She nodded and squeezed her eyes shut. Her lips trembled.
His voice scratched and cracked. “You don’t feel the same.”
It wasn’t a question.
She propped an elbow on one knee and dropped her forehead into her palm. “No. I do.”
He leaned in, a tiny, foolish ray of hope peeking around the corner of his terrified heart. “What?”
“I do feel the same,” she said, sniffling. “But that’s the problem. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Had she just admitted she loved him, too? In such a morose, troubled way? Elation and trepidation hit him in a one-two punch.
Graham reached out to take her free hand, skin prickling when he touched her. “Is that such a bad thing? I know there are things we were both afraid of, but that was before. You’ve helped me start working through my issues without even knowing. Maybe I can help you, and we can come at yours together. Isn’t love supposed to be able to overcome all fears? Or something?”
He was so bad at this.
She yanked her hand back. “What I have isn’t an issue, Graham. It’s trauma.” She suddenly stood, making a wide berth as she circled the couch.
Gertrude retreated into the hallway.
Claire walked toward the sink and spun around, eyes full of anguish. “I was there that day. I stood there and watched that plane crash into the ground and burst into flames, knowing my dad was inside and there was no way he’d survived. I felt the chaos of the audience around me, but to them, it was a nameless pilot that had just died before their eyes. Don’t compare what I went through with a bunch of rich assholes from high school.”
Her pain sank in like a corkscrew in his gut. He couldn’t comprehend how she must have felt in that moment, or in the years since. “I’m—I’m sorry.”
Her hips fell back into the cabinets and she covered her face with her hands.
Graham grabbed his crutches and stood, but she immediately shook her head.
“Don’t. Please,” came her muffled voice.
“Claire,” he croaked, continuing toward her. “I love you—”
A sob wrenched from her chest.
“And I can’t just sit here and watch you cry. You might as well rip my heart out.”
She let her hands drop, revealing tears streaming down her cheeks. “Mine’s already in pieces. It shattered the moment I read the last email and I knew that, even after you’d come so far and finally, after twentysomething years, you’d finally opened yourself up to love, I had no choice but to break yours.”
Silence descended, thick and heavy.
Words failed him at the finality he sensed in her statement. His world seemed to spin on its axis and he fell back into a kitchen chair.
Cracks and pops sounded in the streets beyond as people celebrated Independence Day one day early. Normally Graham wouldn’t mind it, but the thought of anyone happy and laughing in this moment grated on his nerves.
There was no way his grief stayed contained inside his body. Couldn’t they feel it? Didn’t they know his world was coming apart at the seams?
“Please believe me,” she said, flattening her palms against her stomach. His throat tightened as if a hand gripped him there. “There’s a part of me that desperately wants to try, because I do love you, Graham. You mean so much to me. More than any man ever has. But I know deep down it’s not the right choice for me. Even though the moments spent with you would seem worth any cost, I know in the hours you’d be at work, or climbing, biking, or anything you enjoy that instills a healthy fear in us mortals, I’d suffer. I watched my mom do it for years, and you wanna know the worst part? Because he couldn’t give up his passion, my dad’s death was the only thing that set her free.”
Graham pressed heavy palms into his thighs, curling his hands into fists. Yes, he loved all those things, but none of that mattered. Not compared to her. “What if I gave it all up? The climbing and biking? Found a different job?”
She was shaking her head before he even finished talking. “I’d never ask you to do that—”
“You didn’t.”
“And I’d never allow it. It’s who you are, Graham. Now, more than ever, I know how much the outdoors means to you. I couldn’t live with myself if I took that away from you. I have to take me away instead.”
He let out a humorless laugh. The way her eyes widened said maybe it was an inappropriate response, but twenty years of emotional suppression meant little practice in healthy reactions. “So, you’re a martyr, then? You’re making this decision without my input?”