Page 62 of I Love You in French

Being this close, listening to him breathe, the in and out feeling of it against my own body, I feel him still doing his best to heal me.

And I’m too late.

He relaxes slightly and shuts off the water, allowing me to hold him like this. He stretches one hand to put the cup in the drainer but doesn’t move farther, as if afraid to break the spell unfolding between us.

“Sparrow?” he whispers.

I shake my head. He reaches for a towel, and I feel it brushing my hands, still lodged against his middle.

When his hands are dry enough, he folds the towel and sets it next to the sink. His semi-dry hand, both warm and cool from his heat and the water, rests on top of my own.

“Sugar,” he continues. He’s no longer asking. “I know you won’t let me love you,” he says.

I hold my breath and feel my face heat.

“I wish you would,” he chokes out. I hear him swallow, and my eyes burn.

I tip my head slightly, feeling a hot tear spill onto my face. And suddenly, they’re flowing freely. I won’t loosen my grip, so I rotate my face so the salty water won’t reach his shirt. He must know I’m crying, but I refuse to have him take my tears along with my heart.

Instead of yelling at me or calling me on my lies, Rafe pulls me toward him gently. It isn’t a hug for dear life but one of sympathy. “I’m sorry you’re afraid,” he whispers over his shoulder.

He grips my hands tighter in an act of kindness. He’s being my anchor, even as I’m cutting the rope between us. I’m holding him and letting him go at the same time. And he knows it.

“You deserve this kind of love,” he says.

I swallow, careful to keep my face angled away from his back. He lets the implied question linger until I’m able to answer. “What kind?” I breathe out.

I feel him slowly move his finger in a pattern across one of my hands. Back and forth, his calloused hand brands me. I focus on what he’s saying and bite my lip the moment I realize what he’s drawing: a heart. The movement stops as if he realizes I’ve gotten the message, and he gently unclasps my hands from his waist.

Without looking, he lightly shifts me away from him and moves toward the door. His shoes shuffle against the floor, a marked difference from his typically confident stride.

He stops at the entrance, his hand—the one that just wrote on my own—loosely holding the doorknob. I swallow, trying not to let out a sob. With every shallow breath, I feel a piece of myself breaking. But I’m too scared to let this turn out differently. What do you say when it’s the end? As much as I hate this, I’m dying to find out.

“Rafe?” I plead. He pauses but doesn’t look back, as if I could turn him to salt with one look. I inhale shakily. “What kind of love?”

Rafe turns the doorknob and cracks open the door. He breathes in the night air and tilts his head to the sky. This is goodbye. And it’s a moment that is marking me. I’m sure of it. He turns his face slightly, his profile etched against the night.

“The full kind.”

The bell jingles as the door closes, and I grip the counter before sliding to the floor. I cover my face in my hands and silently scream as I smell him, that beautiful cedar-and-coffee smell, heavy where his arms touched mine.

I’ve lost so many pieces of myself with each person who has left my life, and the one person who wants to show me love, the man I’ve fallen in love with . . . I don’t have the strength to confess what he means to me. Running after him will only hurt him more if I can’t get the words out. And I don’t think my legs would move me anyway. Everything is spinning.

Can we ever come back from missed moments? It’s like the words are suffocating me, and now I’m too late. Suddenly, the lies I’ve been telling myself turn to dust. Because he’s worth all of it, and I denied myself my dream. His dream too. So I let the sorrow haunt me for tonight after all.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Rafe

Getting on the train this morning was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. No, actually, leaving Sparrow last night was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I knew she wasn’t ready to let me into her heart completely. But, oh, how I had hoped.

I was ready to tell her all of it. Everything. But I knew that could sway her opinion. Again. And there’s no way I’m going to have her in my life because of circumstances and not commitment. I’ve lived enough of my life for the expectations of others. My parents are the ones who tell me things to try to sway my behavior. And as much as I knew it could work in my favor, there was no way I was giving Sparrow any more incentive to choose me. She had to decide that herself. And she didn’t.

If I didn’t love her as much as I do, I might be bitter. Angry. Resentful. But I’m not. I’m sad for her. Because I know I would’ve spent the rest of my life showing her how much she’s worth. And I would’ve been near her through every hard moment. I would’ve held her as we fell asleep, and I would’ve sung to her ... anytime she wanted to listen. I can’t say I won’t write more songs about her because that’s inevitable. The woman is my muse, and she will be for as long as I live, whether she knows it or not.

When Noémie took all my music, I thought I would never get over it. I thought it was the worst thing that could possibly happen to me. Now I’m realizing that while I loved her, I was never fully in love with her—there’s a difference. So much of a difference that it’s like standing in a shallow pond versus trying to stay afloat in a rushing river. I never had a chance to fight the current that is Sparrow. She pulled me under the second I saw her asleep on the train.

I’m now at Boston Logan airport, waiting at my gate before I head to Nashville. I have a few meetings I’ve set up there with the singer I met in Boston and some other country singers who are looking for a change in their style of lyrics. I even have a studio interested in my mixing abilities. I guess my demo got me further than I thought it would.

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