to the bedrooms. The tweed couch my parents gave me was the only nice thing in the room and even that had more wear and tear than I’d have liked.
He walked over to the shelf lined with pictures of Rachel and me from the time she was a tiny little newborn to the one Kenya took of us on her first day of Kindergarten.
“It doesn’t matter what things I’ve done wrong in my life. She’s my pride and joy. The one thing I know I did right.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder with an inscrutable look. “What things have you done wrong?”
“Lots,” I admitted.
His legs swiftly closed the distance between us in several long strides. “Tell me,” he demanded.
With only a few inches separating us, I could barely think. He smelled so damn good. Like warm masculinity. It was a potent smell. One that made a woman want to just bend over and take whatever he was offering.
“Tell me,” he repeated a little more forcefully. “I need to hear it. Please.”
The plea in his voice had me losing it. It was just like that night I left him standing on the railroad tracks wondering why I was breaking up with him. My chest felt heavy from the crushing weight of all my decisions, and tears sprang into my eyes.
“Leaving you was my biggest mistake,” I said in a low murmur.
A lone tear tracked down my face. His words from that night echoed in my brain again—the same way they had so many times over the last six years.
Why aren’t I enough for you?
“You were always enough for me,” I finally said the words that had threatened to come out that night so long ago. The ones that would have set me free while at the same time would have chained him to a nobody. I was a loser with no promising future.
His eyes closed and a look of relief seemed to wash over his face. Until that moment I hadn’t realized that his body had been so tense until it visibly relaxed in front of me—his muscles loosening and his shoulders slumping.
“But why?” His eyes searched my face, imploring me to make sense of my actions from long ago.
“Because you deserved more than what I had to offer.”
“What?” he asked in confusion. “That doesn’t make any sense because I vividly recall wanting anything and everything with you. We planned our future together—the Rachels and the Vincenzos. The white house with the red door and a white picket fence. I’d be a teacher while you’d raise the kids. How did you ever think that I needed any more than that?”
“I’m a nobody who couldn’t afford college. Without me weighing you down, you were able to go to Princeton like your dad wanted. If I hadn’t left you, you would have gone to State College just so you could be close to me. I would have ruined your dreams.”
He cursed loudly. His arm cocked and he punched the drywall next to me, leaving an indent. I was startled by his outburst. It was so unlike him to not be calm and in control.
“You were my fucking dream, Miranda.” His voice was low and angry. Tension reverberated off of him, and he began pacing back and forth in front of me, lost in thought.
I bit my lip to fight off the surge of tears threatening to pour from my eyes. Regardless of what he said, it was too hard to consider that I might have been wrong. Knowing he was better off without me was the only thing that had kept me going all these years.
“Now what?” He stopped his pacing and asked.
His unexpected question caught me off guard and it took me several seconds to answer him. “I don’t know, Matt.”
“Yes, you do. You know exactly what I want to hear.” He stalked towards me with a glint in his eyes that had me swallowing hard.
“No, I don’t.”
“Tell me what I want to hear.” His lips teasingly glided across my cheek and down my jaw.
“I can’t,” I said weakly.
“Yes you can. Tell me, Miranda.”
I closed my eyes when his breath fanned across my cheek. I was so afraid of making another wrong decision. What if our time had passed? What if we were just meant to be a really great memory?
“Tell. Me. Dammit, just fucking tell me. You have to be the one to say it.”
“What do you want to hear? That ever since I saw you again, all I’ve wanted