The Heartbreaker of Echo Pass - Maisey Yates Page 0,104
I want anymore. I couldn’t see a future, because it didn’t matter. I could barely see the hand in front of my face. Every nail and board in this place was done in a kind of blind faith I didn’t realize I was living. That someday I would want to live here. That someday I would have a reason to really be... Living. I didn’t know that. I didn’t think of it that way. And some time in the last two months it shifted. And I wasn’t building it just for me anymore. I thought of you while I hammered these nails. And I thought of being here with you, living here with you. Building a life with you. And right now, standing here, my only regret is that when I took you up to the top of that hill and shared that picnic with you, I didn’t tell you I loved you then. But I wasn’t ready.”
He took in a breath. “Realizing that I was in love again... That’s been a special kind of grief, Iris, because I’ve had to let go in some new and different ways. But it’s not moving on or forgetting the past. It’s moving forward. Because time does move forward, no matter how you sequester yourself up in the top of the mountains, it’s true. The people that you care about all live life without you. You can freeze yourself, but you can’t freeze the world. And truly, there’s no point to it. I was lying to myself. Thinking that if I stayed up here I wouldn’t have to accept it. That I wouldn’t have to accept anything. But I do. And I have.”
“Griffin,” she said. “I understand that you’re... That you’re hurting. And of course you are. And I want to be there for you. I do. I can... I can help heal you. I understand what it’s like. To lose like we did, and I know it isn’t the same, but...look, helping isn’t the same as...loving. It’s not.”
“No, don’t you understand? I don’t need you to help me heal. It’s not that. I don’t want for us to just hold hands while we walk into a different life. I don’t want to do that and then say our goodbyes. We’re not each other’s medicine. I think we could be more than that.”
“I don’t know what to say. I don’t know... I don’t know.”
“Just say that you love me.”
“I don’t understand why you think you love me. I mean... I don’t understand.”
“I just do. It’s that simple.”
* * *
IRIS LOOKED AT GRIFFIN, and terror streaked through her. She could not for the life of her figure out why this was happening. Figure out why this beautiful, wonderful man was telling her that he loved her. And why it made her want to run away. Why she had to run away.
“I need you,” he said.
And that rooted her feet to the spot. And she had to wonder, if that could be enough.
He doesn’t really love you. Not like that.
He can say whatever he wants, but he loves you because you cook for him.
He loves you because you’re steady.
Because you’re everything you’ve always been.
He loves you the same way Mom loved you.
When you can do what you’re told. When you can help.
She felt like her heart had been torn open, every disloyal thought she’d ever kept buried, deep in the sea of her uncertainty, coming flooding out. She couldn’t do anything about it. Couldn’t do anything to change it. It was... It was terrible. More than terrible. And now that it was careening around out in the open like that, in endless torment, there was nothing she could do to stop it. Nothing at all.
And it hurt.
It hurt worse than anything ever had.
Second.
Less.
He was beautiful. And he was first. And he was perfect.
Maybe being needed was enough. Maybe it could be enough.
Because that was the kind of love he meant, and he might not think so, but she knew.
Because other love just wasn’t for a girl like her.
She’d wanted to be the one for someone. Someday. Deep in her heart she’d always wanted that. She’d been a romantic, and she’d been starving to feel...to feel like she was the one who mattered. Not just useful. Not just the one who could take care of people.
This wasn’t what she’d dreamed of.
But now he was all she could see and looking at him hurt.
With tears pooling in her eyes, spillover from that flood happening in her soul,