Coming Home(185)

Danny reached for the chair across from her and pulled it out. He could hear his heart beating in his ears as he sat before her, and Leah lowered herself into the chair, pulling her lower lip between her teeth.

For a few seconds, they sat there in silence.

Danny cleared his throat softly. “Jake?” he asked.

“Knows I’m here,” she responded softly, and Danny looked down and nodded slowly.

Silence.

“He said I could have his visit if I promised to bring him back some Skittles.”

Danny laughed before he could stop himself, and he glanced up to see her smiling uneasily. She reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear, and then her smile dropped at the same time her eyes did.

Leah took a deep breath, her eyes on her lap as she said, “A long time ago, I asked you to stop playing games. And you promised me that you’d never lie to me.” She looked up and met his gaze. “I came here because I need to know the truth about something.”

Danny nodded once. “Okay.”

She wet her lips, the determination temporarily winning out in her expression. “Why did you break up with me?”

Danny closed his eyes before he exhaled. Goddamn it. He’d been prepared to answer any question but that one.

“Leah,” he said weakly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to tell me the truth.”

The seconds ticked by, hollow and unforgiving.

“Is it because you really don’t want me anymore?” she asked.

Danny rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Don’t do this, Leah.”

“It’s a simple question,” she said, completely undeterred by his plea. “All I’m asking for is honesty.”

Danny looked down at his hands. There was no answer he could come up with that wouldn’t send him down a path he refused to travel down with her.

“Are you afraid the truth will hurt me?” she asked. “Don’t be. Nothing you can say now will hurt me more than the words you said last time.”

Danny’s head snapped up; her eyes were on him, her expression unapologetic.

Her words hung in the air between them, acrid and insufferable, and Danny had to look away. He could feel little pinpricks in his chest, shame and self-loathing battling for control in his body.

“Do you still love me?” she asked.

He took a breath before he looked across the table at her. This time, there was nothing behind her eyes but vulnerability, and he knew if she deserved an honest answer to any question, it was this one.

“Yes,” he said gently.

“And do you still want to be with me?”

“Leah—”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Enough of the run-around. I want an answer, Danny. Because all of this,” she said, gesturing around them, “is only temporary. Don’t lose sight of that. And when this is over, what do you want? Do you want to start a new life with me? Do you want to come home to me every day? Do you want to have dinners with me, and go grocery shopping with me, and watch crappy TV together, and make love to me while we listen to our song? Do you want to get Christmas trees together, and go on vacations, and have babies? Do you want to take bubble baths with me, and teach me things in the garage, and hold me every night while we fall asleep?”

Danny’s chest constricted, squeezing and compressing with vice-like intensity until it sent his heart up into his throat. What she had described was so agonizingly beautiful, it felt like there wasn’t enough room in his body to accommodate it.