She tells me to finish.
Finish.
I don’t like that word.
Like this is a job.
I kiss her again.
I finish.
???
Miles, Rachel wrote me a letter.
I’m sorry.
No.
I can’t do this. It hurts too much.
No, no, no.
My mother is taking me back to Phoenix. We’re both staying there. It’s all too complicated, even between the two of them now. Your father already knows.
Clayton brings families together.
Miles rips them apart.
I tried to stay. I tried to love you. Every time I look at you, I see him. Everything is him. If I stay, everything will always be him. You know that. I know you understand that. I shouldn’t blame you.
But you do.
I’m so sorry.
You stopped loving me with a letter, Rachel?
Love, I feel it. All the ugly parts of it. It’s in my pores. My veins. My memories. My future.
Rachel.
The difference between the ugly side of love and the beautiful side of love is that the beautiful side is much lighter. It makes you feel like you’re floating. It lifts you up. Carries you.
The beautiful parts of love hold you above the rest of the world. They hold you so high above all the bad stuff, and you just look down on everything else and think, Wow. I’m so glad I’m up here.
Sometimes the beautiful parts of love move back to Phoenix.
The ugly parts of love are too heavy to move back to Phoenix. The ugly parts of love can’t lift you up.
They bring you
D
O
W
N.
They hold you under.
Drown you.
You look up and think, I wish I was up there.
But you’re not.
Ugly love becomes you.
Consumes you.
Makes you hate it all.
Makes you realize that all the beautiful parts aren’t even worth it. Without the beautiful, you’ll never risk feeling this.
You’ll never risk feeling the ugly.
So you give it up. You give it all up. You never want love again, no matter what kind it is, because no type of love will ever be worth living through the ugly love again.
I’ll never let myself love anyone again, Rachel.
Ever.
chapter thirty-five
TATE
“Last load,” Corbin says, picking up the remaining two boxes.
I hand Corbin the key to my new place. “I’ll make one more walk-through and meet you over there.” I open the door for Corbin, and he exits the apartment. I’m left staring at the door across the hall.
I haven’t seen or spoken to him since last week. I’ve been selfishly hoping he would show up and apologize, but then again, what would he even be apologizing for? He never lied to me. He never verbalized promises that he broke.
The only times he wasn’t brutally honest with me were the times he didn’t speak. The times he looked at me and I assumed the feelings I saw in his eyes were more than what he was able to verbalize.
It’s apparent now that I more than likely invented those feelings from him in order to match them to my own. The occasional emotion behind his eyes when we were together was obviously a figment of my own imagination. A figment of my hope.
I scan the apartment one last time to make sure I packed everything. When I step outside and lock Corbin’s door behind me, my movements are taken over by something I’m unfamiliar with.
I can’t tell if it’s braveness or desperation, but my hand is balled into a fist, and that fist is knocking on his door.
I tell myself that I’m free to escape to the elevator if ten seconds pass and the door doesn’t open.
Unfortunately, it opens after seven.
My thoughts begin to riot with rationalization as the door opens wider. Before rationalization wins and I dart away, Ian appears in the doorway. His eyes change from complacent to sympathetic when he sees me standing here.
“Tate,” he says, capping my name off with a smile. I notice the shift of his gaze toward Miles’s bedroom before his eyes fall back on mine. “Let me get him,” he says.
I feel the ascent in the nod of my head, but my heart is making a descent, scaling down my chest, through my stomach, and straight to the floor.
“Tate’s at the door,” I hear Ian say. I inspect every word, every syllable, searching for a clue wherever I can find one. I want to know if he rolled his eyes when he said that or if he said it hopefully. If anyone knows how Miles would feel about me standing in his doorway, it would be Ian. Unfortunately, Ian’s voice gives no indication of what Miles may feel about my presence.
I hear footsteps. I dissect the sound of the footsteps as they close in on the living room. Are they hurried footsteps? Are they hesitant? Are they angry?
When he reaches the door, my eyes fall to his feet first.
I get nothing from them. No clues that will help me find the confidence I so desperately need in this moment.
I can already tell my words will come out raspy and weak, but I force them up anyway. “I’m leaving,” I say, still staring down at his feet. “I just wanted to say good-bye.”
There’s no immediate reaction from him, physically or verbally. My eyes finally make the brave journey up to his. When I see the stoic look on his face, I want to step back, but I’m afraid I’ll trip over my heart.
I don’t want him to watch me fall.
My regret over making the choice to knock consumes me with the brevity in his response.
“Good-bye, Tate.”
chapter thirty-six
MILES
Present day
Her eyes finally find the courage to meet mine, but I try not to see her. When I really look at her, it’s too much. Every time I’m with her, her eyes and her mouth and her voice and her smile find every vulnerable spot on me to breach. To seize. To conquer. Every time I’m around her, I have to fight it, so I try not to see her with anything other than my eyes this time.
She says she’s here to say good-bye, but that’s not why she’s here, and she knows it. She’s here because she fell in love with me, even though I told her not to. She’s here because she still has hope that I can love her back.
I want to, Tate. I want to love you so much it fucking hurts.
I don’t even recognize my own voice when I tell her good-bye. The lack of emotion behind my words could be misconstrued as hateful. A far cry from the apathy I’m attempting to convey and an even farther cry from the urge I have to beg her not to go.
She immediately looks down at her feet. I can tell my response just killed her, but I’ve given her enough false hope. Every time I ever allowed her in, it hurts her that much more when I have to push her away.
But it’s hard to feel bad for her, because as much as she’s hurting, she doesn’t know pain. She doesn’t know it like I know it. I keep pain alive. I keep it in business. I keep it thriving with as much as I experience it.
She inhales and then looks back up at me with slightly redder, glossier eyes. “You deserve so much more than what you’re allowing yourself to have.” She stands on the tips of her toes and places her hands on my shoulders, then presses her lips to my cheek. “Good-bye, Miles.”
She turns and walks toward the elevator, just as Corbin steps out to meet her. I see her lift one of her hands to wipe away her tears.
I watch her walk away.
I shut my door, expecting to feel even the slightest ripple of relief over the fact that I was able to let her walk away. Instead, I’m met with the only familiar sensation my heart is capable of feeling: pain.