As desperate as she was to avoid his abandoning her. It was Kate who was actually causing him to flee.
“Can we go to bed now, Kate? I'm tired.” He looked like he was drowning. They both were. They were like two terrified children clawing at each other, and neither of them was able to be adult enough to stop. They were both too scared, she of abandonment, and he of being devoured.
“I'm tired too,” she said in a tone of despair. She felt lonelier than she ever had in her life. She went to take a shower, and she stayed in it for a long time.
She felt shell-shocked and unloved as she stood there and cried. When she got into bed, he was already asleep. She got into bed next to him and looked at him for a long time, wondering who he was. She stroked his hair cautiously, as though he might attack her again, and he murmured in his sleep, and turned away. She knew that in spite of what he said, he loved her, and she loved him, maybe even enough to give up all her dreams. But she couldn't see how anymore. He was afraid of loving her.
He felt safer running away. And all she wanted was to be close to him."
"She had made a decision in the shower that night. She knew she had to leave before they destroyed each other. He was never going to marry her. It was time to go. Her mother had been right about him all along.
She told Joe the next morning, over breakfast. She said it quietly and reasonably, and succinctly. “I'm leaving, Joe.” Their eyes met across the table and he looked confused. He was still reverberating from the pain they had caused each other the night before.
“Why, Kate?” He looked shocked, but he didn't tell her not to go.
“After what you said last night, I can't stay here anymore. I love you. With all my heart. With all my life. I waited two years for you, unable to believe you were dead. I didn't think I could love anybody else after you, and I still don't. Not the way I love you. I never will. But I want a husband and children and a real life. You don't want the same things I do.
” There were tears in her eyes as she spoke, but she was trying to stay calm, despite the sinking feeling of panic in her stomach, or the knife in her heart. She wanted him to take back everything he'd said the night before, but he didn't say a word.
Joe finished his breakfast silently, and then he looked at her. It was one of those hideous moments in a life that you remember forever, visually and word by word. “I love you, Kate. But I have to be honest with you.
