Page 122 of Fated

His eyes widen as he scans my face, looking for something, and when he finds it he takes a small step forward.

“Really?” Robert asks.

I nod, watching Aaron. “I’ll meet you at your place. I won’t be long.”

After a moment of strained, tense silence, Robert nods.

“Fine.”

And then there’s the sound of his footsteps and the door as he closes it behind him.

After he’s gone I expect the electricity riding in the air to sputter out. But instead it builds, pulling and arching between Aaron and me. It’s so pronounced it feels like if I reached out and touched Aaron, a flash of electricity would snap between us with a bright blue-white spark.

The current grows and grows, the tension rising. I scoot my wooden chair back and stand, letting the folds of my white dress fall over my thighs. The cottage is quiet and the kitchen window is open, letting in the crashing waves of the ocean and the rich perfume of a humid night. I don’t know where Amy or Sean are, but I do know that Aaron and I are the only ones here.

I step around the table, my dress whispering around my legs, the damp heat of the evening clinging to my skin.

As I move closer, the iron will that Aaron holds himself still with breaks. His mouth trembles and he presses his lips together, and once I’m within reach, he whispers, “Becca. Don’t. Don’t do this.”

My shoulders fall and I reach out, putting my fingers to his heart. When I do he stiffens, looks down at my hand, and then lets out a long exhale.

“I’m sorry. I have to. I have to go.”

He looks at me when I say this, his eyes swimming with emotion. “You don’t. I don’t understand what’s happened. If you’d asked this a year, six months ago, I would’ve stepped aside. I would’ve understood. We weren’t ever what you wanted. What you needed. But then we had this summer. We ...” He closes his eyes, taking a painful swallow. “Fi?” he asks, a broken whisper.

When he opens his eyes again I nod. “Yes.”

Tension crackles off him, a storm growing inside. “I hate that word. I hate it and I love it. The first time you said it I wanted you. And then I loved you. And some days it’s gone and some days it’s here. But when I say ‘Fi’ and you say ‘yes,’ don’t you think ... doesn’t it feel like the hand of fate? Like we can’t help but love each other?”

He lifts a hand to my cheek, spreading his fingers in my hair. “I’ve known you my whole life and I’ve loved you for fifteen years. But this, what I feel right now, it’s a hurricane compared to a sprinkle. It’s a tsunami compared to a ripple. Don’t—” He looks down at me, his jaw shaded as he tilts his head, his eyes hungrily scanning my features. “Don’t go. Stay. Stay with me. Stay as this Becca, the one I love—the one who loves me. Stay with me.”

“I can’t.” I close my eyes, knowing I dreamed this moment because it’s time to go.

Aaron rubs his finger over my bottom lip, spanning his fingers over my cheeks. “You made me fall in love. You made me dream again. Why would you do that if you were always planning on leaving?”

I stare up at him, transfixed by his question, by the sensation of his fingers running over my lip and the sparks lighting over my skin.

I reach up, take his hand, and press his fingers to my mouth. Then I pull his hand back, resting my fingers over the beating of his pulse.

Maybe Aaron isn’t real. Maybe he isn’t alive. But that doesn’t mean he can’t feel, he can’t love, and he can’t hurt. Or, I suppose, it doesn’t mean that I can’t feel and love and hurt for him.

I need to explain so that when I close the watch case in the morning, tuck it away forever, I won’t regret leaving him.

“You,” I say, my throat tight and raw, “are the only man I’ve ever wanted to give up everything for. When my mum asked me what I dreamed of, I couldn’t answer, but the first moment I saw you, I knew in my heart that what I’ve always dreamed of is you. I was afraid for years of being left. It’s the worst pain being left by someone you love. I was so afraid of it that I never loved. Not even my best friend could find his way into my heart.”

“But you’ve always had me,” Aaron says, reaching to rest his hand over mine, the thudding of his heart steady beneath my palm.

I shake my head. “I haven’t. I’ve only had you this summer. And I didn’t really have you. I knew from the start that none of this was real?—”

“It is.”

“That it would have to end.”

“It doesn’t.”

“That dreams don’t become reality.”

“But they can.”

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