“I can’t.”

We were nothing more than kids. I realize that, now. What felt like the end of the fucking world would pass, in time. There would be other lovers, other girls. Nothing is rarer than a person growing up to keep on loving their teenage sweetheart. We were of an age when everything could resemble love, if we so wished. A friendly smile, a curious stare, a passing touch from a stranger. Love was everywhere and yet it seemed nowhere, to me, if not from her. I didn’t want the love of someone else. I wanted her, always her, and that, I suppose, was the great misfortune of my young and barely-lived existence. I had tried, and failed, to open up my heart to someone else. I didn’t want to try again when all it served to do was remind me of what I didn’t have. I wanted her. I wanted Connie. How could anyone else possibly compare to the girl who shaped me, molded me? Why would I fall for anyone else when it was Connie that had always held my heart?

“Do you know why Julia and I had to break up?” I asked her. “She saw that I wasn’t over you. That I wouldn’t get over you. Connie—I can’t get over you. Isn’t it obvious now that we should be together? We’re not getting over each other.” I laughed but there was no humor in it. “We gave it a good try and just found our way back here at square one. And now we have this chance. We’ve got the whole rest of our lives to figure everything else out. Why waste another moment of that apart? What did last night mean to you? I know it meant something to you. I know it did. I know it does.”

“Why can’t you just stay here? You could stay here, in Dublin. You don’t have to leave.”

“And what, we go back to fucking in secret? I sneak out your window in the morning? We continue playing stupid games while you decide whether I’m worth it? I’ve tasted what it’s like to be unashamedly myself and I’m not going to go back to that—to the shame, the guilt. That shame swallows you whole. I can’t do that. I need to leave. I need to go somewhere I can be true to myself and you should too.”

Connie scoffed, hurt flaring up in her eyes again. “You act like it’s all so simple. If that’s what you think then maybe this was a mistake—”

“Don’t say that, it isn’t true. I love you. I want to be with you.”

“I’m sorry, Alex—”

One final attempt, I thought to myself, at salvaging everything. “I love you.”

“And I love you,” she said, though it fell flat. “But I can’t go with you. I can’t just give up everything to chase after these delusions of Paradise with you.”

“I know we could make it work. I love you. We could figure it out, you could come with me, and—”