“She didn’t choose me!” He bangs his hand against his chest. “I wasn’t anything to do with her decision – you need to hear me out, so you can understand—”
“No!” I press my hands to my head. “I can’t hear anymore!” I know what I feel is irrational, but I can’t think straight in this moment. All I can do is feel – and I feel irrational.
“I hate this! I hate everything! I hate me!” I’m crying now.
Jordan crosses the room in a few strides and pulls me into his arms.
The feel of him…
His heat and strength…
I curl my fingers into his shirt. “Everything’s a mess. I’m a mess.” I sniffle, pulling away, unable to be this close to him knowing that I’m leaving.
Not willing to let me go, he takes my face in his hands.
“You’re not a mess.” He sweeps his thumbs over my cheeks, drying my tears. “Just talk to me, babe. Let me help you.”
A crushing feeling in my chest takes my breath with it. “After everything I just said to you … you still want to help me. Why?”
His grip on my face increases. His eyes darkening. “Because I f**kin’ love you, Mia.” His eyes close, almost as if he’s in pain.
He loves me.
Jordan rests his forehead against mine, his hand sliding around to cup the back of my neck.
“That didn’t come out exactly as I’d planned, but it is the truth. I’m in love you with.” His breath fans my skin. His words crush my heart. “I know it’s probably too soon, and I know you have a lot to deal with right now and that I’m the cause of some of it, but I just want you to know the extent of my feelings for you before you throw us away. I love you, Mia. Every part of you. The best and worst. The broken, the perfect. The bad, the good. You’re it for me, babe. I see only you.”
He loves me.
Jordan is in love with me.
Me.
I love him too. So much.
But it won’t work.
I’m too broken. Too hurt. Too resentful.
And I can’t see any of that going away anytime soon.
He deserves so much more than I can give him. And to tell him that I love him would be wrong and selfish of me.
I open my eyes. “I’m leaving Durango.”
He pulls back from me, hand still curled around my nape. “Are you going back to Boston?”
I frown. “No. That’s the last place I’d go. Why would you think that?”
He shakes his head. Eyes down.
This is it. I have to tell him about my illness. “Jordan, there’s something you don’t know about me…” I stall, blowing out a breath. “When you found me in the motel room … I don’t know if you saw all the empty food wrappers?”
“I saw them.”
“Well … I have this problem.” I dig my fingernails into the bed of my hand. “When I’m stressed or upset, I, uh … I eat … a lot of food, then I, uh … I make myself throw it back up.”
He doesn’t react. Doesn’t move. He just stares back at me with the same emotion that was there moments ago.
“I have an illness called bulimia, Jordan. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it before.”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“Okay. Well, it’s not – for me, anyway – about being thin,” I clarify. “It’s about the problems up here.” I touch my fingers to my head. “When things in my life are too painful, or out of my control, or just too much for me to deal with, I take the pain away using the comfort of food. Then to get the control back, I guess you could say, I make myself throw the food back up.”
“How long has it been going on for?” he asks softly.
I take a deep breath. “Ten years, on and off. Worse in the last few.”
“How do we fix this?”
I meet his determined eyes. “We don’t. I have to.” Blowing out a breath, I tell him, “There’s a specialist facility in Denver for people who suffer with eating disorders like mine. I’m going there to try and get better.”
“How long will you be there for?”
I lift my shoulders. “I don’t know … however long it takes, I guess.”
His eyes lift. I see a flicker of hope in them. “Denver’s not far, Mia – like a six hour drive, max – I’ll drive out every weekend to visit—”
“No,” I say, squashing his hope.
“No,” he echoes.
“I have to do this alone.” I pull on my lower lip. “I don’t want you to come visit me.”
“Okay…” He rubs the bridge of his nose with his finger. “What about when you’re better … can I see you then?”
I look away from him.
It makes no difference because I can feel his eyes on me. It hurts. So much.
I shake my head slowly.
“Ah … right. Okay … so you really meant it before when you said I’d lost you.” He sounds in pain, hurt, and it’s awful.
But I am doing the right thing – I know I am.
The resentment I feel isn’t going anywhere. And eventually it would eat at me … us, and in the end there’d be nothing left but hate and hurt.
I’ve had enough hurt to last a lifetime. Better to end things now, than later.
I feel the bed shift as he stands. “Will you do one thing for me?”