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“All I ask is that you don’t run. Let me help you, in whatever capacity you decide. I can’t take it if you run right now in this condition. I’ll lose my mind.”
She doesn’t answer me. Goddamn it.
“Okay, if you really want to run, at least know that I will chase you. But is that really what you want?”
She shrugs her shoulders.
“Why did you move to London, baby? Why did you pick Cambridge, of all the schools in the world?”
Emily lifts her head to see me, her eyes are red and swollen, but her tears have stopped. “It was a nine-month master’s program. It’s one of the best…”
“Be honest,” I interrupt her. “Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t move to London to be near me.”
She looks away.
So fucking stubborn.
“Em, we can talk
until the cows come home, and we will. But you either know it by now, or you don’t. I’ve made it as clear to you as I can.” I pull her face to look at me, “I love you. I am desperately, pathetically, hook, line, and sinker in love with you. I always have been, I always will be.”
“I know. I love you, too. I just…”
“Just nothing. That’s all that matters. Let’s lock this shit down.”
“Cole, we need to go,” Liam announces from the hallway.
“Will you be here after the race? Or do I need to start the search party now?”
She tries to hide her face, but I can see her lips quiver a tiny bit, “I’ll be here.”
I kiss her head, thankful as hell for her answer, and start heading out of the room.
If she stays, we have a hell of a path to forge to move ahead. But we’ll get there. She just needs to stay, to let herself feel, not run from it.
She can crash against me as hard as she needs to, over and over like a wave breaking on the shore. I will be the boulder that is always there to absorb it like she was for me.
“Cole, wait,” she calls at the last second.
I turn my head back.
“Good luck, have fun, go fast, come back to me, then take me to bed, I love you, I’ll be waiting for you.”
Thirty One
Emily
My phone alarm goes off, and I sit up from Cole’s bed in the motorhome.
I gave myself thirty minutes. A bit more than five, because I think I deserve thirty freaking minutes to process what just happened. But less than twenty-four hours because I’m done wasting time.
So many years have been spent feeling afraid to fail, hiding away, not really living because I was scared of consequences. For what?
What the hell was the point? Here I thought I was so smart.
Cole has always had far worse consequences to deal with than I ever did. He lives, every single day, despite them. He doesn’t hide or cower. He’s out on the track right now doing what he loves, in the face of the most significant consequence there could be.
Cole could so easily have taken the bait and brawled with my father, but he’s a better man than that. He’s experienced so much violence but doesn’t resort to it. He should be teaching cadets how to be real men.
