Page 70 of Trying Not to Need You

“I’m sorry if this upsets you, Baylor. I promise it’s nothing creepy or weird. I just missed you. I needed to know that I at least had something of you with me when I was out on the road. I understand if you’re angry with me, but please don’t give up on us because of this,” I say, my voice small. I’m not against begging her for forgiveness. I truly didn’t think that I was doing anything wrong, but from her reaction, I think I fucked up.

She doesn’t say anything.

The silence builds between us, like a wall meant to divide. This is bad, really bad. My chest tightens, and every worst-case scenario I can come up with is running through my mind. She’s staring down at the album as if it holds secrets, which, in a way, I guess it does.

My secrets.

However, they’re no longer secrets. I’ve bared my soul to her. I’ve held nothing back but this, and it wasn’t intentional. It was out of sight, out of mind. I had been looking for it, but not with urgency.

“Baylor…?” My tone is soft, and I can hear the worry, so I know that she can, too, but she might be too lost in her head to name it.

Her fingers trace the edge of the album, almost reverently, like it’s something fragile. Something to cherish. Slowly, she opens it.

The first page makes her inhale sharply.

I feel that inhale deep in my chest, as if it were my own. “Baylor—” I start, but her words cut me off.

“You made this?” she asks, barely above a whisper.

“Yeah. I mean… over time. It wasn’t⁠—”

“For me?” she adds, finally looking up. There’s no anger in her eyes. No accusation. Just disbelief. And something dangerously close to tears.

“I made it for me,” I admit, my voice quieter now. “I didn’t plan it at first. It just… happened. Every time I missed you, every time something reminded me of you, I’d add to it. It was the only way I knew how to keep you close when I couldn’t actually be with you.”

Her lips part, but nothing comes out. She looks back down at the pages, turning each one carefully, like each memory carries weight. A small, shaky laugh escapes her, and she presses her fingers to her mouth like she’s trying to hold all her emotions inside.

“You’ve been carrying this around?” she asks.

I nod. “It was always with me, no matter where I was.”

“For years?”

“Yeah.”

That does it. My confession pushes her too far, and her eyes gloss over with tears. She shakes her head slightly, as if she’s having trouble processing her discovery.

“I thought—” she starts, then stops. “I thought I knew how much you cared about me, but this—” Her voice breaks just enough to make my chest ache. “This is… something else.”

“I wasn’t hiding it from you. I’d spent a weekend with Hank right before you came back to town and took it with me. I didn’t need it after that because I had you here in the flesh. I was looking for it a while back, but the priority was low because I had the real thing. I’m sorry, baby, if this upsets you. But having this”—I run my finger over the thin spine of the album—“with me on the road, it gave me a piece of home, a piece of hope to hold on to.”

She pulls the item to her chest and holds it there, as if she wants it to become a part of her, which makes sense, because she’s my heart, and that little album is a huge part of me and my love for her.

“This is unreal,” she says, but there’s no bite to it, just wonder. “Do you have any idea what this means to me?”

I let out a relieved breath. “Thank fuck,” I mumble. “You’re not mad?”

Her head snaps up at that, eyes wide. “Mad? Are you serious?”

A nervous half laugh slips out of me. “I mean… I’ve been carrying around a photo album of you like some⁠—”

Before I can finish, her arms fall from her chest, album still in one hand, and she wraps them around my neck, guiding me closer. I go willingly. I can never get close enough to her. The move knocks the rest of the words right out of my mouth.

“I’m not mad at you, cowboy,” she murmurs into my shoulder, her voice thick, but I can hear the happiness in her tone. “How could I ever be mad at you for loving me this much?”

I huff out a quiet laugh, my arms coming up around her automatically. “I love you. So much.”

She pulls back just enough to look at me, still gripping my shirt like she’s not ready to let go. “No one has ever…” She shakes her head, overwhelmed again. “No one has ever loved me like that.”