Because what “might be” was something pretty bloody amazing.
She held up her hand. “Sean—”
“Tell me. I want to hear you say it, so I know I’m not the only one thinking it’s crazy to walk away from this. Lily, I—”
“No.” Tears glimmered in her eyes and she blinked. “Please don’t say it.”
Hurt coiled through his body like a snake. He knew this was his own fault, because they’d made an arrangement and he couldn’t even last a couple of days without wanting more. “Do you know what I’m going to say?”
Her breath stuttered. She opened her mouth, but then snapped it shut a second later.
“Don’t do this again.” He shook his head.
“Do what?” she whispered.
“Come so close to saying what you feel only to back down because it’s too scary.”
“When have I done that before?” She folded her arms across her chest, her eyes blazing.
“The night we kissed on the last day of high school.”
“It was barely a kiss. It wouldn’t even get a PG rating. And you were dating my friend. What was I supposed to do?”
That moment had changed so much for Sean—their lips had barely brushed, and then they’d pulled away in shock. At eighteen, it was quite the feat of willpower. That night, he’d broken up with Lisa. The most telling thing of all was that she’d seemed relieved. It probably had something to do with the fact that she’d secured a place at a Sydney university and he’d known from the early days they were only a temporary item. Lisa was fun and outgoing, but Patterson’s Bluff was only ever a steppingstone for her.
It was never serious… which also meant it was never scary. Not like it would have been to date Lily, where he could see a future. Where he would be devastated if they broke up.
Lisa had categorically been the safe option.
“I broke up with her that night. I came to your place the next day to tell you it was over, but…”
“I’d already left.” Realisation flashed across her face. “I begged Mum to let me stay with her sister in Melbourne, so I didn’t have to face you before university started.”
That was their first near miss.
“Then years later I saw a movie called Wave of Love,” he replied. Lily’s cheeks reddened further. “And I tried to email you.”
She frowned. “I never received any emails. You must have used an old address.”
“And my Facebook messages?”
“I…” She shook her head. “I hardly ever check Facebook. I found some old messages in there, almost a year after the movie came out. But it had been so long since you’d written that I felt awkward writing back.”
She had absolutely no idea how desperate he’d been to see her.
“I was coming to LA,” he said. “I bought a ticket, and went to the airport, and got all the way through security…”
She brought her hand to her mouth.
“I watched the planes roll in and out for an hour, waiting for my boarding time. I was coming to see you.” His heart clenched at the memory. “I had every intention of finding you in LA and…”
“What happened?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“I saw the news about you and Brock.” He swallowed against the lump in his throat. “I turned around and walked right back out of the airport and vowed never to chase anyone ever again. But I’ve never been able to get you out of my head, Lily. Never. And I suspect you feel the same.”
She shook her head, as if trying to deny it. As if trying to protect herself.
“You wrote a movie about us falling in love.”
“It was fiction.”
“Bullshit.”
“I know the difference between my characters and actual people,” she said emphatically. “I know the difference between a story and reality.”
“Are you denying that you based Ace Saunders on me?”
Silence settled around him, almost as if the snow had come inside and brought with it that magical hush. Lily was still. His question had frozen her. But her body was warm and soft, and after his ears adjusted to the quiet, he heard a deeper layer of sound. The in-and-out whoosh of her breath. The thump-thump of his heart.
He’d seen a version of himself in Ace—yes, it was polished and smoothed out for the benefit of an audience, with some of the less attractive bits trimmed away. And he’d seen her in the film’s heroine, the shy bookish Renee. It was almost like she’d written the story of what might have happened if she never went to Melbourne for university, and if he hadn’t been too chicken to say how he felt about her sooner.
In the movie, Ace had even dated Renee’s friend. They’d shared a brief kiss in a spot that looked startlingly similar to real life. Only in the movie world, Renee had stayed in the small town and they’d found happily ever after.
That’s the difference between movies and real life.
“I’m not denying it. But that doesn’t mean I wrote the life I wished for. I wanted to leave Patterson’s Bluff. I wanted to chase success in America. I wanted a different experience than staying in a small town by the ocean.” Her eyes were glimmering even brighter now. There were definitely tears gathering. “I wanted… more.”
Her words were like a fist to the solar plexus. It was the confirmation he always feared—that his life would never be enough for someone like her. That what “might be” was nothing more than a hypothetical. An unfounded desire. A never-to-be-realised dream.
“Sean, I wrote a movie I thought would connect with people. That’s it.” She whisked away a tear with the back of her hand. “It’s just a story.”
“Is that why you don’t want me to say that I love you?” The words came out harsh and sharp-edged, but it was go big or go home. And sadly, his instincts told him he definitely was going home. Alone. “Because you don’t feel the same and you’re trying to spare my feelings?”
She looked down at the floor.
“Lily, put me out of my bloody misery, okay? Am I alone in this? Am I feeling something one-sided?”
Her eyes were glossy, and she shook her head, scattering her dark hair around her shoulders. “It’s not one-sided.”
The lingering resistance in the air stopped him from latching on to her statement.
“But I’m going back to LA to do what’s best for my career and I don’t want you to follow me.” She looked back up and laid a hand on his arm. “I know Zoey and your friends are everything to you. I know you’re trying to fix things with your dad. I know Patterson’s Bluff is your forever home. I will not ask you to give all that up for something that… for something uncertain. Being away from your family is hard, even when the sacrifice feels worth it. You would grow to resent me if you came to LA.”
He didn’t understand her industry enough to know if that was an option, but the key thing that struck Sean was that Lily didn’t even seem willing to look at options. “Can’t we talk about it? Hell, our whole ruse here is that we’re having a long-distance relationship. Isn’t that an option?”
“What? So we can both get wrapped up in our jobs and slowly forget about one another until we break up?”