Page 103 of To Have and to Hold

I said, “We didn’t work out.”

“You broke my heart.”

Emme’s words knifed me, but my expression remained neutral.

“You were so hard to love, Spence, but I loved you. Most of the time it was like trying to hug a brick wall, but those moments you gave me…those seconds of stroking my cheek or staring at me when you thought I wasn’t looking, my God, they were worth it. You were worth it.”

Difficult. It was much too hard to sit here.

“Look at me. After all this time, I deserve to have your attention while I say this.”

After a few seconds of hesitation, I met her eyes.

“You have a horrible past. I know that. I did my damned best to understand it, especially during those times when I couldn’t reach you no matter how hard I tried. You’d be sitting beside me and I’d still feel like there was a cavern between us. Or I’d go an afternoon without hearing from you—not even a text—and once I found you the only excuse you could give was, ‘I forgot.’ Do you remember that?”

I said, “I remember it all.”

Inexplicably, she laughed. “And despite all that and your infuriating ability to wall off on even the people closest to you, I’m sitting here.”

“I don’t…” I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I touch her? Stand and walk away? Or should she be the one to make the final move and stride out my front door? Emme was here for closure. I understood that much, but I wasn’t sure what she wanted from me.

I exhaled. “It was never your fault.”

“Oh, I’m aware of that.”

“I’m hard to—”

“You’re hard to love. I know that, too.” She said, softer, “I never thought I’d go for the bad boy, the Casanova with the shady past, but you ripped right through me, Spence. The minute I saw you.”

“I never regretted us,” I said. I had to say something. She needed words from me. I knew this, but I was convinced I’d say the wrong thing. When it came to her, I was nothing but my own mistakes. Letting her go proved that. It was too selfish to think I needed her to stay.

I glanced down at my hands. I’m no good at this. “I said good-bye to you a long time ago because you deserved a better man than me.”

“I know you were forced back into my life in a violent way, but don’t give me that bullshit. I haven’t seen you for almost a month, Spence. The last I saw of you was at the hospital, and you never even let me know you weren’t coming back.” Her voice curled with a suppressed sob. “I needed you to stay. A month ago. Two and a half years ago. You once left me without so much as a wave. You didn’t have to do that to me again.”

My mouth went slack. “That’s not at all what I was trying to do.”

“I forgave you for leaving almost three years ago. I even convinced myself it was the right thing to do—I was stupidly in love, had no idea what your real world was like, and our relationship couldn’t measure up. Hell, I let myself believe that you left without a word because it’d be too difficult to say it to my face. But this. What I—we—just went through is incomprehensible. You were the only one who truly understood what happened to me down there.”

I said, “I can’t mess with your new life, Emme.”

Silence. My exhales mixed with the city bleats outside, and I couldn’t look at her anymore.

“I’m not going to tell you I’ve changed,” I said. I thought about Becca’s words and Knox’s offhand comments. Professionally, I could predict any asshole’s next steps in the span of a minute. In my personal life, I wasn’t a guy who could predict feelings before they happened. If anything, they slammed me in the face before I realized someone was pissed off. “I think I might’ve gotten worse.”

“I spent these last years putting you behind me,” Emme said. “And I did. I was epically good at it. Then I found Dave, and I thought, finally, a man who could replace the one person who’d filled up my heart then hollowed it out.” She paused. “But what did that make me? Using somebody like that? Dave isn’t meant to be filler. He should find someone who’s just as in love with him as he is with her. And I knew that, so I did everything I could to be that woman. The type of girl who could step out of her soulmate’s shoes and into the boots of someone who was so much better. But you know what?” Her voice broke. “He didn’t fit.”

Emme’s hand came down and I stiffened, fists ready to defend. Her fingers grazed the one spot on my stomach only she had ever been allowed to touch.

“You infuriated me,” she said. “You were everything to me.”

I shook my head, but her love couldn’t be shed. Just as it couldn’t when I walked out of her life that final time.

“You’re so hung up on burying old lives,” she said, then whispered, “What if I’m the one thing that wasn’t meant to be forgotten?”

I’d spent the last two and a half years deleting her and all the emotions Emme’d brought when she entered my life. Protective feelings, possessive, an ache when she wasn’t there, a buoying when she was. Nothing I’d ever experienced before, and when I lost it, the emptiness that followed was nothing I wanted to experience again.

Even after finding Emme, instinct was to run. With Noelle, I found distraction through rigorous, sweat-driven fucks, but the hole was back, the space inside that never fully closed but I’d acquired the skill to ignore. Until I saw Emme’s face again, and no refined talent could bypass the gaping wound. Noelle couldn’t fill that void. She loved me and I couldn’t complete her. We were both trying for something that was gone, maybe never even there, and eventually, when Noelle had enough, I didn’t argue.

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