I close my eyes, not from fear that this will be the last time I’m close to her, but the opposite. This feels like a new beginning. An acceptance of who we were and who we are in the present.

She whispers, “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything at all. I didn’t know your name the first time I laid eyes on you. I didn’t even know it a month later when you bought the soda at TJ’s—”

“And you called me sweet cheeks.” She smiles for me, and my whole world tilts on its axis.

I’m worn down, the trauma of that day years ago exhausting me in ways that may take a lifetime to recover. But I will recover. I know that now. I caress her cheek feeling I’m earning the right back, even if at a slower pace than I like. “And you called me babe.”

She nods with a sweet smile arranged on her beautiful face. “I remember when I told you my name and the way you looked at me . . .” She takes a shaky breath. “No one’s ever looked at me the way that you do. Even now, after the years, the pain, the crushed hearts, the lost souls, you still look at me like I’m everything.”

“You are. To me, you always will be.” The weight of the words holds all my truths inside them. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Lark.”

With one hand still firmly pressed to my cheek, she slides her other down my neck. Looking into my eyes, she says, “I wish you hadn’t.”

“It’s my biggest regret.”

When she tears her eyes away from me and takes a breath as if she’s gasping for air, the point of the knife prods this fucking useless organ in my chest. It’s an unpaid passenger on every journey I make.

She nods slowly and then closes her eyes briefly. “I didn’t expect you to keep your promise.” Her eyes glance to me and then away again. “But you’re here, Harbor, and I’m . . .”

“You’re what? You can tell me anything.”

Seeming to catch herself, she sits up and then tucks her legs back inside the vehicle just as tears overflow her lower lids. Looking down at her fingers twisting in her lap, she shakes her head. “I can’t do this again, Harbor.”

“What is this?” I ask, hearing the lengthening distance in her voice. Looking at me, she hesitates, then licks her lips as if the words are already there, but she doesn’t want to say them out loud. As much as I don’t want to hear a rejection, I still care what she has to say. “You can tell me, Lark.”

Her gaze slides up until our eyes meet again. “If I’m not careful,” she whispers, “I’ll fall in love again.”

I kneel before her again. “You say that as if it’s the worst possible outcome.”

“This isn’t a fairy tale, Harbor. You don’t get to barge into my life and sweep me off my feet. That ship has sailed.”