“I hate it when you call me that.”
I huffed and shut my laptop. “It’s your name.”
“Not for you, it’s not.”
“What do you want me to do here?” Everyone who knew Bennett usually called him B. I’m not sure when it started. I think when he and Emmett used to be made fun of for having such similar names.
“I’m not sure I have the answers.”
I stuffed my laptop in my bag and grappled to pick up the papers off the table. “Then I need to go.”
I was halfway to the door, hell-bent on leaving him in that room to figure out what he wanted. The tension between us had built over the two weeks we’d been sharing space—there was no denying that—but he’d gotten married. He’d moved on with his life while mine had stalled when it came to love.
“I thought I could forget you,” he admitted. His voice was rough and pained, so I circled back around. “That I could move on.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I remained quiet and still.
“As my marriage dissolved, I started searching.”
“Don’t.” I didn’t want to hear that he’d been thinking of me on the nights I’d been thinking of him too.
“But you don’t do anything on your socials. You have one black-and-white photo of you, and the rest are only of your work.”
I shook my head and closed my eyes.
“Please look at me.”
I swiveled back around, glancing at him through my eyelashes, not daring to give him all of my attention.
He looked down as though he regretted what he was about to say. “I couldn’t control myself. I was so unhappy, and I craved the connection we had.”
More silence stretched thin in the room. I should have left, let him keep his confessions. Because looking back, he was in no place to start something with me.
Bennett did everything by the book his entire life—and maybe that’s why a part of me trusted his decision to rekindle whatever was between us. That his marriage was really over. That he wouldn’t have said those things if he wasn’t certain.
Now, I wonder if it’s just the pull—the invisible string that refuses to break, no matter how thin and taut it gets.
He stood from the chair, and my breath hitched. He was going to break the distance, and I didn’t have it in me to fight him.
“When you walked into that break room, I knew.”
“Knew what?”
He took another step forward. “That I was stupid to ever think what we had would’ve faded, no matter how hard I tried to bury it.”
Another step, and I remained still. I couldn’t breathe. My hands gripped my bag and papers to my chest like a shield.
“I can’t keep pretending.” He stopped in front of me, just inches away. “I look at you every day and try to convince myself that I don’t still want you. That I don’t dream about what our future would’ve looked like.”
His words slammed into me.
“You married her,” I whispered.
He exhaled as if he’d been holding it in for years. “You broke up with me… in a letter.”
“We were young.”
I had chosen safety for my heart. I couldn’t live that double life anymore, and he was already pulling away, so I’d made the decision I thought he didn’t want to. But that didn’t mean I stopped loving him. I was just scared.
