A Wright Christmas - K.A. Linde Page 0,53

a tear from her cheek. “But if you do feel the same way, Peyton, please just give me a chance.”

She closed her eyes and let the tears fall freely. “I’m sorry, Isaac. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Be mine. Be here with me. Be there with me. Just be mine.” I pressed a kiss to her mouth. “I know that you love me.”

“Please don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

“I can’t make it easier on you. I don’t want you to go. I can’t imagine you walking out of my life again.”

“I know,” she whispered. She opened her big brown eyes, and I saw the resignation in them. “I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to end this. But ballet is my one true love. It’s the only thing that has always been there for me. And it’s calling me back home. So, I’m going back to New York…and I don’t think we can do this long distance. You have a daughter to think of.”

“I do. I love Aly. I want what’s best for her. And what’s best for her is me falling madly in love with you.”

“How would it even work?” she asked, swiping at her face. “You come up on weekends with your daughter? I almost never have time off. A few days here, a few days there. That’s not a life. That’s not fair to you or Aly.”

“So, it’s better to walk away from love?”

“No,” she gasped. “It’s better to face reality. The last month has been a dream, Isaac. One I never wanted to wake up from. But we’re not kids anymore, and we have to face the fact that we can’t be together when we’re two thousand miles apart!”

I stood stock-still as her words hit me. She was telling the truth. She really believed this. I’d known that she was going to go back to New York, but I’d thought she cared enough to want to at least try.

“You’re really going,” I muttered.

She nodded her head. “I am. I’m sorry.”

“And we’re just over? You can walk away this easily?”

“It’s not easy,” she whispered. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Then don’t.”

“But it’s real life, Isaac. In the fairy tale, I give up my big, fancy job, and I move back to my small town and marry my high school sweetheart,” she gushed. “In real life, I go home. And we both learn to live with the heartbreak.”

Everything went cold. Inside and out. Her words felt like she’d stabbed me in the heart.

She stepped forward, pressing one more forlorn kiss to my lips. “I do love you, Isaac. And I’m sorry that I came back…that I’m hurting you all over again.”

Then before I could reach for her and beg her to stay, she darted back down the front walk and hopped into Piper’s Jeep. They pulled away while I stood there at the front door, staring at them in shock.

It wasn’t until Aly charged back down the hallway and wrapped herself around me that I broke away. I picked her up and held her as tightly to me as I could.

“Daddy, I can’t…breathe,” she said while laughing.

“Everything all right?” my mom asked with worry creasing her forehead.

I carried Aly into the living room. “Peyton left.”

“Oh dear…back to New York?”

“Yes.”

“And you two?”

“Over.”

“Isaac…I’m sorry.”

Everyone was sorry. So sorry. But that didn’t make her any less gone.

24

Peyton

“Do you want to talk about it?” Piper asked as she drove me to the airport.

“Not really,” I whispered.

I stared out the window, brushing the tears off of my cheeks and watching the bare cotton fields pass by.

“I wish that you were staying.”

I sucked in a deep breath. My lungs hurt. My body felt brittle. What was I even supposed to say to that after what I’d done?

“Me too,” I managed to force out.

But I didn’t want to give up ballet. I couldn’t. It was ingrained in me. And I didn’t see another option.

Piper sighed and merged onto the highway. “I’m sorry about Isaac.”

“Yeah.”

“Peyton—”

“Just…don’t, Pipes, please,” I muttered, diving into my own sorrow. “It was hard enough the first time.”

Piper nodded, reaching out and taking my hand. “Everyone else understands, you know? We’ll be sad not to have you here for Christmas, but we get it.”

“Thanks.”

“I didn’t really expect you to stay anyway.”

I swallowed and choked back another sob. No one had expected me to stay. Only Isaac had hoped for it. Only I’d let him think it was possible. Even though it was never possible. Now…we were over, and I was