“It’s not that good of a story,” I say.

“I guess I really like dragons, then,” he says. “Because by the time you walked up to my front door, talking to yourself, I think I was already halfway infatuated with you. It wasn’t just the story, I don’t think, though it was good. It was the way you wrote it. The way your brain worked. I liked that. A lot.”

The confession leaves me breathless.

“What you’re feeling,” he says. “The doubt? It never really goes away. Not really. I’ll never know if people go to see my movies because they like me, or because they think of my personal life as a never-ending car wreck that they’re hoping will show up on-screen.”

He looks at me.

“I should have asked,” he says. “What you wanted. From this trip. From me. From us.”

Us.

“The funny thing is,” he says, “I think we would have been a mess ten years ago. If you’d stayed. If I’d called. But now…”

The wind has picked up. The truck is warm, and it feels a little like we’re inside a snow globe.

“I can’t change how people see you. I can’t change the fact that you’re right about what they’ll say about us. About you. The world is unfair. They’ll forgive me and punish you. People will be cruel and they will be relentless and there will be times when there won’t be anything I can do about it. I can’t get all the Dan Mitchells in the world fired. I can’t promise that I’ll be worth it.”

It’s so quiet in the truck.

“Chani.” His voice is rough.

I look up at him.

“I want to be worth it,” he says.

I’m crying again.

“But you have to decide what you want.”

Simple as that.

Gabe continues. “You can take the truck and go to the airport. Ollie’s plane can get you back to L.A.”

There’s a jangling noise and he puts his keys on the dash.

“Or you can come home with me,” he says. “It’s your choice.”

He opens the door, letting in the cold and the snow, which settles onto the seat he’s vacated. The world feels muffled once he’s closed the door and I watch him walk away, his figure blurred by the snow.

My choice.

My heart is pounding, high up in my chest, almost like it’s trying to claw its way out of me. Ten years ago, I counted to one hundred. I waited until it was quiet.

It’s quiet now. So quiet.