“I’m not going to get kidnapped and you’re not Liam Neeson,” she hissed. “I’m living my life, Nick. That’s what adults do.”
“Adult,” I snorted. “You’re not even twenty-one.”
“Age is just a number,” she fired back. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve grown up while you weren’t looking.”
I looked. She did look different. More mature. Her curves a little fuller…fuck, I wasn’t looking at her curves.
“I wasn’tnotlooking, kiddo. You stayed away.”
Wow. I shouldn’t have said that. That made it sound like she’d stayed away intentionally. From me. I knew it couldn’t be true. I knew it was selfish to even think it.
But what if it was true?
“I didn’t…” she stopped herself, took a breath. “I think we should go inside.”
“I think we should stay out here and finish this conversation.”
“There’s nothing to finish,” she said and pulled her wrist out of my hand, where I hadn’t even realized I’d still been holding on to her. “You need to accept the fact that I’m a grown up. Who will make her own choices in life.”
“I do accept that. I just think going so far away from your family, your home, is that really the best idea?”
“It’s what I want to do. Mom and Dad both support me.”
“And I don’t count.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact. I just couldn’t believe it was true.
“And you don’t count,” she repeated, which for some reason felt like a knife sliding through my chest.
We stood there for a minute too long in the silence. This hadn’t gone the way I wanted. We hadn’t gotten back to normal at all. Instead we’d taken a further step apart.
“It’s never going to be like it was,” I finally acknowledged. “Is it?”
I didn’t have to elaborate. Or explain myself. She knew what I meant.
We were never going to be what we were.
“No,” she said. “I…I don’t know why, but I think…maybe I should tell you. I mean, you heard about Brian.”
Brian? Brian. The boyfriend. “Yeah. I thought that was over.”
“It is. But he was really nice. He was very sweet and the sex was…it was okay. I mean, my first time, it was all good. Nice even.”
I closed my eyes. This was fucking excruciating.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, my voice three octaves lower.
“I don’t know,” she said and bit her lower lip. “I get why I shouldn’t, but I just…I just wanted you to know that I’m good. I’m happy and dating. And all of it. All that silly teenager stuff…it’s gone. Okay?”
It was a little bit of an out. That silly teenager stuff. She’d put a name to it at least.
She was trying to tell me she’d moved on. She’d fucked some guy named Brian. And in a few months she would leave for Europe and who knew when I would see her again.
She would become her own person and I wouldn’t have anything to do with it.
She’d be Nora Barnes. Just an old friend of the family.
A part of my soul howled inside. But I nodded. “You should get back inside.”
“Yeah, it’s freezing out here,” she said and rubbed her hands together. “Nice seeing you again, Nick.”
