She lifted her head and stared into my eyes. “But sometimes if you love someone hard enough, you have to let them go. And I love you so much, that I’ll let you go. I. Will. Let. You. Go.”
My heart slammed against my chest, and when I spoke, my own voice cracked. “I don’t want you to let me go, Merit. Ever.”
Her lips pressed together tightly, and she quickly wiped her tears away as she shook her head frantically. “I can’t play seconds anymore. I know I deserve more than that. Being around you and all the times you put me in second position has taught me that I won’t be that same naïve girl again.”
It was my turn to yell. “You’re not fucking second to anyone, Merit. You never were. Not ever!”
She stared at me with a confused look on her face. She slowly shook her head as if my words sounded so foreign to her.
I scrubbed my hands down my face, then dropped them to my sides and tried to calm down. She needed to finally hear the truth.
“I don’t know when I actually fell in love with you. Maybe the first time we kissed, or the first time we danced. Or the first time I looked at you and you made it so hard for me to breathe. All I know is, I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember.”
Merit’s mouth formed an O as she stood there and finally listened to me.
“I fought my feelings for you, because I never wanted to ruin our friendship. You meant…no…you mean the world to me. When I saw you again on New Year’s Eve, I couldn’t stop those old feelings from flooding back. Do you want to know what I was going to say that morning in your kitchen? I was going to tell you that night when we were first together, I regret more than anything that her name came out of my mouth, because I can promise you, Kaci was not who I was thinking about. It was you. It’s always been you. I just didn’t know it then like I know it now.”
“If I wasn’t pregnant right now, would you be standing here telling me this?” she asked, her voice clogged with emotion.
I didn’t want to lie to her. I never wanted to lie to her. “Honestly, I don’t know, Merit. I’m scared shitless. The only reason I told Brock that bullshit about not wanting a relationship with you was because he wouldn’t stop talking about you. About us. I was so confused about what I was feeling for you. How you infiltrated nearly every moment of my thoughts. Hell, I didn’t mean a single word of it, Merit. I swear to you, I didn’t.”
Merit took an unknowing step toward me and it was all I could do to not reach out for her and hold her to me. Beg her to believe me.
“I needed to think. My head was so confused with Dad dying, and these intense feelings I have for you. That night, when we made love, I had this feeling in my chest that I’ve never felt before, and my God, that scared the shit out of me. I mean, I was scared before, that’s why I kept you in the friend zone. You were my everything, Merit. And I know I didn’t show you, and I know that stupid thing with Brock and Kaci caused distance between us. Maybe in the back of my head, I thought I needed Kaci around to keep from ruining my friendship with you.”
“What?” she asked, confusion all over her face.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. The only thing I do know is, I have never in my life felt this way about any other woman, including Kaci. I think she knew how I felt about you, and a part of her was jealous. If you only knew how many times I accidentally called her Merit. It drove her crazy. You know how she was, she always wanted…”
“What she couldn’t have,” Merit softly added.
“When you walked away that night in the barn, I told myself it was for the best. That you and I would never work. You were too good for me, and I didn’t deserve you. I didn’t deserve the gift you gave me that night, and I sure as hell don’t deserve your forgiveness now. I threw all of my feelings into a woman I thought I loved, but it was only because you scared the hell out of me, Merit. I knew I’d hurt you, and that I was fucked up in the head, and that if I stayed and tried to fight for you, I’d only hurt you more. So I let you go.”
It was my turn to take a step close to her. My fingers twitched to touch her. To wipe away her tears.