It wasn’t the first time that she’d admitted it out loud. It was only one of few times that she had, but the words had come from her lips a handful of times before in the span of the last few months. Just never to him. It’d taken five long years to even get to the place where she could admit it to herself, and Marley found herself wishing, briefly, in the moment, for five more years to work up the courage to be able to say them to him. Because it was the truth. Something she’d run from for so long, the thought of it catching up to her terrified her more than anything had before. But she didn’t have five more years. She didn’t even have five seconds. Aaron was there, in front of her, and he was waiting. Had waited, for long enough. It sounded silly, when he repeated it back to her. Marley felt like a shy child, in the moment, slowly nodding her head, tucked into herself, as if to shield away her thoughts and feelings, hold them in for just a little while longer. He was beginning to question her, however–understandably so–and slowly, but surely, she unfurled from herself, chest filling with a deep breath. When she exhaled, more words came. “I was scared of the future.” Hell, hearing it from herself sounded silly, and despite herself, she laughed. It was a bitter sound–one of defeat–as she leaned back in her seat, head shaking. “Me. The girl who couldn’t wait for the future to be the present. Gets cold feet the minute I realized it wasn’t too far off.” It sounded ridiculous. Softening, once more, at the sight of his face, Marley toned the self depreciation down. “I…I wanted it. That future that we planned together. I wanted to see the world with you, Aaron.” A sad smile tugged at her lips. “You made our small town feel…so big, and I will never be able to properly thank you for that. For makin’ me happy in a place that didn’t…but can you honestly say that you would’ve been? Happy, followin’ after me, my dreams? Maybe for a little, but you had dreams of your own…and I know you would have bent over backwards to make sure I was happy. Hell, you were prepared to follow me ‘round the world to do so…and I loved you for that. I loved how you loved me…but you wanted that travellin’ to be just a part of our life. Do it for a few years, until it was out of my system. And then maybe school. Careers, marriage…” It wasn’t anything he’d ever outright said, but she knew him. “I didn’t want to wake up next to you five years from then and find that we both compromised ourselves too much to fix.” That was it. As if the weight of the revelation had all but slid off her shoulders, Marley’s posture relaxed, relieved. But his questions continued. Thankfully, the next wasn’t a hard one to answer. “I wanted to call you so many times that I eventually just left my cellphone on a park bench and walked away from it.” That was how bad the urges had been.
He inhaled slowly and gave her nothing more than a nod. He couldn’t acknowledge what she'd just said or how it made him feel beyond that single motion. This was possibly the first time there had ever been any real honesty between them since their paths crossed again and it had been so much easier to sink into the habit of not talking about it, ignoring the gaping wound that she’d left behind. Yet, this is what he'd asked for, the truth and now he needed to deal with it, as agonizing as it was. There wasn’t any quick response to her confession, his mind was blank, vacant of thought as though he was trapped in some endless void and there didn’t seem to be any words that described how he was feeling, a myriad of emotions tumbling through yet staying far below the surface. Happy. The word rang over and over again in his head, chills running down his spine as her words started to make more sense that he would have wanted to. "I just wanted to be with you," he started, eyes searching to meet her gaze, "but you are right, I wouldn't have been happy." His jaw clenched tightly, an ache forming in his chest as he spoke, his own words turning out to be a confession to himself. Despite the ghost of her following him everywhere he went, he'd been to, Aaron couldn't deny that in the past years he'd done everything he'd wanted. Things he'd dreamed of doing before his whole existence revolved around Marley and as her reasons started to sink in, more sense they seemed to have. "I just wish you would have given me the chance to realize that on my own instead of leaving me with all these questions and doubt," he added, shrugging sadly before looking away briefly. Her next answer should have given him some sort of comfort but it didn't and he couldn't help the way his insides churned at the fact that what could’ve been was hitting him harder than he’d ever imagined it to. Still, he didn't say a thing. She didn't need to know the number of times he'd typed her number without daring to call her until one day he stopped remembering the combination of numbers that was supposed to be hers. "I apologize if I pressured you to give me answers, but I just couldn't go to a new city and have all this weight with me." At this moment, he couldn't tell if this was enough for him to help him move on, but he wanted to think it was. He needed it to be enough.