I glance over at him. “It was just a quick trip.”
“To your hometown. And you didn’t want me there.” He sighs. “I can’t be mad at you for how you feel. But we’ve had different experiences on these last two days. Maybe even a different experience in our last camp summer.”
“Are you trying to say you were more into me back then?” Because I will shut that BSdown.
He leans back on his hands and looks out at the water. “It is what it is.”
“I hate that expression. What does it even mean? And what does it have to do with that summer? Do you have any idea how I felt on that last morning, sitting here and hearing Ben tell me you ran away? I cracked open my heart and poured it out for you, and your response was to bug out early and send Ben to break up with me.”
“I was scared.” He says it quietly, but he meets my eyes. “All that night after Moon Rock, I wrestled with this big feeling. I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with it. It had me so freaked out, I ran away.”
“I feel so flattered.” My nails dig into my palms as I hold myself together even tighter. This is the fight we never got to have, but I still don’t know how to have it, because he’s right: I can’t be mad about the way he felt. Or feels.
“I’m not explaining this well. That feeling, it wasn’t fear. But I reacted to it with fear. By the time I figured it out, it was too late to go back and apologize,” he says. “Remember how I said I decided I was ready to fall in love after college, but it didn’t work out?”
I raise my eyebrows. Like I was going to forget that particular emotional papercut.
“What I didn’t say is that it’s because the longer I dated her, the more I realized it wasn’t possible to fall for her. Because I had already fallen in love. With you. Two years before. And I wasn't over you.”
That steals my breath. I know the feeling. I haven’t consciously compared other relationships to ours, but I was always chasing an emotional high I hadn’t found since that summer. Since those giddy days of being consumed by thoughts of Sawyer, waking and sleeping.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Two years after you’d made it clear you never wanted to talk to me again?”
I give a single nod, like,Okay. Fair enough.
“I also knew we had completely different lives happening in totally different places,” he says. “I told myself that for a few more years. And then Oak Crest came up for sale, and the ghost of Tabitha Winters would not go away.”
He reaches over and touches my elbow, tugging lightly at the fabric of the sweatshirt.
“Tab. For me, from the second we decided to buy it, it was about finding a way back to you. I loved you then. I love you now. I thought all it would take was this place and a little time to convince you of that. But it didn’t.”
“You have no idea how much these words would have meant to me then.” The ones he’d left me with instead had filled sleepless nights, eaten away at my insides, chewed up my self-confidence, and hollowed me out for a long time.
“But not now?” he asks.
I try to sort through the riot inside me. So many conflicting emotions and thoughts. It’s chaos, and I can’t even know most of its pieces. This was the last conversation I expected to have when I came back to Oak Crest. Even the off-the-charts chemistry between us the last couple days hasn’t prepared me for this conversation.
This beautiful man is telling me he loves me. He’s asking me if that means anything to me. He deserves an answer. That’s what I know for sure.
I take a deep breath. “It matters now too. It tells me that I can trust my instincts, and that was the worst thing about that summer. I left feeling like I couldn’t. I’d thought we shared the same feelings, and more than just hurting when I found out you didn’t, I doubted myself. That I knew what was real.
“So I threw myself into finishing my degree and applying to culinary school, then I threw myself into my career, and I didn’t give relationships much of a shot. I dated, but every time it started to get real, I panicked. What if I was wrong again?”
Sawyer sighs. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know. I do.”
“I wish I could go back in time and punch my own face,” he says, winning a small laugh from me.
I’m exhausted. All this reconciling and sharing feelings with him, my mom, him again. I stand and pull him to his feet. “I’m glad you tricked me back here.” I smile up at him, and a tight knot I’ve carried for nine years unwinds inside me. It’s a warm and wondrous feeling. It’s forgiveness.
“I didn’t know how much I needed this talk. I think you get exactly how much you hurt me, which you could only understand if you’d also felt the same thing. And understanding that…” I keep my eyes fixed on the knot of his tie. “It means my instincts were good. The only time I thought I loved someone and that he loved me back, I was right. It was real.”
“It was real,” he answers, barely more than a whisper. He pulls me toward him, and I lean my head against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart while he holds me.
“I need to confess something,” he says after a minute. “The more time I’ve spent here, the more I’ve wondered if there’s a way to fix the past. After these past few days, I’m sure there is. It can be real again.”
