“Your friends love you, Elise,” he said with understanding and compassion in his handsome face. “They accept and cherish what you’ve allowed them to see in you—the good and the not so good.”
“I love them, too. Fay and Trudy know me better than my mother. Carol Ann, she’s the best; she drove me everywhere for three weeks after I sprained my right ankle last year. Abby and Leigh . . . and Molly and . . . all of them. I have great friends. I’d jump in front of a locomotive for any of them. They know that, right?”
“They know you.”
“So they think and agree that I’m . . . Daria Downer? That I’m fault-finding; that I take a lot for granted?”
“All about you.” He held up a finger. “I’m not saying they approve of the practice or that it doesn’t bother them at times—only that they accept it as a part of you. And they do that because there’s so much more about you that is worthy of their friendship and love.” He stopped at another four-way aisle intersection. “Their primary concern is that you’re not seeing the damage it’s doing to you. They’re afraid that you don’t know how self-destructive it is.”
The gray shadows fell across period costumes—Colonial gentleman and Southern belle; flapper, pilgrim and disco dancer—and then scattered away from a scene that had played repeatedly in her mind for weeks. For three weeks and two days, to be exact.
“It’s that night, after our six-month anniversary dinner,” Elise muttered, watching intently.
She’d let Max park his car, turn off the engine, get out, take the elevator and walk her all the way to her apartment door knowing full well what he was anticipating and equally as certain that she had no intention of letting him in.
She had come to a decision; she just didn’t know how to tell him.
“Max.” It was an odd moment to note how perfect he was to hold hands with. He wasn’t so tall and she wasn’t so short that either one of them had to compensate for the length of their arms—their hands were just right, back to back then palm to palm, coming together easily and inevitably.
“Hmm?” He smiled at her.
“We need to talk.”
“Good.” She could barely glance at him. “You’ve been acting . . . not yourself all night. Is something wrong?”
Her tongue felt stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she was too aware that they were still holding hands. She let go and turned to face him.
“This isn’t going to work,” she said, blurting out words that were closer to the end of her prepared speech than the beginning.
“What?”
“Eh. That’s not how I meant to say it.”
“Say what?” He had the deepest, warmest brown eyes she’d ever seen. They were confused and cautious.
“I’m saying that this, you and me, it isn’t going to work. I’ve known for a while and I’m sorry now that I didn’t put an end to it sooner. Certainly before tonight.” She waved her fingers back and forth between them and their elegant attire. “All your plans and . . . the flowers and . . . I’m sorry.”
He studied her face. “What’s happened? What triggered this?”
“Nothing. Not one specific thing. And it’s nothing you’ve done. You’re great. I like you a lot. I’m just not ready for more than a friendship right now. My life is complicated and—”
“It isn’t any more complicated than mine, Elise.” He wasn’t angry, just stating a fact. “You’re scared.”
She was. It might save a lot of time if she just owned it.
“Okay. I’m scared.”
He nodded, like he’d known for a while. “So am I. I get it. Life’s scary.” He recaptured her hand. “And love is the scariest part of all. It’s supposed to be. If love was as easy and free as everyone says it should be it would hold no value. It would be as ordinary and objective as . . . getting hungry. But it isn’t easy and it isn’t free; it’s rare and fragile.” He secured her other hand. “Don’t let your fear force you to turn your back on something so special and out of the ordinary.”
“Yeah. Extraordinary. I saw what loving someone can do to you when my dad left my mom. She suffered. It broke something inside of her . . . and me. I knew better. But then Jeremy came along and I thought: Oh wow. This is real love, not what my parents had. This is something extraordinary.”
“And it was.” His frown was worried, his sigh was sympathetic. “Loving someone is never wrong. It’s what you live for. It’s . . . it’s why you live; how you should live. But it takes two people to keep it alive, Elise. If one person gives up on it, it dies—and it’s a painful death.”
“With a new girlfriend and all my money, I don’t think Jeremy’s feeling much pain.”
“I’m not talking about Jeremy. I couldn’t care less about Jeremy. People have shit in their lives—you scrape it off your shoes and keep walking.” He stooped to look into her downcast eyes. “I’m talking about you, Elise. About us. Right here. Right now. You’re the one I care about.”
She looked up, knowing she’d see everything he was saying with his voice set solid in his eyes. It terrified her.
His smile was small, sweet, endearing. “Besides, it’s too late to run away from me now. You’re crazy about me.” She frowned and his smile grew, but only a bit. “You can deny it if it makes you feel safer, but I know when someone loves me, the same way I know when someone doesn’t. I can see it in your eyes; hear it in your voice. I can feel it when we touch . . . and when we kiss.
“And you feel it, too. That’s why you’re afraid, isn’t it? Because it feels like you’re exposing your underbelly to me. Because you’re feeling weak and vulnerable.” He brought her hands up between them, kissed the back of one and then the other. “That’s not what I want you to feel. I want you to trust me. But I’ll take it—for now—because I know what it means.”
“How can you be so certain?” It was very unfair. “How do you know I haven’t met someone else?”
“Have you?”
“That’s not the point. How do you know you can trust me? This could be revenge love . . . Maybe I’m using you to get back at your entire gender.”
“Are you?”
“No! That’s not it either. What I need to know is—”
“What you need is a guarantee.” He tipped her a sly look. “They don’t even have those in your romance novels. Love is a leap of faith . . . and hope and determination . . . and you know that already. You’re just afraid and—while I am prepared and very willing to hammer at it until we’re old and gray—you’re the only one who can do anything about it.”
He stepped back. Having presented his argument, he didn’t seem to have much more to say. He stood quietly, giving her time to speak, to reconsider, to look him in the eye and reiterate her case. When she didn’t, and when the silence between them grew awkward, he spoke again.
“Look, I was sort of prepared for this—sometimes the gears in your head squeak really loud,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “Maybe you weren’t prepared for me to fight back—you underestimated that in me, too, I think. So just for the record, I do know you’re serious. I know you want out. But I also know that panic and fear can make us do stupid things. Disastrous things. So I’ll give you a little time, and some space, to reevaluate our situation.” He knuckled her chin up to look into her face. “I’m not going to beg you to admit that you love me. Not my style. But I will be around if you change your mind.”