Not again. Please, not again. He needs to let me go. I’m not strong enough to keep pushing him away. I take a step back, but he only follows me.

“If you didn’t care for me, I would let you go. But Wren, I know you’re in love with me, and guess what? I’m so fucking in love with you too. So no, I’m not letting you go. You run away, I’m right behind you.”

A tear falls from my eye, my lips quivering.

“Aaron, I can’t…” I don’t complete my sentence. It’s too painful. He’s saying all the right things, and the only thing I want to do is believe them and dive right into him.

Aaron licks his lips, never relenting. Instead, he steps even closer so I have to tip my head up to meet his eyes. His smell is everywhere.

“You can let me go all you want in the hope it’ll convince me to move on, but you’d be wrong to do that, because I can tell you I’ll never be able to love anyone the way I love you. Letting you go would not bring me any happiness, cariño.” He brushes the back of his knuckles against my cheek, making my eyelids flutter. “Quite frankly, it would kill me, and I would never get over it. That, I can promise.”

“But…” My thoughts are scrambled, a big mess of everything and nothing. He’s picking at my defenses, one by one. Grasping at straws, I hang on to one of the strongest, most obvious barrier. “You want kids, and I can’t give you that.”

“I never said I wanted kids. I said I didn’t know.” He licks his lips. “And what I’m sure of is that I’d much rather have the certainty of you than the possibility of something I might never want.”

I deflate.

“I’m so tired, Aaron.”

Letting my forehead fall to his shoulder, I let myself go and cry. And for the first time in a long while, I let him comfort me without any reticence. He’s where I want to be, and everything he’s telling me makes me feel like no matter how much I’ve convinced myself we can’t be together, maybe, just maybe, he has a point.

However, it doesn’t erase all the doubt engraved in my soul, which makes me sob even harder. I’ve built my whole person around keeping people away from me, and suddenly, I’m supposed to let in the one I love the most, even if it means hurting him? It makes no sense.

And yet, I don’t see myself walking away from him. Not again. I’ve done it once, and it took everything in me. And with all his confident words, I feel my resolve fall brick by brick.

“I know, sweetheart. I know.”