“It’s for everything. I love this place, too; it’s imprinted on me as much as you are. But in the end, it’s still for you. I love you. I’m in love with you. I’m not going home. You are my home. I’m staying with you.” I sound desperate, I know I do, but it’s the truth and I can’t stop it from falling from my fucking lips.
“And if I don’t want you to stay with me?” she asks. It’s quite loud with the wind but I hear her words. I hear them because I feel them stab me like ice picks to the gut.
“What?” I ask breathlessly. The chill spreads through me.
“What if I don’t want you to stay here? What then? Will you still want to stay?”
Her eyes are like black holes in the sky.
“I don’t understand, Gemma. Please. Just . . .” Something inside is starting to sink. It’s growing. Dread. “You don’t want me here?”
“This was only supposed to be a temporary thing.”
My eyes nearly fall out as anger rushes through me. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
She steps back, away from me, and looks around her at the few people who have looked our way. “Let’s go talk somewhere else.”
“Fuck that,” I sneer, grabbing her. “We’re talking here. Temporary?”
She yanks out of my grasp, her eyes pained. “Yes! You came to visit and now you’re leaving. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s what we agreed on.”
“I didn’t agree to anything!” I yell. “I just wanted to be with you.”
“You don’t belong here!” she yells back.
My jaw drops. “I don’t belong here?” I feel like everything she’s saying is a lie. It makes no sense. It can’t be real, can’t be happening.
She exhales and covers her face in her hands. I’m breathing hard, my chest squeezed so impossibly tight I’m afraid I might collapse. “This isn’t your home, Josh,” she mutters into her hands. “And you’ll see that. You’ll realize it when you stay.”
I don’t fucking understand her. I never will. “Home isn’t a country or a place,” I say. “It’s where you belong. I thought I belonged with you.” I suck back the pain. “I guess I don’t.”
She takes her hand away and looks me dead in the eye. “No, you don’t.” Her face is impassive, a stony mask. It gives me nothing.
She never gave me anything but my shattering heart in my chest.
“You know what your problem is,” I tell her, having a hard time keeping my voice calm. “You don’t know when to stop being such a stone cold bitch.”
Gemma flinches like she’s been slapped. That got a reaction.
She blinks a few times and says, “You’re right. I don’t know when. I don’t know how.”
“It’s called fucking trying to be a nice, caring person,” I tell her. “You should try it one day when you pull your head out of your fucking ass.”
I whip around and march through the violent wind, back to Mr. Orange. But I’m not going back with her.
I can hear her running after me. But I’m done caring. I’m done bleeding.
She grabs my hand and yanks at me to stop.
“Josh,” she cries out, and for once I see some emotion in her eyes—the fear, the panic, and maybe pain. But it’s too late. The damage is already done. “Josh please,” she begs, “I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m trying to prevent you from being hurt. You know how I am, you just said so yourself. If you stay here for me, I’ll fuck up. I’ll ruin things because that’s all I know how to do. I’ll only end up breaking your heart.”
I lean in close to her, close enough to kiss her. But that’s the last thing on my mind.
“You’ve already broken my heart,” I tell her, my voice rough with anger and pain.
Then I walk away, fast, up the hill back to the car park. I’m going to run like hell.
I take out the car keys and open Mr. Orange’s back door. I grab everything I can see that’s mine, everything of importance. Most of my stuff is already in my backpack, including my passport. Everything else I can buy at home.
I swing it on my back and take out my wallet from my jeans. I have about five hundred dollars in cash that I took out the other day and I place it in the cutlery drawer. I won’t owe her anything after that.
I look up and see the sketchbook on the counter. I have no use for it now.
I pick it up, feeling its weight in my hands just as Gemma comes running up to the door.
“What are you doing?” she cries out in horror.
“Everything I owe you is in the drawer.” I shove the sketchbook in her hands. “This was supposed to be your Christmas present,” I tell her. “Feel free to toss it in the fire.”
Then I’m brushing past her and heading over to one of the buses loading wet and weary sightseers. I climb on board, and with a wad of cash and pained eyes, convince the driver to drive me as far as he can.
I take my seat at the back and avoid looking out the window, at the faint outline of Mr. Orange as the rain against the window blurs the image.
It’s over.
It’s not until the bus gets farther south and the sky turns blue again that I start to cry. It’s beautiful again.
And it’s all over.
I’m going home.
Chapter Twenty-Three