I waited for her on the porch. When her headlights turned in to the driveway, I jogged down the steps to meet her.
She looked exhausted as she climbed out of the car in the light of the flood lamp.
“She’s home,” she said, standing with me in front of her car. The engine ticked and heat came off the grille, radiating into my legs. “We sat on the curb until she was calm enough to go back inside. She let me take some pictures of the injuries, but she still won’t let me call the police.”
I reached out and put a hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She hugged her arms around herself. “Daniel, we need to talk.”
My stomach dropped. “Okay. About what?”
“Let’s go inside. Talk in your room.”
I followed her up the spiral staircase to my loft, my heart pounding. This wasn’t good. I knew it wasn’t good. Nothing good ever comes out of “we need to talk.”
When we got inside, she sat on the bed, and I took the spot next to her. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
It took her a moment to begin. “Daniel, when we started this, it was just a sex thing for me.”
I waited. It looked like she was struggling.
“That’s not what this is for me anymore.”
I would have smiled at this except she looked so serious. She licked her lips. “Is this still just a sex thing for you?” I shook my head. “No. Definitely not.”
She held my eyes, but she didn’t smile. My mouth was dry. I didn’t like where this was going.
“Daniel, I came here today planning to tell you that I can’t come see you anymore.”
My heart plummeted. No…
“But I can’t do it. So I need to be really honest with you so you can have the final say in what’s going to happen.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“I’m applying for a new job. If I get it, I’ll be working eighty hours a week. I’m already not in the greatest place to have any kind of relationship. If I get this job, it’ll be worse. And even if I don’t get the job, I’m not sure continuing to see each other is a good idea for either of us.”
I shook my head. “Why?”
She looked away from me. “I don’t see us having a future.” Her eyes came back to mine.
My heart cracked.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I have to be honest with you about that. And that’s a problem because I’m starting to have feelings for you. So my instinct is to break things off because that’s what’s fair to you—”
“Why don’t you let me decide what’s fair for me?” I said.
She sucked her lips together. “Daniel, if we keep seeing each other, it will be temporary. It won’t lead anywhere, and it won’t last.”
“I don’t care.”
I said it before I could even think about it. But it was true. I didn’t care. If the choice was her walking out of my life tonight and never seeing her again, or getting more time with her, no matter how short that time might be, I wanted the time. I needed it.
She studied my face, and I knew she was deciding for me anyway, even though she’d given me the choice.
“Look,” I said. “I’m a big boy. And I acknowledge and appreciate everything you’re telling me. But I’d like to keep seeing you.”
She went quiet for a long moment. I felt the teetering. Like this could go either way. I held my breath.
“Okay,” she said finally. “Why?” I asked.
“Why what?”
“Why don’t you see a future with me?”
It was one of those questions that you don’t really want the answer to. She was being brutally honest with me, and I knew she wouldn’t sugarcoat this either. But I had to know.
“Our lives don’t fit,” she said simply. “They just don’t.”
She didn’t need to elaborate. I knew what she meant. We lived too far apart. She couldn’t work here, and I couldn’t move. I was too young for her…
At this point I wasn’t even sure it was the age thing that was the actual problem. I don’t think that had been an issue for her in a while. It was that I hadn’t lived long enough to figure my life out yet.
She had almost a decade head start, and even then I’d never achieve the things she had professionally or financially. But if I were older, maybe it would have closed the gap a little.
If I could snap my fingers and fast-forward a decade or two, I would. I’d lose all that time if it would make the difference.
Maybe I’d be a successful carpenter in twenty years. I might own the property and have a business selling my woodworking. Have an innkeeper working for me to take care of the guests. Or maybe I’d be living in the house and not in the dusty garage she had to sleep in to be with me.
But as it stood? I couldn’t even afford to take her on a trip or buy her something nice. I’d met her friends. I couldn’t imagine hanging out with them, let alone their husbands. I had nothing in common with those people.
But the funny thing was, even though I didn’t fit into her life, she fit into
mine.
When she was in Wakan, she was my girlfriend. She didn’t want the title, but it didn’t matter. It was what it was.
But when she was back in her own world, I wasn’t her boyfriend. I don’t think I even existed for her outside of this place. And I didn’t know how to change that—and neither did she.
I felt desperate all of a sudden. Like a clock had begun ticking. An expiration date had been set on this thing between us, and she was right—it wasn’t a sex thing. Not even close. I’m not sure it ever really had been.
A small part of me hoped I could change her mind. If I was good enough to her, if I made her happy enough, maybe she’d reconsider. Maybe even if she got that job, we could figure it out. We could make it work.
But the realistic side of me knew none of those things were going to happen. There wasn’t going to be a save.
All I could do was give her what I could. And that wasn’t enough. She had a whole different life in a whole different world, and she’d only ever been here to visit. It was the reality of this situation. I’d always been on borrowed time with her. And I think I’d always known it.
I had to be in this with my eyes wide open. I had to sign up to be hurt when the time came for this to end. Because it would end. She’d made that clear.
“I’m in,” I said. “When it’s over, it’s over.”
But I knew even then, it wouldn’t be. I suspected it would never really be over.
At least not for me.
