She failed to see the point of trotting out her entire life history. “I’m going to go.” She turned and started walking away.

“Last question!” he called after her. “I promise.” He arrived at her side.

She sighed. “I did. A year in France.”

He smiled. “So then I’m not sorry.”

“What?” She marveled now that she’d thought the other day, at the beach, that she was running out of anger toward him. It turned out there was some left after all. Being dragged out here so he could apologize was one thing. Being dragged out here so he could actively not apologize was another.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, but I’m not sorry you left. You never would have done all that if you’d stayed here.”

Rage surged inside her, hot and spiky. Her first impulse was to censor herself, but what if she just said what she wanted to say? “Fuck you, Sawyer. That wasn’t up to you! You broke me!”

Ugh, she shouldn’t have said that last bit. It was more truth than she wanted him to know.

He took a step back and nearly tripped over his own feet. “Well, I couldn’t leave it up to you. You would have made the wrong decision.”

It wasn’t just anger that was back, it was pure, electric rage. “You. Pompous. Ass.” She was done here. Done. She turned and started walking away.

He jogged after her. “I should have tried harder. I should have made you see.”

“Made me see?” She picked up the pace, but he adjusted his, too. “Like you were an all-knowing adult, and I was a child who wasn’t capable of seeing what was right in front of my eyes?”

“Well you sure as hell weren’t capable of seeing…”

He’d been yelling before he cut himself off midthought. The first time he’d yelled at her since this argument began. The first time he’d yelled at her ever. They’d had heated words, ten years ago, when they’d been arguing about her university plans, but there had been no actual yelling. And then he’d just…given up. She’d won him over. She’d thought.

She stopped walking and whirled to face him. “What, Sawyer? What wasn’t I capable of seeing?”

“That I wasn’t worth it,” he finished quietly.

He might as well have punched her. She gasped as if he had. Tears stung her eyes. She didn’t know what to say. Her first instinct was to contradict him, to say that he was worth it. Her second was to agree with him. Both felt equally true. Because two versions of Sawyer were getting muddled in her mind. She decided on the truth. “I thought you were. Back then.” The tears that were threatening started to spill over. She didn’t want him to see, so she started walking again.