I fold my arms across my chest, more armor than comfort, and look away before the tears threaten to win. The clink of cutlery. The low hum of conversation. The sound of the world spinning on like it doesn’t know everything inside me has cracked open. The silence stretches between us like a chasm.
After everything—all the almosts and maybes and years we lost—we’re sitting here with our hands in our laps and our hearts full of regret.
eight
. . .
Rowan
She looks at me like I’ve just ripped her world apart, and maybe that’s exactly what I did a long time ago. The difference is, I’ve been too much of a coward to see it for what it was.
Now I can see it all too clearly.
The truth is, I never really understood what I was walking away from until this very moment.
I joined the military because I thought it would make me strong, that it would give me something solid to hold onto. But it didn’t. All it did was make me realize just how weak I really was. I thought running away would fix me. I thought it would be easier than facing her. I didn’t know the price I’d pay for that decision.
I couldn’t face how she looked at me with those wide, trusting eyes, how she believed in me when I didn’t even believe in myself. She was everything I wasn’t. Good. Soft. Pure. And I loved her. God, how I loved her. But I wasn’t worthy of someone like her.
“I’m sorry,” I say, the words scraping my throat raw. “I’m so fucking sorry, Violet. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
Her eyes shine with unshed tears, but she doesn’t look away. “You should have told me,” she whispers. “I would have followed you anywhere.”
And just like that, something caves in my chest. All those years I kept telling myself this was the merciful choice. That letting her go was better than wrecking her…and for what?
Now she’s sitting here blinking back tears she doesn’t want me to see. Sweet and furious and so goddamn strong. I didn’t just tear my own heart out that day. I ripped hers in half and left her to hold the pieces on her own.
“I thought you might,” I rasp. “And that’s exactly why I left.”
She pulls back just enough for her brow to furrow, confusion shadowing her features like a bruise blooming slow and painful. I can see her trying to make sense of it—of me—and I hate that I’m the reason she’s hurting like this. I hate that I ever thought silence was mercy, that I ever thought I could leave without a word and spare her pain, when all I really did was abandon her.
Naive.Stupid. I can see exactly how every day I stayed gone made it easier for her to close herself off, how every missed call and unsent message stacked up between us.
“I would have never asked you to follow me into the kind of life I was headed for. I didn’t have shit figured out. I didn’t have anything to offer except a mess.”
Her bottom lip trembles, and that tiny, fragile crack just about breaks me in half. Because it’s not anger now. It’s worse. It’s hurt. It’s that bone-deep ache in knowing someone would’ve chosen you anyway, even if you had nothing to give.
I want to reach for her. To touch her cheek, tuck her hair behind her ear, do something to hold her together the way she used to hold me. But my hands stay where they are. Useless.
“And now?” she asks, voice small but firm.
Now? Now I’m not the same boy who ran without warning. I’ve learned what it means to keep yourself from unraveling even when everything inside wants to crumble. I have a life, a steady hand, a bank account that can actually pay the bills, and experiences that have tempered my impulsive heart.
I’m back because I think I can finally be the man I should have been all along.
I hold her gaze because it’s the only thing I can do right now. “I’d give anything to go back and do it differently, but I can’t. So all I can do is mean it when I say I’m sorry. And tell you I’ve always?—”
“Please don’t,” she whispers. “You don’t know me anymore, Rowan.”
The words aren’t harsh, not meant to hurt, but that’s exactly what they do. It’s not the cruelty that cuts. It’s the truth.
I want to argue. I want to tell her she’s wrong, that I still know the parts of her that matter, the things that made me fall for her in the first place. Like the way she lit up a room with that sweet laugh and how she always saw the best in people. But…fuck, I can’t deny it.
She’s not that girl anymore, and I’m not the kid she used to look at like I was worth saving.
I left an eighteen-year-old behind with a cracked heart and unanswered questions, and now there’s a woman in front of me who wears the years like armor. She’s stronger.
Still beautiful. Still Violet. But not mine.