-noisy, hard-to-breathe hallway after the most emotional day of my life.
“I need to know,” he says. “But I’m giving you time to decide. That’s why I’m going to stay here for now.”
For how long?
Pat takes a step back. Then another. He’s really leaving, going to his dad’s house. It’s not a breakup, I tell myself. He said he loves me. Maybe it’s unfair of me or maybe it’s totally fair—and I just don’t KNOW because my brain is a fried egg—but I just cannot handle this conversation the way I want to.
Pat may feel like he’s giving me time and space, but what it feels like is him leaving me, just the way I always feared he would.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Pat
A persistent nudge to my ribs starts to bring me into consciousness. I groan and roll over. My face itches—what is this fabric? These aren’t my sheets. The nudge turns into a poke, then more of a kick. Definitely a kick. I shove away the offending foot.