Chapter 14: Why I Said Yes

Clarissa's POV

Cal cooked that night for the first time since I had moved in, and he burned the onions.

We ate scrambled eggs on the couch with the lights on and Pretzel between us.

He was working on a corner of toast he had been told no about.

Nobody had phoned in an hour, and the house was quiet in a way it had not been all week.

"Say it," Cal said.

"Say what?"

"Whatever you've been holding since the boardroom. You've looked at the side of my face five times."

"Four."

"Five."

I put my plate on the floor next to his and pulled my feet up under me.

"I want to tell you why I said yes to Dean," I said.

He went still.

"You don't have to."

"I do, because you think you know, and you don't."

He waited.

"He asked me last winter at his mother's table, with the candles lit and Deborah crying into a napkin," I said.

"I looked at him across the potatoes and thought, he's kind to waiters and he's never loud."

"That sounds like a reason."

"It sounds like one. It was an escape."

I made myself keep going.

"I picked the one man I could never love the way I loved you, so I'd have a door to shut."

My voice shook on the last word.

"I said yes to stop wanting you, Cal. It didn't work for one single day."

He stared at his hands.

"I thought you were lonely," he said slowly. "Your dad was sick and I was the only one around."

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