I stand up, pulled to my feet by the sudden rush of anger I’m feeling. I’ve known him one week and suddenly he thinks he’s my therapist? “You don’t know shit about me, Nate.” I practically spit out the words, but even though I’m angry and rightfully so, they don’t sound right when I say them. “How dare you throw that in my face.”

For a moment that’s so fleeting I almost think I imagined it, he looks completely wrecked. But he doesn’t apologize; instead he takes a step forward, locking his eyes with mine. I couldn’t look away even if I wanted to. “I know that you twirl your hair when you’re nervous,” he says, and all the anger I heard in his voice only seconds ago is completely gone. Everything about him now is just very soft. Gentle. Like the whole world hangs in the balance of this conversation. “I know that you hum off key, and that you don’t realize the effect that you have on people…the effect you have on me. I know that you say my name in your sleep, and I know you want to change the world. I know that you’ve got a smile that just…” he trails off, pressing his lips together as he taps his fingers on his chest, right over his heart. “I know that I’m falling in love with you. And I know, I know that you’re falling in love with me, too. And I know that we can spend the rest of our lives figuring out the rest.”

When Nate finishes talking, he looks kind of stunned, like he just let everything spill out of him without even realizing that he did it.

I am stunned. The rest of our lives rings in my ears, filling me with dread. Breaking up with Ethan hurt me, there’s no denying that. But Nate…it would be so much worse if I lost him. And I know that now, after only a week. How will I feel in a month? A year?

“It’s not that simple,” I say, trying so hard not to cry. I want him so badly, I just can’t let myself have him. It’s so easy to be idealistic when we’re standing here thinking about forever. It would be different trying to make it work in the real world.

Nate reaches forward, and I’m surprised when his warm hand wraps around mine because the distance between us feels too great to be spanned by just a simple touch. The pad of his thumb brushes across my knuckles, and my eyelids flutter at the contact. “It is that simple,” he says, looking down at our hands. “You’re just trying to complicate things so it’ll be easier for you to walk away from me. I know you’re thinking of the what ifs, wondering if I’m just like him; if I’m charming you now just to hurt you later.”

“I’m not thinking it,” I say, my voice very quiet. “I’m scared of it.”

“Maybe,” Nate replies, sighing. “But I think you’re really scared that I’m not like him. That I am who I say I am, that I can and will love you the way I say I will. That maybe this is it.”

I look up at him, and the hope in his eyes nearly undoes me. “You’ve known me a week, Nate. How can you possibly know that?”

He shrugs, squeezing my hand. “I just do. What difference does it make how long we’ve known each other?”

Because it’s crazy, I want to say. Instead, I take the easy way out. “Can’t we just keep things the way they are?” I ask.

I can see the disappointment in his face; it’s an immediate reaction the very second the words are out of my mouth. “What do you mean?”

“Just…” I can’t bring myself to say the words, and I can’t look him in the eye. I shrug and look down at the ground as his hand slips from mine. The air feels colder than it did just a second ago.

“Sex,” he whispers, like it kills him to even say it. Like the word is…unfathomable.

I nod. I can’t speak past the lump in my throat.

“I can’t.” He offers me a sad smile, like he wishes he could do it but it’s just not in his genetic makeup. “Not with you.”

“Not with me?”

He shakes his head. “I need more.”

Tears well up in my eyes and I blink past them as I cross my arms over my chest, trying to keep out the chill. Of course I would find the one guy who turns down sex for love. That’s the story of my pathetic life, and that’s what makes the cynical part of me start running her mouth.

“What happens when it all goes to shit?” I ask.

Nate closes his eyes for a moment before he brings his hand up and cups my cheek. I lean into it, loving the way his rough palm is so gentle against my skin. I think this is the last time I’m going to feel it.

“Callie,” he sighs. “What happens when it doesn’t?”

I look at him for a long while, not really able to give him an answer. Not the one he wants, anyway. He’s asking for my heart, and it’s not whole enough to give to anyone yet. Maybe it never will be, I don’t know.

“Please stay,” I whisper. It’s pathetic that I’m begging, but I’ve never felt desperation like this. It’s my last night here and I want to be with him, even if we just stand like this all night, with his hand on my cheek as our only connection. I reach up and fiddle with one of the buttons on his shirt, and my forehead comes to rest against Nate’s chest. It’s the strangest sensation, feeling his muscles both tighten and relax at the same time. He brings his other hand up and runs his fingers through my hair.

“I can’t stay,” he says, pressing a kiss against the crown of my head, and I gather fistfuls of his shirt in my hands.

He pulls me close, cradling me against him as he buries his head in my neck. And I don’t know when it happens, but suddenly his lips are on mine, very soft, very gentle. Very final. It’s the sweetest, slowest, most tender kiss anyone’s ever given me. It’s the kind of kiss that makes me feel like my whole world is ending and beginning at the same time. He pulls away quickly, like he has to make himself do it, and he picks up his bag. He walks off the porch, stopping once to turn and look at me. It’s then that I completely lose it, letting out some sad, strangled sound as I bring my hand up to my mouth to muffle my cries. This is it.

This is it.

I know Nate wants to come back and comfort me, but he can’t. He looks like I feel: like his heart is breaking.

But he keeps walking.

Alone, into the dark.

Away from me.

I WAKE up to a soft rapping against the door and sit up, having to squint my tired eyes against the too-bright sunlight that’s streaming through the windows.

“Callie?” The muffled voice belongs to Amy. It’s soft and tentative, very motherly. Something about it makes tears well up in my eyes, and I’m surprised I have any tears left considering I cried myself to sleep last night. My entire face feels swollen and hot.

“Yeah?” I say, my voice all deep and raspy.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, thank you. I’m all right.” She’s going to know that’s a lie, but I guess I can’t have everything.

“When you’re ready, come on into the kitchen and I’ll make you something to eat.”

“Okay.”

Despite how awful I feel, I really am hungry, so I shuffle into the bathroom and turn the faucet to as hot as I’ll be able to tolerate. Steam fills the room before long, helping me clear my head. I step beneath the spray and let the water wash the past day away.

Even though I do my best not to think about Nate, the more I try to avoid it, the more my traitor mind conjures up the look on his face when he’d smile at me. The salty sweet taste of his skin, the way his lips felt when they were pressed against mine. The water washes away more tears as they fall, and I wonder how I could’ve ever let him walk away? But…how could I have asked him to stay? Even now I can feel every broken part of me just barely hanging on, and if that’s all I have to offer him, maybe this is all for the best. I worry that I’m going to vacillate over this decision for the rest of my life, long past the time when Nate will have moved on, and long past the time when I should have.