I’m still here. Still in the apartment, shaking like a leaf as I sit on the couch. My hands are in my lap, clasped together like the teeth on a zipper. My knuckles have gone white and I’m sure my face has, too.

I screwed up. I ruined everything with Dylan today. All because of a stupid mistake I made seven years ago. A mistake I’ve carried on making all this time, because I was too proud, too stubborn to consider that maybe, just maybe, he was actually the good man that he seemed to be.

There’s nothing to do but apologize.

Or run away, which is what I’d really like to do. It would be easier at this point. Better in some ways. But I can’t. I ran away once before, and this time I owe it to Dylan to tell him I’m sorry for doubting him. For getting everything so, so wrong for the second time. I’ve failed Dylan, and I’ve failed myself, too.

I’m going to make this right. I’m going to tell him how sorry I am, and then I’ll say good-bye and wish him a good life. I know I’ll never see him again, but it’s okay. As long as I take the high road and admit that I’m wrong, at least I’ll be able to live with myself. My heart will break again, of course. But at least no one is responsible for breaking it but me.

With some effort, I rise to my feet on shaking legs and make my way to the door. My hand is trembling as it reaches for the handle. I don’t know quite what I’ll say when I get to him. Hell, I don’t even know if he’ll be home; he might be off getting shit-faced in a bar somewhere, rather than risk running into the psycho woman who’s just screamed at him for a crime that he didn’t commit.

I know I would drink my ass off if I were in his shoes.

I close my eyes, inhale a deep breath, and pull my door open, taking the outside air into my lungs for courage. I’m going to need it.

“Lucy.”

I hear his voice as clear as day in my mind. Wishful thinking, I suppose. I’m daydreaming, imagining things. Imagining that he’s come to me after everything.

“Lucy, look at me.”

But when I open my eyes, Dylan is standing right in front of me. I jump about three feet in the air, letting out a little shriek that draws a smirk across his lips. “It’s just me,” he says. “Sorry if I startled you.”

I’m frozen. Stunned that he would come anywhere near me after the way I treated him. Stunned that he would apologize for a damn thing.

I shake my head. “No, I’m the one who’s so, so sorry,” I all but wail, my voice breaking immediately into a series of heaving sobs. “Dylan, I had it all wrong. I finally looked at the video on that page. I saw what happened. I was wrong about everything. You have to understand—that night on the beach, when I saw your jersey—I thought it was you—”

His smirk morphs into a smile. “Loose,” he says, moving towards me. He isn’t touching me, but for the first time, I’m hopeful that there’s a chance that he will again someday. “It’s okay. It’s all okay.”

“It is? How can it possibly be okay?” I ask, stepping back into my apartment, turning away from him. I’m panicked. I’ve never been in a situation like this with a man. I don’t know where to go, what to do with myself. I don’t know how to fight, or to resolve a fight. I don’t know how to…how to relationship.

Yes, it’s a verb now.

“When you left me in the street, I was so fucking confused,” he says. “I came home and looked at those photos and the video, too. I looked for every moment when you were on screen, trying to figure out what the hell you were so upset about, because honestly I could never understand what was going on with you. But I get it now.”

“I thought he was you. All this time, all these years, I thought…” I turn to face him again, determined to be brave. Determined to be an adult for the first time in my damned life.

Dylan nods. “Aaron is blond, and he was with my ex,” he tells me. “I should have put two and two together way back then, but I didn’t know you’d seen any of that. You have to understand, I thought you’d be exactly where I left you, down the beach. It never occurred to me that you’d see him back at the parking lot and think he was me. Chloe got drunk and threw up on his shirt, you see. He asked me if I had a spare, so I gave him my jersey. The crazy thing is I’d forgotten all about it until I saw the photos the other day. That part of the evening seemed so unimportant compared to what had happened with you. I didn’t care about any of it like I cared about what might happen between us.”

“You gave him your car keys,” I say, my voice a miserable moan. “I saw him drive off.”

He nods again. “He took Chloe home, made sure she was okay. I guess he had a bit of a thing for her. She was all over him, too. She was drunk as all hell.”

“But…how did you get home that night?”

“I walked. Do you think I cared about not having my car when I’d lost the best thing that had ever happened to me?”

I heave a hard sob of joy and pain. Sorrow sears through me for all the time we’ve lost.

“I wish you’d said something when you left me messages…I wish you’d told me all this.”

“I tried,” he says. “I really did. I just wanted to talk to you. It didn’t occur to me to explain about the jersey…”

But it wasn’t his fault. I deleted every message before I’d even heard it. Every time his voice met my ear, it was an automatic press of that damned button. It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d explained in the most graphic detail, because I wouldn’t have heard any of it.

“You never lied to me,” I say. “And today, with Renata…you told me the truth then, too. I thought you were having some kind of post-I-love-you crisis.”

“No, I wasn’t,” he says. This time he presses the backs of his fingers to my cheek. “I do love you, Lucy. And I’m not scared to say it. Not at all.”

“Even after everything?” I ask miserably.

“Do you really think I’m as fickle as all that?” he asks. “I wouldn’t give you up, not over some stupid misunderstanding. I knew something was wrong. Something was missing, a puzzle piece. But as soon as I understood it, as soon as I understood how much it must have hurt you seven years ago to think you were seeing me cheating on you…”

“Cheating? We weren’t even together.”

“As far as I was concerned we were,” he tells me. “I was yours, Loose, whether you like it or not. My heart was yours, and it’s yours now. I wouldn’t have lied to you then, and I will never, ever lie to you now. I promise you that.”

“I know,” I tell him. “I see that now.”

“Good. Listen, I have something for you. Something I was saving, but I think you should have it.”

Oh, God. It’s not an engagement ring, surely. It can’t be. Even if we do love each other, it’s too soon for diamonds.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a piece of paper, handing it to me. I unfold it and stare, trying to figure out what I’m looking at.

“It’s…your house,” I say. The drawing of the beautiful building that I saw on his desk in the office. Large, shuttered windows and a roof of ceramic tile. The design for Dylan’s dream home.

“It’s the house I want to build,” he replies. “I’ve already made some inquiries about land in the Napa Valley.”

“You’re moving?” I ask, hopeful. If he’s in California, then maybe…

“I’m hoping that we’re moving. Together,” he says. “I want you there with me when the time comes. You can open up your clothing store and I’ll work from there. The thing is, I don’t want to date you before we jump into a life together. We have a lot of lost time to make up, Loose.”

I stare at him in shock. “Dylan, this is my fantasy,” I reply. “Everything about it. The house, you…”

“It’s my fantasy too. It always has been. I told you a while ago that you never saw yourself as others see you. You never did figure out how beautiful you are. Maybe now you’ll start to understand how I feel about you. Maybe you’ll figure out why it is that all these years I never committed to any woman who wasn’t you.”

“I’m finally beginning to get it,” I say, laughing through my tears.

“You’re not the only one whose heart got a little broken that night.” The words come out of him softly, slowly. My eyes study his, and I know he’s being honest with me. But of course he is; he’s always been honest. “I was always afraid to admit that I could be hurt,” he says. “Men aren’t supposed to feel pain. But it fucking hurt to lose you like that.”

I throw my arms around his neck and squeeze hard. “I’m so sorry, Dylan. I really am. For everything.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for, not anymore.”

He pulls back to look into my eyes, pushing my hair behind my ear. He kisses me softly, slowly, his hand trailing down my neck. When the kiss is done, I want to laugh and cry and dance, all at once. To tell him that he’s the only man who’s ever meant anything to me.

But I have the rest of my life to do that.

So instead I just say, “I love you, Dylan Emerson.”