Page 67 of Lose You to Find Me

She lifts it, moving her fingers without flinching. “I took some Motrin earlier. It stings a little sometimes, but it’s fine otherwise.”

I nod, staring at the burger on my lap.

Raine picks up a chicken nugget and offers it to me. “They put some sweet chili sauce in here.” She digs out the sauce container and passes that over too, arching her brows when I don’t accept either.

“You eat them,” I tell her.

Her lips twitch. “You love this sauce.”

I love you moreis my first thought. I don’t bother speaking that aloud though, because it wouldn’t get me very far. “You’re the one who wanted them. Go ahead and eat up. You look like you’ve lost weight.”

She looks good, but it doesn’t stop me from being hyperaware that her face looks a little narrower than normal.

We go back to eating in silence, save for the food wrapper crinkling under my double cheeseburger whenever I pick it up and set it down.

There’s something to be said about people who can sit comfortably in silence. Mom used to tell me that’s how you know somebody is the one. You don’t have to do anything to feel comfortable around them. You simply exist in the same atmosphere.

“What do you see for your future?” I ask, looking over and watching her stop midway through taking a sip of her fountain drink.

She slowly lowers her drink. “Caleb…”

“Excluding me,” I reiterate. She’s not going to tell me the reason she called it off without a little pushing. “Who is Raine five years from now? Ten years? What was your plan when you ended it with us? You had to have had one. You always do.”

My ex blinks at my boldness, then whispers, “I don’t know.” Her head leans back against the headrest. “I’m not sure who I’ll even be tomorrow at this point. That’s a lot to ask of somebody.”

Another cop-out. Unlike her, I know my answer. “I see myself running a successful hardware store, one Dad would be proud of. I’ve already started making plans to build a website that will help people be able to find and order things easier. They can pick it up once it’s in. There’s going to be competitive prices against the chain stores that they’d have to travel to, which makes Anders that much more accessible to the community.” Ignoring my food, I keep going. “I want to buy that plot of land near my parents’ house and build something on it. Nothing big or showy, just a small house with plenty of land to settle on. Create a garden, like the one Mom has out back, and maybe do an in-ground pool like Dad used to consider putting in. A space to call my own, with people to call my own. A home. Happiness. That’s what I want for my future.”

I see her visibly swallow, as if that’s somehow too much for her to handle.

“But,” I add, leaning back and picking at the fries barely touched between us, “I would have settled for anything that would include you in it, even if that meant you focusing on your career first and us later. If that were the real reason you ended our relationship, I would have understood. You didn’t have to lie. You didn’t have to make it seem like there was someone else or other options you wanted to explore first.”

A tiny breath escapes her, and I’m not sure she’ll answer me.

Setting her drink down in the cupholder between us, she shifts her body to me. “How many people have you been with besides me?”

The question is straight out of left field. “Where did that come from?”

“Just…” She wets her lips. “How many?”

For fuck’s sake.“I’m not sure I’m in the mood to discuss this, especially since you didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m trying to.”

Confusion has my brow furrowing.

Raine looks down at her lap. “Even in high school, you seemed so sure about your life. What you would do and where you would end up. You never let anything get in the way of the image you built in your head. And that always, always included me.” She takes a deep breath and lifts her gaze upward until her wary, dark eyes are meeting my own. “I never understood that. I knew what I wanted to go to school for and hoped I’d find a good practice to work at before opening my own. But anything could have happened. And there were some things that definitely made me wonder if that’d happen. External factors.”

External factors.“I’m not following.”

“You had football scholarships and girls always after you who would have given you the world no matter what it was, and I never understood why you didn’t go after that life,” she admits, fiddling with the last nugget in her box. “I’m not like any of them. I used to think that was my parents getting into my head about why it wasn’t smart to settle down or be in a serious relationship so young, but that’s not it at all.”

I know her parents used to get in her head, but she never seemed like she bought into anything they said. It didn’t stop her from dating me or sneaking around. That was how I knew she loved me. Because even though she loved them too, she was willing to risk their consequences.

That meant something.

“Your parents fought all the time because they tried making something work between them that wasn’t going to. They weren’t happy in their relationship.” I lock eyes with her, vulnerability seeping through my skin. “But we were. Weren’t we?”

Pain instantly lances through her facial features, her glassy eyes saddening as she fidgets with the seat buckle next to her. “Caleb, it was never because I was miserable with you. I thought you knew that by now.”

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