I jerked back before I lost the power to do it, turning my face hard to the windshield, gasping for air.
The spell was broken.
He pulled his hand away from my knee. His grip around my waist loosened. I could feel the disappointment in the set of his body.
I wondered if he could feel it in mine.
Finally the tow truck pulled into the parking lot of the auto shop. I unbuckled us and scrambled off him, hopping out as soon as the wheels stopped turning, and started walking the three blocks toward my house without waiting for him.
“Kristen, stop!”
I kept walking.
He had to deal with the tow truck driver, and I needed to put space between us and that ride. I needed to put Tyler between us, where he belonged. Tyler, who didn’t care if I couldn’t give him kids. Tyler, who wouldn’t be affected one way or another if I had my uterus yanked.
I pulled out my cell phone to play the message he left me, hoping the sound of his voice would smack me back into reality, ground me again, make me realize that no, I didn’t want Josh—I wanted my boyfriend.
But it wouldn’t.
Sloan was right. I had settled. Because anything less than Josh would be settling.
How did I get here? How had I fallen so far into this fucked life that I didn’t even want? I was a frog in a pot of boiling water.
I dialed my voicemail, struggling to catch my breath, emotion sucking up all the air. I called to hear Tyler’s message like it was my duty. Like it was something unpleasant I had to get through out of sheer obligation.
“Hi, Kris…”
Would Tyler and I share comfortable silences? Would he annoy me when he was here day in and day out?
He would annoy me because he couldn’t be Josh. Because he would make Josh disappear. And it would change the way I felt about Tyler. It wouldn’t even be fair to him, but I knew it would happen. I would resent him.
My throat got tight. I was a horrible person. It was traitorous to feel this way about another man, but I couldn’t stop the landslide. I couldn’t remember what Tyler smelled like. Couldn’t remember the way his arms felt around my body.
Everything was Josh.
“…I probably won’t be able to call you again for a few days and I really hoped we could talk tonight…”
I forced myself to keep the phone pressed to my ear, forced myself to endure the decisions I’d made as they tumbled over me and buried me in rubble. Every choice was another stone on the pile. The hysterectomy. Boulder. Asking Tyler to move in. Boulder. Spending so much time with Josh, letting myself fall in love with him. Boulders, heavier and heavier.
“…I’ve been trying to reach you and haven’t been able to get you on the phone…”
I wrapped my arm across my stomach and walked as quickly as I could in heels. I knew Josh was behind me somewhere and I needed more distance.
I ran up my front steps and dug my key from my purse, got the door open, and pushed inside holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder. I was going to lock myself in my room and not say good night to him. I couldn’t be face-to-face with him again. Not alone.
“…You mean so much to me, Kris, and I love you…”
As much as I recognized that Tyler wasn’t what I really wanted, I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was the only safety net I had between me and Josh. That he had to stay in place, or I’d plummet. There was no question in my mind. If there was no Tyler, I would crash into Josh so hard my heart wouldn’t survive the impact.
I just needed Tyler to get home. Now. I needed him to protect me from myself and remind me why we were together. To distract me and make me fall back in love with him and—
“…I reenlisted.”
I stopped so fast my heel wobbled and I almost rolled an ankle.
What???
My fingers fumbled, and I dropped my cell with a smack on the hardwood floor. I scrambled to pick it up, and I held the phone in front of me with shaking hands and played the message again on speaker.
Then I listened a third time just to be sure I heard what he said.