Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 41687 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41687 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
I picked up my phone and stared at Robbie’s name in my contacts. The last text exchange was from six weeks ago, when I’d asked if he was okay and he’d never responded. My thumb hovered over his name, but what was I supposed to say? Sorry for ambushing you in your new life. Please disregard everything I said.
The plane hit a pocket of turbulence, and my stomach lurched. Or maybe that was just the memory of walking away from him again, leaving him standing on that porch looking lost and beautiful and completely out of reach.
I’d meant what I said about giving him time, but fuck, I hadn’t thought about how the waiting would feel. How every minute that passed without hearing from him would feel like confirmation that I’d waited too long, been too stubbornly sure that I knew what Robbie needed better than he did, and fucked up the one thing that mattered most to me.
My phone buzzed against the table, and I lunged for it with embarrassing desperation.
Magpie
Can I ask you a few questions?
My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I was surprised it didn’t crack them. On the way to South Carolina, I’d changed his name back to Magpie in my phone. After everything, that’s who he was to me. Yes, he was a man, an adult. But he was also still the beautiful daydreamer, the hopeful idealist he’d been when he was younger. The collector of beautiful and meaningful things. And I loved that about him too much not to recognize it.
Of course you can. Ask me anything.
The three dots appeared immediately, disappeared, appeared again. I held my breath, staring at the screen like my life depended on it. Which, if I were being honest, it probably did.
Magpie
Why did you change your mind?
Such a simple question. Such an impossible answer. I stared at the screen, trying to figure out how to explain more than a year of slowly unraveling self-control, of realizing that every day without him was a day I was only half-alive.
Which time? When I kissed you at your father’s house? When I let you into my office that night? Or when I decided to show up at your door today?
Magpie
Today. What made you finally decide to tell me how you felt?
How the hell was I supposed to answer that?
I couldn’t breathe without you.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and tried to find words for the moment everything had changed.
Three weeks ago, I was at dinner with some investors. One of them mentioned his son had just gotten engaged, and he showed us pictures of the proposal. The whole restaurant cheering, family crying, everyone so fucking happy. And all I could think about was how Jake proposed to you in that park, and how you’d rather walk away from what everyone else would call perfect than settle for something that wasn’t right.
I paused, thumb hovering over the keyboard. This was it. The moment I either won him back or lost him forever.
I realized I’d been trying so hard to protect you from me that I never asked what you actually wanted. I’d been making decisions for both of us based on what I thought you deserved instead of what you needed. You needed someone who knows you, sees you. Who doesn’t idealize you or try and fit you into little boxes for their own sake. Someone who loves you more than anything on Earth and will do anything to make you happy. And that person is me. I’m not perfect, Robbie. But I want to be perfect for you. And I want to be worthy of you.
The dots appeared and disappeared several times. I waited, barely breathing, while he typed and deleted and typed again.
Magpie
When did you know you loved me?
My throat tightened. Of all the questions he could have asked, this one was the hardest. Because it meant admitting just how long I’d been lying to both of us.
The night I found the heart shell. The night you graduated from college. When you had that panic attack in my office.
Magpie
That was over a decade ago.
The longest almost twelve years of my life.
Magpie
You’ve been in love with me for that long and you never said anything?
I closed my eyes, remembering that night. The way he’d looked at me with such trust, even in the middle of falling apart. The way his body had fit against mine like he belonged there. The realization that I would have done anything—literally anything—to keep him safe and happy.
You were twenty-two. You’d just confessed you wanted me to fuck you, and then you had a panic attack because you thought you’d ruined everything between us. The last thing you needed was me telling you I had feelings for you too.
Magpie
Too?
Shit. I hadn’t meant to admit that part.