“Fuck.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “That’s not what I meant.”
“No, it’s exactly what you meant.” He paced away a step, raking a hand through his hair. “Look, April. I know you don’t need me. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met. You don’t need anyone, do you? But I thought . . .” He turned back to me, his lips pressed together in a thin, hard line. I wanted to cry at the look on his face, knowing I’d put it there. “I thought you wanted me. But you don’t, do you?”
“I do. That’s not . . .” But my voice wasn’t working. I didn’t know what I wanted to say, much less how to say it.
“Not enough. Not enough to say it out loud, in front of your sister.” He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and sighed. “Pretending to love you was the easiest thing I’ve ever done. But I can’t pretend anymore. And I can’t sneak around like this. I can’t lie to our friends. I’m not going to be someone’s dirty little secret. Not even for you.”
“I’m not asking you to . . .” But it was exactly what I was asking for, wasn’t it?
“Do you love me, April?”
The force of his question hit me in the chest, knocking all the air from my lungs. No. Don’t ask me that. I put out a hand, steadying myself on the side of my SUV. “Mitch . . .” My voice was a ghost. “Don’t . . .”
“Do you?” He took a step toward me, then another. All I could see were his eyes, wide open and honest. His whole heart was in his eyes, and I was breaking it in real time. “It’s a simple question, April. Because I love you. You may not want to hear it, but you have to know by now.”
I shook my head, frantic. He’d done it; he’d made the leap and said the words. But I didn’t know how to follow him and make the leap myself. Instead something inside of me crumpled. He couldn’t be saying this. Not now. Not to me. “It’s not that simple.” My voice shook so hard the words barely made it out. God, this was the most important conversation of my life, and I was having it in the parking lot of a dive bar. Worse, I was getting it all wrong.
“It is,” he insisted. “Either you love me or you don’t. Either we’re together or we’re not.”
Rage overtook me then. If he truly loved me he wouldn’t push me like this. He would give me the time I needed. He would understand. But he didn’t. And I didn’t know how to explain it to him. “Fine,” I snapped. “Then we’re not.” There it was. There I was, getting it all wrong.
He wasn’t expecting that. His mouth closed with a snap and his face went blank. “What?”
“We’re not together.” The words hurt as I said them, shredding my heart that I’d protected for so long. “If those are my two choices, then that’s what I choose.” I took a breath that shuddered in my throat. “I think maybe . . . all the times we pretended to be together . . . we let ourselves get mixed up.” My next breath was a little steadier. “This is for the best,” I said, convincing myself as much as I tried to convince Mitch. “The house is about done anyway. Thank you for everything. I couldn’t have done it without you.” I was thanking him for the house, but I was really thanking him for so many other things. For getting me through Caitlin’s graduation. For making me feel like part of his family. For making me feel like someone who deserved love. It had been a nice change. But we’d never been meant to last. I knew that now.
He looked at me blankly. “You’re still leaving?”
That brought me up short. “Of course I am. I’m putting the house on the market in September. My plans haven’t changed.” My plans were all I had left.
“Right.” Mitch’s laugh was bitter as he shook his head, his eyes fixed on his shoes. “Your plans.” One more sigh aimed at the ground and he looked up at me again. His blue eyes shimmered in the lights of the parking lot, and I caught my breath, tears threatening in my own eyes. This was all wrong. I didn’t want what we’d had to end like this.
But I didn’t know what to say, so after a long moment of silence Mitch broke it, rapping his knuckles twice on the hood of my SUV. “Take care of yourself, April.”
As he walked away from me, I knew that I’d probably made the biggest mistake of my life. But I couldn’t find the words to call him back. To promise to be the person he wanted me to be. The person he probably deserved.
He deserved better than me anyway. He deserved someone younger, more vital. Someone who could give him a family someday. Not a middle-aged empty nester.
“This is for the best,” I whispered again as I watched him get into his truck.
I almost believed it.
* * *
? ? ?
There was no magic for me the last weekend of Faire. Both days I showed up for my shift, I sold tickets, and I went home as soon as I was done. I didn’t venture through the gate. I’d had enough. No more magic. No more kilts or kisses or curtsies.
The next week I took the outfit I’d bought to the dry cleaner’s with all of Cait’s costume pieces, and when I picked it up I shoved it to the back of my closet, still covered in its plastic bag. The woman in that dress didn’t exist anymore. She’d faded like a half-remembered dream that night in the parking lot at Jackson’s, and I had a feeling she wouldn’t be back.
Twenty-Two
I knew it wouldn’t be easy to forget Mitch, and that part of me never would. But the end of the Renaissance Faire also meant the end of the summer was nigh, and I had a kid about to go to college who deserved my full attention. My days and nights were full: last-minute shopping trips after work, packing, more last-minute trips planned for the weekend. The more checklists Caitlin and I made, the more things we realized we’d left off said lists. Those last two weeks before it was time to take her across the state to begin her college career were chaotic to say the least. Missing a man who’d never really been mine should have been as far in the back of my mind as possible.
However, adding to the chaos was that damn pile of cabinet doors. They’d started off in my kitchen, but I’d moved them—slowly—to my dining room. And every time I saw them I remembered Mitch in my kitchen. Passing me a perfect mug of coffee. Complaining good-naturedly about the lack of beer in my fridge. Shoving my skirts up and out of the way, kissing me deeply while he fucked me on my kitchen island. I shivered at that last memory and did my best to push it out of my mind. Push him out of my mind.
It was a project I’d been putting off till September, but the third time I stubbed my toe on those damn cabinet doors, I knew I had to do something.
Swapping them out was definitely a two-person job, and as much as I wanted to enlist Caitlin, she had enough to do. When she wasn’t packing she was engrossed in final nights out with her high school friends, and I didn’t want to deprive her of those last childhood memories. So one night after work I texted my sister, asking her to come over on Saturday with a toolbox. She did one better and brought her husband and his cordless screw gun.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.” I climbed up on my kitchen counter, holding the cabinet door steady while Simon went to work on the hinges. “I don’t even have any power tools.”