She whirled away, spun back. “All right, all right. I’m responsible for my own feelings, and clearly it’s stupid for me to wait and wait and hope you might see. You need me to tell you, I’ll tell you. Equal ground? It’s never going to be equal ground when you care about me and I’m so hopelessly in love with you. I’ve always been hopelessly in love with you, and you’ve never seen it.”

“Wait—”

“No, you want it straight?You’ll get it straight. You’re the one. You’ve always been the one. Nothing, nothing I’ve ever done changed it. Moving to New York, working to find my way, making myself into something I could be proud of. But it was still there. Del’s the one, and whatever I do, whatever I accomplish, I’m still missing that. Trying to feel something real and important for other men? Temporary stopgaps, or failures. Because none of them were you.”

She yanked the hair out of her face as the wind blew it into her eyes. “I couldn’t harden it out or reason it out of me, no matter how hurtful or humiliating or just plain infuriating. I dealt with it, then I changed it. I changed it, Del.”

“You’re right.” He reached out to brush the tears she rarely shed from her cheeks. “Listen—”

“I’m not finished. I changed things, but you’re still trying, you always will try, to take care of things. Of me. I don’t want to be your responsibility. Your obligation. Your pet. I won’t have it.”

“For God’s sake, I don’t think of you that way. I don’t feel that way. I love you.”

“Yes, you love me.You love all of us, and you had to step to the front of the line when your parents died. I know that, Del, I understand, and I feel for you and what you had to take on. Being with you, I understand more, and I feel more.”

“It’s not about that.”