He takes a deep breath, and then another, steeling himself for whatever he’s about to say. I’ve never been so eager or so petrified.
“I like Molly a lot—”
It’s worse than a snowball down my shirt. “Cool. You came out here just to tell me that?”
He rolls his eyes. “I like Molly a lot, but I don’t want to date her. I’ve been trying to tell you that but you haven’t been listening.”
“Okay. Well. I hope you let her down easy, I guess.” I don’t know what to say because I don’t know what he’s doing here.
He starts to say something, stops himself, starts again. I have never in my life seen Fitz Wilding look so unsure of himself. “I want to talk about that letter.”
My heart freezes. “Did you hide it from me? Did you know it was in your truck the whole time?”
“I—”
“You did! I was so desperate to find it that I had an actual panic attack in your basement: shortness of breath, numbness, racing heart, all of it. And you knew where it was the whole time! Did you and Whit laugh about it behind my back?”
He looks crestfallen. “I would never do that. I wanted to know what it said, okay? I wanted to know if—”
“If what?”
“If it said something important. And I knew you would be too scared to let me read it. So, can we please talk about it? It might help.”
“I don’t know, okay? I don’t know what I want.”
This is more than decision fatigue. This is paralysis. My heart beats wildly, like I’m being attacked. I fumble with my phone before I remember it’s dead. This stupid brick has one job, and that job is to stay on so it can decide my every last decision and take responsibility for my life so I don’t have to.
Is that too much to ask?
“Collins?”
“I, um … I don’t know … my phone is dead.” He can’t expect me to make decisions under these circumstances. He understands me. He won’t push it.
“Hold up. Are you kidding me?” He takes a deep breath and starts again, his voice gentler. “I’ll rephrase that. Let’s talk about this.”
“It’s not a good day for this conversation.”
“What did the letter say, Paige?” His voice is so soft, like he’s preparing to let me down gently. Which means he already knows. On some level, he’s probably known since he saw the envelope.
I swallow. My heart feels frozen in my chest. “It said that I hate you.”
Fitz blinks.
“It was a friendship breakup letter. It asked you to stop talking to me.”
“Wow.” He takes his hat off and runs his hand through his hair. “I’m an idiot.”
“I hate that you’re the first person I think about when I wake up in the morning and the last person I think about before I go to sleep at night. I hate that you’re the one person who doesn’t make me feel crazy. I hate that you don’t touch me when you have a girlfriend. I hate that I don’t hate you.”
His mouth twitches. “10 Things I Hate About You. Now you’re speaking my language, Collins.” He steps toward me. “Is all that true?”
Yesterday, I might have had a different answer. But I can’t stop the one that comes to my lips. “It was when I wrote it.”
“And now?” He swallows, and my eyes can’t help but watch the movement. The subtle clenching of his jaw, the bob of his Adam’s apple. The way his chest expands and then freezes, literally hanging on bated breath. It feels like I’ve been doing this, tracking his movements, for a lifetime. A lifetime of loving him. It was so easy, because it wasn’t ever a choice.
But now I’m being given the choice, and my phone is dead, and my heart is racing and my knees are trembling and my neck is sweating under an itchy wool scarf and I have to choose.
“Now it’s not.”
He nods slowly, taking this in. “But … are you sure? It hasn’t been that long since you wrote it. And this week, I thought, under the mistletoe, and on the train …” He trails off, an invitation for me to fill in the gaps.
“I changed my mind. Isn’t that one of my problems?”
His face falls. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Not with the way you reacted to Jay’s engagement ring.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You think a wedding would ruin Clover’s life because it’s not the choice you’d make. Admit it. You’re terrified of becoming attached to anything that would make you want to stay in Gilbert.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No! Maybe. I don’t know! But that doesn’t mean I don’t love—” I stop myself before I say the words I’ll regret tomorrow.
He steps closer, his eyes the only bright spot in the dark night. “Tell me.”
“No! It doesn’t matter what I thought. I was wrong.” I turn and step onto the frozen pond.
“Hold up! Don’t walk away from this.”
“Why not, Fitz? There’s a gorgeous girl back at the cabin who is willing to tell you exactly what you want to hear, so why don’t you go get her?”
“I’m not leaving. Not like this. This is the part of the movie where the couple fights because of a misunderstanding, and it’s ridiculous and everyone knows it’s ridiculous. I don’t want to lose you over a misunderstanding.”
Couple. My heart stutters over the word. Fitz and I have been a lot of things, but we’ve never been that. And honestly? I’ve always related to that part of the movie. The misunderstanding. The everything-would-be-fine-if-they-would-just-talk part.
Just talk.
As if revealing your feelings and secrets and weaknesses and neuroses in a way that’s honest and authentic is anything other than the scariest thing in the world.
Talking to the people you care about is not just anything.
“Did you talk to Molly about my ‘problems’?”
“Paige, listen.”
“Answer the question.”
“Yes, okay! I said that. But I didn’t mean it. She was mad, and I panicked. I had to tell her something.”
“Did you talk to your sister about me?”
He sighs heavily, looking resigned. “Indirectly.”
“I trusted you.” My voice breaks as tears spill over my cheeks.
“I lied to Molly, okay! I invited you here because I want you here. It had nothing to do with Darcy. I wasn’t even sure Darcy was coming!”
“You shouldn’t have talked about me. Full stop. I’m not interested in your opinion of my problems.”
“You’re really gonna yell at me because I want you to be happy? If you’re gonna resent me for trying to help you, then maybe we shouldn’t be together. If you’d rather live your life on the whim of your app—”
“You think I like being like this? I hate that this is how I am! I hate lying awake at night wondering how I screwed up my life this time, or why you’re not in love with me, or what I could do to make you fall in love with me. It’s torture. And I hate that you’re so good at grounding me, because it makes me worried that no matter where I go or how much of the world I see, I’m always going to wish I were here with you. But my staying won’t do either of us any good, because I can’t watch your fearless heart try to win every girl but me with gesture after grand gesture. You wear the title Hopeless Romantic like a crown, falling in and out of love at a dizzying rate, but for those of us on the sidelines, you just look reckless.”