Falling in love was a funny thing. I’d always assumed it was something that crept up on you slowly, a feeling that gradually blossomed into something bigger and better until you knew that, yes, this was the one. But that’s not how it was at all. Not with Finn. Love with him was like a punch in the gut, leaving me dazed and breathless. I didn’t have time to prepare, or to protect myself. He just barreled into my life and staked his claim on my heart, and although I did my best to slow the process down, there was no way to stop it. Love could not be turned off any more than it could be forced on. I knew what Finn and I had could never last, though. Eventually reality would catch up with us and deliver its punishing blow; but for now, for this one incredible moment in time, I was savoring the beautiful disaster.

* * *

“So I’m telling the lady that I’ve got her medication and she holds out her hand. I say, ‘No, hun, I’m going to put the Pepcid in your IV,’ and I shit you not, Emma, she says to me, ‘If it’s not too much trouble, I prefer Coca-Cola.”

I laughed at Frannie’s story, but my mind was elsewhere. Concentration had been a challenge since meeting Finn, and I found myself reading the doctor’s note over and over because I couldn’t seem to focus on the words. I didn’t need a lengthy diagnosis to know that I was suffering from withdrawal – of the scruffy, swoon-worthy kind.

Francesca continued on with a rant about the sheer stupidity of the world today and how it would benefit the human race if there were lifeguards manning the gene pools. I nodded my agreement, but really, I wasn’t paying attention until she came to an abrupt stop and gripped my arm. “Um, Emma…”

“Huh?”

Francesca rarely halted in mid-paragraph. Typically she found nothing more interesting than the words coming out of her mouth. This had to be good. I followed the trajectory of her gaze to find Finn at the other end, standing there in a snug-fitting black t-shirt and black denim jeans with no holes and no grease. His hair was a pile of reckless bends and waves, and that smile… both Frannie and I gulped back our appreciation.

“Sweet mother of god. Emma, do you see him too?”

Finn immediately arrived at my side, wrapped an arm around my waist, and kissed my cheek.

“And that answers my question,” Frannie said, turning her bugged eyes away.

“Francesca, this is um…my…” How did I present him? Who was he to me exactly? We’d only just begun whatever it was we had going on. It was too early, and reckless, to call him my boyfriend, but certainly, with our nightly romps front and center in our emerging relationship, Finn was far from best bud material.

“Hi, I’m Finn, Emma’s man crush.”

Well, that was one way to describe us… and really just perfectly articulated.

“I certainly hope so.”

Frannie nudged me in the side, a nonverbal complaint filed against me for not sharing this very special secret with her.

“It’s nice to meet you, Finn. Emma failed to mention you.”

“Oh, really?” He grinned that dimpled smile. How this man was not booking movie roles right and left was beyond me. “Apparently I didn’t make the impression I’d hoped.”

“No, no. You more than impressed. I’m just still in the processing stages of all that is Finn.”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

“So this is the lady you’ve been waiting for?” A nurse and her friend walked up to our little group, startling me. I wasn’t used to friendly voices anywhere near Frannie and me. Of course the adoring looks on their faces were directed squarely toward my man crush. Apparently, while I’d been all hands on deck in a urethral catheterization, Finn had been chatting up the locals and raking in more friends in one hour than I’d made in four years.

“Yes, it is. Didn’t I tell you she was beautiful?”

I blushed, unaccustomed to such displays of affection. He nuzzled my neck enough to let the others know that whether they agreed or not with his assessment of my physical appearance, he expected an affirmative answer. And the nurses obliged, celebrating my ‘beauty’. Then, surprisingly, they stuck their hands out and introduced themselves, confessing that they were so happy to finally meet me. Okay, what in the world was happening here?

“This one’s a keeper,” my new best friend said, gesturing to Finn. “And he’s got it bad for you. You’re a lucky lady.”

I looked to him for confirmation, and he nodded as if his infatuation with me were common knowledge. And really, that was what it became. Finn’s charm traveled at lightning speed through the female-fueled rumor mill. He must have dropped information about his profession, as he was routinely referred to as ‘the stuntman’ in conversations around the hospital. And even though only .01 percent of the nurses had met him, boy, did they love him. Strangely enough, the goodwill projected toward Finn reflected positively on me, and for the first time since starting at the hospital, I wasn’t feeling like such an outsider.

While my co-workers continued to sing his praises, I was busy trying to fight him off with everything I had; but damned if Finn wasn’t an expert at pulling the very best out of me. When I was with him, gone was the uptight perfectionist and in her place was an open, ridiculously happy young woman without a care in the world. It didn’t take much on Finn’s part. No grand gestures were needed. In fact, it was the smallest acts of kindness that chipped away at my heart the fastest.

A prime example of such sweet moments was the night he wanted to have dinner with me, but I was too tired to go out. Finn offered to pick us up something to eat and asked what I wanted. My reply was a simple, “Surprise me.”

And, of course, he did. It wasn’t so much what he brought me that impressed so much but the enormous amount of thought he’d put into his choice.

Upon opening the door to find my man holding a familiar looking white bag, I asked in amusement, “You brought me In & Out Burger?”

“Okay, so hear me out before you judge my choice as cheap and immature.”

“I would never do that.”

“Uh huh, right. So remember when you said to surprise you? Well, I actually gave it a lot of thought. I figured you’re the type of girl who tries to eat healthy – not necessarily because you want to but because you think it’s what you should do. So if I brought you a salad, you wouldn’t be surprised. Then I thought what about bringing you something expensive, like steak or lobster, but then I was like, you might expect that because you’d think I was trying to impress you… and naturally, if that were the case, you wouldn’t be surprised. So then I started thinking, what would Emma not get for herself? If you had to pick up dinner on your way home, what place would be the most unlikely for you to stop at? And then I remembered how much you hated waiting in line – and what restaurant always has the longest drive thru line? That’s right, In & Out Burger. So I took a chance, and here you go. Surprise!”

And like an idiot, my lips trembled as my eyes misted over. Finn’s smile immediately faded as he took in my emotional response.

“Oh, shit! You don’t like it? I’m sorry.”

Shaking my head, I stepped into him, draping my arms over his shoulders and kissing his thoughtful lips. The minute we connected, I felt the familiar excitement of our bodies pressed against each other, and my physical hunger was replaced by something more primal. Pushing him against the wall, my hands went to his waistband and into his jeans. Still clutching the fast food bag in his hand for dear life, Finn gasped in surprise as I showed him just how much I appreciated his efforts.

* * *

Love was an entity unto itself. I knew how it felt in the platonic sense, having loved my family all my life. And I knew what it felt like to love the inanimate – a particular piece of music or a book or a pair of shoes. But nothing could have prepared me for love in the romantic sense. As so many others had discovered before me, this type of love could not be described in words. It was a feeling… a look, a touch. I think I knew for sure the night we were sitting peacefully together on my couch, fingers entwined, with smiles on our contented faces. I remembered thinking there was nothing more I needed in the world – just he and I sitting quietly beside each other forever. That’s when I knew I loved Finn, and that I would do anything to ensure his happiness – even if it meant sacrificing my own.

I had hoped we could have a longer run, that our fingers could remain one for just a little bit longer, but when the heart of the one you love was in need of protecting, time was of the essence.

* * *

“Where are we going?” I asked for the hundredth time as we rolled down the Pacific Coast Highway.

“It’s a surprise,” he said, shaking his head at my impatience, all while enjoying the power he had over me. He knew damn well I hated surprises, and so he made sure to always pepper our dates with one or two just to keep me off guard. Planning and preparing had always been incredibly important to me but lately I’d been forced to relax on the rules and it felt good, for a change, not be a slave to the order.

My house was still immaculately clean, of course, but if a dish needed to sit in the sink for a few minutes longer so Finn and I could get it on in the bedroom, I was okay with that. And if Cynthia hacked up a hairball, it could wait… no, never mind, a hairball could never wait. That shit got scooped up mid-fuck if necessary.

“But is this surprise a fancy one, like I’m going to be embarrassed by my choice of clothing, or will it be a surprise where I pretend I’m excited but I’m really not?”

“Way to be romantic. I pour my heart into these surprises, and that’s your attitude?” The smile on his face told me he wasn’t offended. In fact, getting Finn riled up took way more than a simple insult.

“So what you’re saying is, this surprise is crap?”

“No. I’m saying it’s not a surprise if you know what it is. Now shut up and let me entertain you.”

I settled back in my seat, a contented smile on my face. Finn really did enjoy doing nice things for me, and it felt amazing to be pampered and cared for. What I liked best was he didn’t feel the need to wow me with the expensive. Finn’s surprises were more heartfelt. He put effort into his choices for no other reason than to put a smile on my face – like the dopey one I was wearing now.

Finn pulled off onto the shoulder of the Pacific Coast Highway. I knew where we were, and I smiled at him. I’d been here plenty of times as a kid.

“The sandhill.”

Finn’s surprise was a two-hundred-foot vertical climb up a sand dune. A rite of passage for any native Southern Californian, as kids the sandhill had been a McKallister ‘must stop’ on our way back from the Malibu beaches. We’d race up that hill at full speed, gradually losing that child-like energy, and crawl the remainder of the way up.

He nodded. “You ready for a hike?”

Looking up at the mountainside, I hadn’t remembered it being so high. Or maybe the height issue hadn’t been as much of a problem for me as a child. I knew I’d grown more cautious over the years, but seeing things I used to easily conquer terrifying me now made me realize just how much I’d changed. I no longer wanted to be a scared, world-weary Emma, and it had taken Finn’s surprises to make me realize it.

“Let’s do it.”

* * *

The climb was brutal. There was nothing like a giant sand dune to make you feel out of shape, and while I had to bend over and catch my breath, Finn was barely winded. We stood at the top, holding hands, and looked out over the ocean. Peace was the only word that came to mind.

We plopped down into the sand, and I lay back in Finn’s arms as we watched the waves roll in and sun dip lower over the horizon.

“Tell me more about your family,” I asked. “I’m curious about Rocky.”

He tensed. Finn, as open as he was with me, seemed to have a few skeletons in the closet, and those bones appeared to have something to do with his brother.

“He’s younger, right?”

“Yeah, by fifteen months.”

“Do you look alike?”

“God no. He’s way better looking.”

“No way is that possible,” I said, snuggling in closer.

“Oh, trust me on this one. He may be a total screw up, but he’s not lacking in the looks department. We’re half-brothers, and when we were kids, we used to imagine what our fathers looked like. Rocky insisted his was some medieval Viking because he was big and broad and fair. Growing up, no one ever believed we were brothers, what with me looking like I’d stuck my finger in a light socket my whole life.”

I reached up and gently ran my fingers through his curls. Once reviled, they were probably my favorite thing about him now.

“Are you close with him?”

“We were,” Finn said. I detected a sad story to follow.

“Not anymore?”

“Not for a long time.”

He paused a moment, clearly searching for the right thing to say.

“Rocky and I grew up in the junkyard with all the other kids. Despite what you might think, we loved it. We ran around all the time and had no discipline or rules. You can only imagine the crap we got ourselves into, and once we started school, we were both fairly unmanageable. I, at least, had a conscience, and when I did something wrong, I tried to make amends; but Rocky, he just didn’t care. He openly defied authority. Anyway, usually because of him, we both became quite familiar with the principal’s office. The school tried everything with us, but since Misty, who is Shelby’s mom and was our guardian, had no interest in disciplining us or enforcing follow through at home, our bad behavior continued to escalate. Finally, the school convinced Misty to allow the two of us to get big brothers. You know, through that Big Brother/Big Sister program?”

I nodded, trying to picture my sweet, good-natured Finn as a bratty kid.

“Anyway, my ‘big brother’ was this young guy named Barry. He’d grown up without a father too, and had joined the program hoping to make a difference. I was nine at the time, and we hit it off immediately. Rocky was given a man in his thirties who was really nice, but older and more disciplined. The hope was that a stable older man might calm him down. Well, Rocky ate the poor guy alive, and then ended up going through one big brother after another until there were no more left to offer.

“But Barry and I connected. One thing he noticed was that it took a good hour or two for me to calm down before we could just sit and talk, so he started taking me to a gymnastics place to get all the excess energy out. I took to it right away and was really good at it. The gym even gave Barry a discount, and he continued to pay for my membership all through my childhood.”

“Are you still in contact with him now, as an adult?”

Finn shifted a bit and I could tell something about the story was bothering him. I squeezed his hand to encourage him, but instead of answering my question, he continued with the narrative.

“Misty always had a steady stream of boyfriends. All were bad, but some were worse than others. Anyway, this one dude was delivering his weekly beatdown on Misty when Shelby got involved. She never could keep her mouth shut. He just started wailing on my mother – so of course I tried to intervene and had the crap beaten out of me too. And then Rocky stumbled upon the scene, went berserk, and sent the abuser to the hospital. The police got involved. I’d been beaten up bad enough for social services to remove all the kids in the compound, but within days they’d all returned, except me. Barry and his wife, Marissa, took me in. I begged them to take Rocky too, but they had two small children and they just couldn’t take the chance with him, especially after what he’d done to that guy. So, while I was adjusting to a normal life in suburbia with loving, attentive parental figures, Rocky continued to wallow in the filth that was Perryland.”

“And the two of you drifted apart,” I said, finishing the story.

Finn nodded. “I guess I’ve always felt guilty for abandoning him.”

“You were handed a chance at a future and were smart enough to take it.”

“I tried to stay in contact with him, but Rocky was pissed and took every opportunity to knock me down. He made fun of everything I did, as if living a normal life was so ridiculous to him. I finally got tired of getting shit on by him and stopped visiting. We saw each other occasionally after that, but it was always strained between us.”

I lifted his fingers in mine and kissed the back of his hand. Finn’s heart was bigger than anyone’s I’d ever met, and I got the sense that the divide between brothers was something that had eaten away at him for years. “Have you seen Rocky in prison?”

“No.”

“Do you want to?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “I do and I don’t. He’s asked me to a few times. I just haven’t gone. I guess I should.”

“It doesn’t always have to be about someone else, Finn. Putting yourself first isn’t always a bad thing, you know.”

“I know. I just hate the idea of seeing him locked up in there. I really do need to visit.”

“Are you and Barry still close?”

“Yeah. Barry taught me what it was to be a man. I owe him and Marissa everything.”

“I’d love to meet them.”

“You will.”

Finn said that with such certainty, as if he saw a future with me. And after his story, I felt even more connected to him… until he said the words that changed everything.

“I can’t wait to be a father. I’ll be everything I never had.”

The statement was simple and heartfelt, and I felt myself die a little inside. The one thing he wanted – to be a dad – was the one thing I could never give him.

“I almost was one, you know, a little over a year ago,” he said, startling me.

“No.” I sat up straighter. “I didn’t know.”

“I had this girlfriend named Alexis. She seemed fine when I met her, but then she started getting really possessive and manipulative. After about two months, I’d seen enough and tried to cut her loose, but she threatened to kill herself and made me feel so guilty that I stayed. Months went by, and I started noticing that none of my friends were texting or contacting me. Turns out she’d blocked all the contacts on my phone without telling me. Once I figured out what she’d been up to, I broke it off. But then a week later she called to tell me she was pregnant. She knew how much I wanted to be a dad, and used it against me.”

“There was no baby,” I said, absorbing some of the pain for him.

“No. I think, deep down I knew all along, but didn’t want to admit it to myself because I wanted to be a father so badly.”

“I’m so sorry, Finn.”

He held me a little tighter. “It was for the best. She would have made my life a living hell, using the baby against me to get what she wanted. I want to have a baby with someone I love… someone who wants a family as much as I do. Someone like you, Emma.”

* * *

One month was all it took to fall in love. The little flutter I’d felt the day I met him had grown too large and too powerful to ever be stuffed back inside. In reality, it had taken less than a month, but it wasn’t until I was sitting on top of the sand hill listening to Finn pour his heart out to me that I admitted the truth to myself. And now here I was in a place I never thought I’d be, making a decision I never wanted to make.

In order for Finn to be happy – really, truly happy – he needed the one thing I could never give him. Sadly enough, at this point, the truth was all I had to offer. He had to know that I didn’t share his vision of a family, so he could move on and find someone who would. I, of course, knew the man he was – he’d make excuses and tell me he could forego fatherhood to be with me, but that wasn’t what I wanted for him. Doing without was not an option for Finn. He deserved more than just to settle.

The talk went about as well as could be expected. Finn sat quietly at the table as I explained to him that I was not the one for him and the reason why. And when I finished my speech, he sat back without a word and just stared at me. Finally, after he’d had time to process, the first tentative questions began to emerge.

“Is it that you can’t have kids, or you won’t have kids? Because if you can’t, we could always adopt.”

“As far as I know, I can have children. I just don’t want them.”

“I’ve seen you with kids. You seem good with them.”

“I like kids; I just don’t want any of my own. Is that so hard to understand?”

I saw a change in his demeanor then. Anger took form as the reality of what I was saying began to hit him.

“Yes, Emma. It’s really fucking hard to understand. I mean, how do you know you won’t change your mind somewhere down the line?”

“I won’t.”

“But how do you know?” His frustration was bubbling over.

“Finn.” I reached out and touched him. “I’m telling you this now to save you the heartbreak later.”

A bitter laugh broke free from his scornful lips. “Too late.”

“I’m so sorry. The last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

“Again – too late.”

An awkward silence ensued. Yes, he was hurting, but so was I. When all was said and done, Finn would move on and find love again; but I’d be back where I started. The only difference from before was that I’d be saddled with the memory of a love that could never be.

“So you’re breaking it off with me?” Finn breathed out jaggedly, rubbing the back of his neck. “That’s what’s happening here?”

I looked down, unable to make eye contact. Leaving him was the last thing I wanted, but what other choice did I have? Our lives were destined to go down vastly different paths.

“The more time we spend together the worse it will be.”

“Do you love me?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything.”

He slammed his hands down on the table, making me jump. His lip twitching in anger, he said in a growl, “It matters to me.”

Tears filled my eyes as I took in his utter sadness. I could at least give him the truth.

“Yes, Finn, I love you.”

“Then don’t do this. Please, Emma. You’re just scared. I know you. This is what you do. You push away when you get scared. We can work through this.”

“Not this.”

“So you’re just giving up on us?” The twitching lip was back.

“I’m giving you the chance at the life you want.”

“You mean the life I want with you!” Finn rose abruptly from his chair. “Dammit. When I told you that story last night, it was because I’m falling in love with you, and I can see a future with you that I’ve never imagined with anyone else. And now you’re telling me to go to hell? I mean, I can’t even figure out what’s going on here. I’ve never heard such bullshit in my life, and I grew up with the queen of bullshit herself!”

“You think I wanted this? I was pushing you away because I knew this was going to happen, and I was trying to stop it before it ever got to this point. But you are relentless, Finn. You did this. You made me love you, and now we are both screwed because of it. So if you want to blame anyone, blame yourself!”

I knew I wasn’t being reasonable. He was only guilty of wearing his heart on his sleeve; but I’d never been one to fight fair, and I knew the only way for this to end was for it to end badly. Finn paced back and forth, looking truly broken. This needed to be over, so we could both start the process of moving on. Or maybe just him. I wouldn’t be moving on. I would stay stuck in the memory of this love forever, because if there was one thing I was sure of, it was that I would never put myself in this position ever again. Finn would always, and forever, remain my one and only love.

“I think you should go.”

Finn stood there for the longest time, not speaking, just chewing on his fingernails and contemplating what to do or what to say. Finally, he turned, and without a word, walked out the door.