Collared(72)

He takes a moment to answer. He’s still studying his hands like they’re not his but someone else’s. “Because holding on to that kind of hope—that there was still a chance for you and me?—made me too desperate. It was counterproductive. The tighter I held on to you, the further away you seemed to slip.” His hands curl into fists before he looks at me. “Once I committed to this, I was able to approach your case from an unbiased, almost objective perspective. Once I gave up that selfish part of wanting you back, I could think clearly. If I hadn’t become this . . . I’m not sure you’d be sitting across from me now.”

“So you sacrificed your whole life for me?” I work my tongue into my cheek, overwhelmed. With guilt, appreciation, and unworthiness.

He leans across the distance between us, refusing to tame his stare. I feel my heart beating in my throat. “I’d sacrifice this life and every life I have coming for you.”

I have to close my eyes. “I’m so sorry, Torrin. God, I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to give up ten years of your life for me. I didn’t want you to give up whatever could have come after before you became this . . .”

He stretches closer. His eyes refuse to blink. “You were my first. And you were my last.” His words echo in the small space. “A man could have a thousand different partners and settle down with an amazing woman, and I’d still hold the bragging rights. Don’t feel sorry for me for that. I’m not.”

Everything I want is in front of me, but I can’t have it. It’s the carrot dangled in front of me—just out of reach, never to be realized. Life is so goddamn unfair.

“I’m sorry,” I say again because what else is there to say? He’s given so much, and I have so little left to give.

“I’m not sorry. Never.” The air stirs when he pulls back. “Besides . . . this is not a death sentence. This is not an executioner’s swing. I knew exactly what I was doing when I started down this path, and I went into it with both eyes open and with reasons other than just hoping to fail better at finding you.” When he smiles, it’s a sad one.

“What reasons?” I ask, glancing toward the doorway. I need to leave, but I’m not sure I know how.

Torrin rolls his fingers, and his knuckles snap one after the other. “Father Sullivan was my light in the darkest time of my life. I was hoping that maybe I might be able to be the same for someone else one day.”

I clasp my hands together when I feel them reaching for him. “You are that. To that woman inside that room, you are.” I lean back to look at him. He’s still hunched over. “You were that to me. You are that to me.”

When he glances up, I see it in his eyes again. That look takes me back in time to a dark sidewalk, to a certain question, and an answer in the form of a kiss.

Before he can say anything, I continue. I can’t risk him opening his mouth and changing my mind. “You became this for a lot of reasons. Good reasons. Remember those when you feel that conflict. Remember how great you are at this. Remember how many more dark places you can shine light on.”

“When I feel conflict, it isn’t those things I remember, Jade.” He holds his hand out for me to take. I want to. Everything inside me is being pulled to it. “I remember you.”

His hand hangs there for another minute, then his fingers curl into his palm, and he draws it back. He runs his finger beneath his collar like it’s choking him.

“I don’t get it. How you can be so good at this”—I wave at him sitting there in his black and white—“and not feel conflicted when it comes to us.”

“There’s conflict in me.” His eyes lift to meet mine. “So much I feel like it could eat me alive if I let it. I love what I do. I believe in what I do. I know I took vows, but I made a promise to you first. If I’m forced to make a choice, it will be you. Every time.” He exhales, and his eyes lower. “It will be you.”

I feel as close as I ever have to taking his hand and asking him to make that choice. I feel my resolve weaken, and I know the longer I stay, the worse it will become.

When his phone goes off again, I say, “I’ll give you some privacy.”

Standing up to walk away, I feel conflict of my own ripping me apart. I want him back. I want what we had back. Everything, not just the friendship and adventures. I want to pretend we can pick up where we left off and that the question he asked me that last night can become a reality.

I also want him to have as peaceful a life as he can from now on. I don’t want him to give up everything for me, because he’s already done it once. I’ve already had the love of a man who gave me everything—I have no right to expect it a second time.

To ask him to give it all up so we can be together would be such a selfish act that I think it could rip us apart anyway. He’s sacrificed enough.

“Jade—” He turns in his seat, watching me leave.

I keep going, but each step gets harder. Each one rips off another chunk of my heart. “Just let me go, Torrin.”

A sigh drifts from the waiting room. “I don’t know how.”





IT ISN’T GRIEF I feel when I pass through the cemetery gates this time—it’s rage. The kind that feels like it’s about to spill out of me in waves.

After leaving Torrin at the hospital and saying what I did, I’d fought the urge to turn around and go back—to tell him what I want to . . . but what I know I can’t.