“Let me remind you. This was what you wanted. You ended it.”
Caleb looked down at his feet, feeling guilty even though everyone else had assured him this wasn’t his fault. Ofelia wanted to leave; there was nothing he could do to stop her from packing her bags and moving to New York, no matter how much he wanted to. Still, it made him sick to his stomach to hear her putting words in his mouth -- to know that she thought that he was trying to chase her away, when that was the last thing in the world he ever would have wanted.
“O, that’s not true!” he exclaimed, frustrated. He knew there was no sense trying to disagree with her at times like this, but he couldn’t let her just walk out when there was so much to say. He couldn’t let her move away thinking that he didn’t care when he did, more than even he seemed to realize.
“I didn’t even know there was anything to end! You never said anything until you were already gone,” Caleb reminded her, his chest puffing out and then retracting as he tried to take a deep breath to steady himself. It came out sounding more like a sad sigh, though; he didn’t want Ofelia to go, but he didn’t know how to make her stay. “I never wanted... hurting you, making you feel like you couldn’t be here. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy, and instead it’s like the total opposite.”
He looked at her bags, finally bending down to pick one to help, just like she’d asked him to do before he’d told her he wouldn’t help her walk away. Caleb was done fighting for her, though; that only seemed to have made everything worse. If he really wanted her to be happy, he had to stop being so selfish and let her go. “So I guess... I guess if you’re really going to be happier in New York, far away from me, then we need to get the car loaded up and get you on your way,” he muttered miserably, unable to look her in the eyes as he picked up her bag and tucked it under his arm.