The boat swayed abruptly, and now Joshua felt the wet, heavy air force itself into his lungs as he loaded the buckets filled with fish into the cabin. That had been a little over a year ago, and Isabelle was growing impatient. When they’d first started dating, she had been to him like a lighthouse on a dark, thick night. She’d beckoned to him, pulled him in closer and closer until one day he realized in a panic that their lives had become so intertwined they couldn’t get through the day without each other.
He hadn’t realized how quickly they’d become so enmeshed because he’d been too consumed with the newness of their love to notice. So on the day their world came into focus, he panicked. He’d only been truly close to one other person in his life, and that had ended tragically. Since then, he’d experienced nothing but pain. And so when Joshua realized how much he had grown to need Isabelle, the sense of warmth and security he’d always felt with her shot out of his body and flew into the cold night air.
Since then, she’d been alluding to, urging him to see the happily ever after, but it scared him so he began to pull away. It was obvious that Isabelle was confused and frustrated by his behavior. She said she loved him, but the kind of love she desired would flow freely toward her, not run in the opposite direction.
So the distance between them continued to grow, with each one retreating farther and farther into their own protective spaces. Joshua wanted to follow Isabelle to the life she imagined, but something else controlled his thoughts and movements, and that something was his past, his story, and the fear of loss that had been etched into his soul at the tender age of five. So no matter how hard he tried, no matter how many times he promised her he would change, he couldn’t let himself slip that last, short distance freely into the waiting arms of his love.
He knew the subject would surface at dinner and that caused him to panic. What would he say this time? And how much longer would she wait?
Chapter 2