Chapter Text
She hadn’t told him how she felt.
She looked at how deliriously happy Nick was at the idea of Reagan, at the idea of becoming someone new. So what if she still had feelings for him? Why hadn’t she realized it before? He had been here the whole time. Wasn’t it convenient for her to suddenly realize she wanted him when some other woman wanted him too? Maybe she didn’t love him at all. She just wanted him because Reagan wanted him. He had always been her Nick and now he wasn’t hers anymore but Reagan’s Nick. It felt real to her, but it had felt real then too.
She was being selfish, yanking him around again when he was finally getting his life together. He had been with other women after they had been together, but it had always been casual. Just dating, just sex. People he would never talk about feelings with, never share the secret parts of himself with, not like he did with her. But this time was different. She could tell. He was serious this time, serious for the first time in years about starting a real relationship with someone else, someone that wasn’t her. Reagan was the first woman after her who had really grabbed his attention and made him want to try like he used to try for her.
What was she going to do when Nick got his first real girlfriend after her? It wasn’t a question she had really thought about in all the time after they had broken up. Nick was just always there. He would date and sleep around but he would always come home to her at the end of the day, at the end of every relationship. In the back of her mind, she must have liked that, liked knowing no other woman got to fill that space in Nick’s life but her, even though they weren’t in a relationship together anymore. She took it for granted that Nick would always be there, a permanent fixture in her life.
Had she hurt him when she went off with other guys after him? She must have, but he never said anything to her about it. He was always sweet and supportive, never let on if it did, kept his distance, gave her space to find someone new.
Maybe they didn’t really belong together after all. They had tried that already and they both agreed that “just friends” was better for them, even though they hadn’t really been friends after. It was always different after. It was like they were still trying to hold on to each other when they both should have moved on. He was Nick and he was fragile. She had broken him and he had found a way to glue himself back together again, to crawl out of his shell and finally venture out into the world to find someone new.
Doubts swirled in her mind. She wasn’t being fair to him. And she knew if she wasn’t 100% certain, wasn’t 100% ‘all in,’ she couldn’t tell him. So she swallowed her feelings and let him go.