I remember it so well, Hometown Heroes playing on the little stage in his sister’s bar, Hunter calling up Hannah to ask her to marry him with the help of the kids from the Center, a whole spectacle.
And the entire time, he kept glancing at me in the dim bar, his jaw tight.
He lasted thirty minutes before he walked out the back.
I still don’t know why I followed him.
“Zee, what’s wrong?” I asked, the cold ripping through my light jacket.
“Go back inside, Zoe,” he said through gritted teeth, like he was holding back words and only his teeth were keeping them from spilling out.
“Is everything okay?” He looked terrible. Angry. Pained, even.
“Go inside, Zoe. It’s cold.”
“Zander, I—”
“Get the fuck inside.” He turned to me, and I saw so many things in his eyes, the one light out behind Luna’s shining down on him and masking the majority of them. “It’s cold. You’re going to get sick.”
“Cold doesn’t make you sick.” He scoffed out a laugh and shook his head at me.
“You know, it’s so fucking funny to me how every other moment in the past, what, Zoe? Ten years? You’ve done everything in your power not to be alone with me. Now you’re so fucking eager to follow me out, to dissect all of my emotions that, to be honest, aren’t your fucking business.”
That hit.
Because he wasn’t wrong.
When I was nineteen, I called him in a panic and needed his help. I called him not because I had no one else to call, no one else to help me, but because at that moment, he was the only person I could think of.
It took me almost a year to figure that out, to decode that the reason I was avoiding Sundays at the diner and going to see my dad at work was because of Zander Davidson.
The boy I’d always loved.
The boy I turned down.
And I’d done it only partially because the timing was wrong. And it was—it was so fucking wrong then. He had a girl, not a serious one, but one all the same, and I knew in my heart of hearts that if I had said yes, if I’d accepted, I’d wonder for the rest of my life if he’d ever give that offer to someone else.
Say the word and she’s gone, Zoe.
My heart would know it was for me and me alone, but my common sense? She’d never fully believe it.
Even if he did dump that girl anyway that following week.
But I’d turned him down partially because I knew how easy it would be to lose myself in Zander Davidson. To risk it all—my future, my past, my heart. To put the relationship our parents have at risk for what? A teenage crush?
But my biggest regret isn’t even saying no the night he saved me.
It was giving him a tight smile and a nod when he told me to leave out behind his sister’s bar, not saying a damn word and turning around.
Because I know now that if I had even tried, he would have fought for me.
He would have fought for this.
But I turned around like the coward I was.
The coward I am, really, still playing pretend.
When he doesn’t answer me after a while, both of us lost in my own memories, I repeat the question.
Something about the stars, about this night, gives me courage I didn’t think I had three, four days ago.
“Why were you so mad that night?” He sighs, and I try to move, to give him room, but that arm wraps my waist tighter, holding me in place.
“You know, my question was a softball. You couldn’t give me one back?” he asks with his easy smile, the one that he uses to play everything off.
I think that for the first time since we went on this trip, if I gave him an out, he’d avoid answering and act like it never happened.
“I didn’t ask questions for three nights. Seems fair to me,” I say, my voice low, my hand moving hair from his forehead.
This feels important.
I need his answer.
He shakes his head and smiles. “Swear to God, tomorrow night, I’m giving you a hard one.”
Silence fills the air as we lie in some national park in Georgia, the stars our only witnesses.
I almost interrupt, almost tell him he doesn’t have to tell me, but then he speaks.
“I was standing there, trying to be happy for them. I wanted that, to be happy for them. They both went through shit, both deserved it, to find each other and have each other. But I was standing there, and Tony and Luna were fucking canoodling and happy, and all I could think was that should be us.”
My heart stops.
The world stops.
The entire fucking universe.
“It should have been us, you know? All along. That should have been me and you, getting engaged in front of everyone, the couple everyone knew would make it from the start.”
“But we never—” I try and argue for a second time since this trip started.
“We did, Zo. Whether or not you admit it, whether it was formal or if the world recognized it, we did. We always did. Always were.”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t play dumb. You’re a smart woman. Don’t treat me like I’m stupid, either.” I can feel my heart racing, but the craziest part is how I can feel his through his thin shirt as well.
“Zander—”
“Why did none of the men you dated ever work?” he asks, and with that, I try to move, to roll off him, to get space, but he holds me close. “Those men who, on paper, were perfect. Were safe. Made you smile just enough. You looked good with them. Looked happy enough. You’ve settled for a safe, okay life so far. Why not settle down, get married? You want to please your parents so bad, why not give your mom the wedding she wants? The grandbabies?” I bite my lip.
He’s right.
I never did.
And I won’t admit this, but most of my relationships have ended as soon as they brought up a future.
Marriage.
Kids.
That's when it stopped working for me.
When the distraction became too real.
“There was always something—some string, some tether that kept us together. You felt it, always knew it was there. It stopped you, held you back, wouldn’t let you give everything to the men who would die to win you.”
“I don’t—” He cuts me off again.
“Why haven’t you left town, Zo?”
“I did. I lived in the city.”
“For three months. And as soon as things got too real, got too permanent, you cut ties and ran home. Why?”
“I don’t—”
“I’ll tell you why I haven’t left,” he says, his voice firm, and I’m scared of what he’s going to say.
We talked about this early, both skirting around loving our hometown, but there’s more.
There’s always more when it comes to Zander.
And I just know this conversation is going to change something in me.
Or cement something in me.
“Zander—” I start, trying to stop him.
I’m scared.
“You. You’re why I’ve stayed here. Not intentionally, but when I look at it? Yeah. It tracks. You tied me to this town the same way I did to you. It wasn’t your parents, not your friends. We were both waiting for the moment when it was right. I think we ignored seventeen thousand signs along the way, but here the fuck we are, Zoe. Where we were always gonna end up one day.”