Page 103 of Choosing Forever
DARREN
I stareout at the park, feeling sick to my stomach.
Nothing about this feels right. Not a single fucking thing.
Knowing that I’m here while Delaney’s at my place waiting for me doesn’t sit well. I dig my heels into the grass to keep myself from getting back in my car and going right back to her. If I do . . . if I give in, I’ll be sleeping beside her tonight, and I’ll have done all of this for nothing.
Our fight earlier was the worst we’ve ever had. The fact that it stemmed from what our relationship has become over the last two years only makes it harder to swallow. The things we said drove me here tonight, but it’s what we didn’t say that has kept me from going back.
None of this was the plan.
The choices we’ve been making aren’t the right ones. Not for either of us, and not for the future I want to have with her. I’ve never wanted to take a break, not for one year, and sure as shit not four. But she did.
Since we were sixteen, Delaney’s said she wanted this to happen. When I declared my intentions to marry her, she toldme I could in four years. She wanted to wait, to test our relationship to see if we were really ready for the commitment I’ve wanted to give to her so that we never had any regrets. Having her regret this—us—would kill me.
That’s the only reason I agreed. Because I love her more than life itself, and I’d do just about anything to make sure that it was her beside me at the end. But this . . . this isn’t how it was supposed to be. It’s all wrong, and it has to be me who puts us on the right track again. I need to do it before I lose her over these hazy lines that we keep crossing. With every wrong step, we’re left overthinking and ruining everything good between us in the aftermath.
This is the only right choice, even if I have to risk everything in order to fix us.
Headlights flare out over the road. They’re the first set of them to appear in the twenty minutes I’ve been here. I don’t need to look at the car to know it’s hers.
She doesn’t come out, though. I wait, but soon enough, I lose my patience. I’m on the edge, a change in the breeze nearly threatening to undo me completely. That’s why I push myself to go to her door and knock on the window.
Sad, expecting eyes clash against mine through the glass, and my stomach tumbles painfully. Delaney leaves her car running as she steps out and stands close to me, her heat palpable in the night.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” she asks sharply.
“I was going to.”
“When? Once I’d already flown home?”
I choke back my immediate refusal. It’s not like I can blame her for thinking that. Not after I’ve just completely left her alone at my place around people she doesn’t know well. I doubt Blue was good for a conversation that would have been intelligent enough for Delaney.
“No, Elle. I was going to call you back once I knew what to say.”
She darts her eyes away, looking out at the empty park. “What does that mean?”
“We both know this isn’t working.”
“That’s a bold assumption to make without taking my feelings into actual consideration,” she replies, hurt.
I sigh. “Don’t do that. The only thing I’ve been doing these past two years is take your feelings into consideration. I always put them at the forefront of every decision I make.”
Delaney blows out a breath. “I have never asked you to put me first. I thought you were okay with this, Darren. That’s what you’ve made me think.”
“What was I supposed to do? Tell you not to come to Calgary this time? Send you a text saying that I can’t do this fighting anymore? That I can’t accept the pieces of who we were two years instead of the real thing?”
“Yes! That’s exactly what you say. If you had, maybe we wouldn’t be here right now. We could have figured things out and not been like this!” She waves her hand between us. “I wantusback. You’re right. What we’re doing isn’t working anymore. Fuck this break, Darren.”
“Why?” I ask, whipping the word out, needing an answer.
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to put an end to this?”
“Because I miss you. I miss us, and I can’t lose you,” she admits, the crack in her voice nearly ending me.
I force myself to keep going, the words feeling sticky in my throat. “That’s the problem. Can you honestly say that you’ve learned what you’ve needed to? Have these last two years proven to you that we’re ready for marriage? That you trust our future wholeheartedly? Because those are the reasons behind us taking this break. I won’t let you make a decision like this based on emotion.”
