For a long moment, she didn't move. Then slowly, she turned around, and her eyes were red-rimmed and furious and scared all at once. "His name was Daniel," she said. "We were together 4 years. He said all the right things."
"Said he loved how driven I was. Said my career was one of the things he loved about me." She wrapped her arms around herself. "And then I got an offer, a good one. Not this good, but good."
"And he sat me down and he held my hands and he told me that if I really loved him, I'd turn it down. That a relationship meant sacrifice. That somebody always has to give something up, and it was my turn." Her voice cracked. "He made it sound so reasonable, so loving."
"And I almost did it, Marcus. I almost said yes. I had the phone in my hand to turn the job down. And then I looked at him and I realized he never once asked himself to give up anything. Not once."
"It was always going to be me. It was always going to be my dream that was negotiable and his that was sacred." Marcus felt something go cold and hard in his chest. "So I said no," Emily said. "To him, to the whole thing."
"I chose the job, and it was the loneliest, most right decision I ever made." She looked up at him, and the fury was gone now. And what was left was just the raw, exhausted truth of it. "And I swore I'd never let myself get to that place again. That place where I love somebody enough that they get a vote on the size of my life."
Her voice dropped almost to nothing. "And then I came home to build my mother's garden house. And my father found a man on the side of the road. And now here I am standing in this kitchen terrified because I'm in that place again, Marcus." "And I don't know how I got here."
The kitchen was completely silent. Marcus took a breath. "Emily," he said. "Look at me." She looked at him.
"I am not Daniel," Marcus said. "And I need you to hear this because it's the only thing I know how to give you right now that's actually true. I would never, not once, not ever ask you to be smaller so that I could feel bigger." His voice was steady, but there was heat under it. "You want to know what I've spent the—I've spent it standing up alone at 4:45 in the morning so my daughter could have a childhood."
"I know exactly what it costs to shrink your own life down for somebody else. I've done it gladly for her. And I would never, ever ask you to do that against your will. Not for me. Not for anybody."
Emily's eyes filled. "Then what are you saying?" "I'm saying take the job," Marcus said. Emily blinked. Whatever she'd braced for, it wasn't that.
"What?" "Take the job." Marcus said it again. And it cost him. God, it cost him.
Because he could already feel the shape of the loss coming. Could already hear the empty Saturdays. Could already see Ava's face when he had to tell her. But he said it anyway because it was right. "It's your dream."
"You earned it. You said no to it once already to protect yourself, and you shouldn't have to say no to it again to protect me. That's not love. That's just a different kind of cage." He swallowed hard.
"So take it. Go to Chicago. Run the division. Be the thing you were always supposed to be, and I'll—" His voice caught. "And I'll be happy for you," he finished.
"For real. Not the fake kind, the real kind." Emily was crying now, silently, tears running down her face. "You'd let me go," she said. "Just like that."
"I wouldn't want to," Marcus said, and his own voice was thick. "Now understand me. I wouldn't want to. There's a part of me screaming right now. But wanting you to stay and asking you to stay are two different things, Emily."
"Daniel couldn't tell the difference. I can." He shook his head. "I lost one woman I loved because life took her and there was nothing I could do about it. I'm not going to lose the next one by being the reason her life got small."
"I'd rather miss you than cage you. That's—that's the whole thing. That's all I've got." For a moment, Emily just stared at him. And then she did something Marcus didn't expect.
She started to laugh through the tears. A broken, disbelieving, watery laugh. "You idiot," she said. "What?" "You beautiful idiot."
She wiped her face with the back of her hand. "Do you have any idea what you just did? You just did the exact opposite of what Daniel did. He wanted me to give up my dream so he could keep me. And you?"
"You're willing to give me up so I can keep my dream." She laughed again, helpless. "Which means you're the first man in my entire life who ever loved me more than he loved having me. And you did it while telling me to leave." Marcus opened his mouth.
Closed it. "I hadn't thought about it like that," he admitted. "No," Emily said. "You wouldn't have, because you weren't calculating. You just said the true thing."