I need to be bold
Need to jump in the cold water
Need to grow older with a girl like you
Finally see you are naturally
The one to make it so easy
When you show me the truth
Yeah, I'd rather be with you
Say you want the same thing too
Say you feel the way I do

I'd Rather Be With You

-Josh Radin

"She wanted to see you." He explained, hoping that would ease the tension a bit.

"She is always welcome. Call next time." Kate answered back coldly as she walked to the porch railing and leaned against it, doing her best to ignore him. Sawyer took the hint and stayed wisely on the wide steps, as if waiting for permission to approach.

Kate's front yard while on the smaller side, was still impressive for the area. It was fenced in with a low concrete wall while trees and shrubs grew along the sidewalk giving the illusion of privacy. Her driveway ran along the side of the house with very little space between it and the two or three steps that connected to the side of her porch. Just enough space for a gate between a garage and the house, a matching gate stood between her house and the concrete fence that separated her yard from her neighbors on the other side of the house.

The house itself was smaller, but he knew she didn't mind. She spent much of her time outside anyway.

Cheery potted plants lined the steps he stood on, and he knew the effort that had gone into landscaping the front and back yards. But her favorite place was that front porch, sitting in her swing. She had told him once it reminded her of simpler times. When she was a child, before she knew anything about Wayne, she had lived in a small farmhouse with a porch that wrapped around the side of her house much like this one did. She said she remembered sitting on a similar porch swing with her father as the sun set. Watching his face light up as she recounted this tale or that, or listening as he explained the best way to build a fire or shelter. He had smiled as she sat next to him on the swing, murmuring about how they were skills she was never supposed to need. He had teased that she should have paid closer attention, then she had smacked him and rested her head on his shoulder as silence enveloped them.

It had struck him then, that she was opening up to him in a way he knew she didn't do. He had felt good, like he was finally doing something right. Like they were going to be okay. Now it just made him feel like a dick. He knew all these things about her, and she knew next to nothing about him comparatively speaking.

"Is Jane going to be ok?" He asked tentatively after a moment, trying to banish the image of her confession from his mind.

"What do you care?" She shot back, voice full of venom. Then she turned her back to him.

He understood he was in the doghouse, but he didn't expect her to be so cold. Though he didn't know why he was expecting anything different from her. Why had he thought that anything had really changed between them? Why had he thought that showing up would be enough to soften her heart?

"Do you want joint custody of Ophelia too?" He tossed out, hoping for a little bit of humor. His voice betrayed his irritation however. Just rough enough around the edges of the words to make her turn back and face him.

"What the hell, Sawyer?" She demanded as she crossed her arms in front of her.

"Well?" He persisted. He didn't really want to fight with her again; but if it was the only way to get a reaction from her, he'd take it. Not that he was all that eager to talk about it. He just didn't want her to stand there on that porch looking like she wanted to be anywhere else.

"You should leave." She barked back, her hands moving to her hips.

"Can't we talk about it?" He questioned, daring to move up one step.

"You wanna talk about it?" She returned eyebrows raised, like maybe she was going to give him a shot after all. Still, he wasn't going to lie about it.

"Not really." He answered, knowing that he had no idea what to even say. "But-" He began again as he saw her eyebrows drop and the hostility return, clouding her features with the impending storm of anger he knew she was so close to releasing in his general direction.

"No." She cut him off.

"Kate, I'm trying here." He sighed, his hands turned up in a gesture of peace, offering a truce.

"No, you aren't." She answered back. "You're here because Clem wanted to come. Tell me you would have come on your own."

She was right. He wouldn't have come on his own. In reality he had done everything he could think of to keep Clem from coming, short of telling her that they were fighting. He hadn't wanted to put her in the middle of it, and he didn't need a lecture from his daughter too.

"I wouldn't have and you know it." He admitted looking away, partly in shame but mostly just irritated to be called out on it.

"So why are you still standing on my porch?" She asked, he could hear the exasperation in her voice. The irritation and annoyance seemed to drip from every word.

"Because I messed up, ok! Is that what you want to hear?" He demanded, loudly enough that she worried the neighbors might hear.

"No." She hissed quietly. "I don't want you to mess up. I want you to fix it!"

She really didn't understand how he could be so dense. Why he thought that just because he showed up and still refused to talk about what happened between them, she should just take him back like nothing went wrong. She didn't understand why he couldn't ever say the right thing. Why he kept coming back for more.

She wished he'd just get the hell off her porch already.

"How? How am I supposed to fix it?" He hissed back, climbing up the last stair and standing on the porch in front of her.

"I don't know, and honestly I'm still too mad to care." Her voice was empty, crystal and see through.

It pissed him off.

He missed her every goddamned day and she... well she didn't care. He wanted to punch something. Shake her. Scream in her face about how fucking messed up she made him.

"Well, when do you think you can get over yourself so we can fix it?" He snarled, his hands in tight fists at his side.

Sensing the danger and pent up rage building in him, Kate stepped closer as if daring him. Her jaw raised in defiance.

"Aren't you just so charming." She sneered, as if the very thought of him—the taste of those words on her tongue—was the most disgusting thing she could imagine. As if he was the lowest form of life she could think of. As if she was so much better than he was.

Something snapped and his anger rushed from him as guilt and self doubt filled its place. His stomach turned as his mind jumped to the same conclusion.

She was right. He was a dick who couldn't even control himself long enough to figure out how to fix it.

"I don't know what you want from me, Kate." He spoke softly, honestly and openly. She paused, looked up at him in confusion. She was not used to this from him. They were about fire and ice, off and on.

"And you think I know what you want from me?" She felt her eyes grow suspiciously moist.

She was so tired of this back and forth between them. So tired of never knowing just what she was to him. What he was to her. She just wanted to stop tugging on that thread between them, because she knew it was going to snap. She knew that they couldn't keep going at each other and expect that things would right themselves.

"Yes. No. I don't know." He threw his hands up again in despair as the words tumbled from his lips one right after the other.

She had to know, one of them had to. But he had given her no clear indication, just as she had given him no clear indication.

"Well, I don't." She admitted softly and stepped closer, as if she was offering herself in trade for a peaceful resolution.

"I don't know what I want from you either." He didn't. Not entirely. He knew he wanted her in his life. He knew he wanted to be with her. But he didn't know what that meant in the real world. He didn't know how to make that happen, or if it was something she even wanted. He didn't know if it was even a possibility between the two of them. Could they make it work? They never could before. And though they were different now, was it ever going to be enough?

Maybe he was scared to try again, but she didn't make things any easier.

"Screw you, Sawyer. You knew well enough the other day." She stepped back, feeling rejected once more.

"It was a mistake." He blurted out.

"It always is. Maybe that's the problem." She tossed over her shoulder as she walked back over to the porch railing and gripped it tightly.

It was a mistake. A mistake to let things get that far without talking about them first. Without figuring out what she wanted and what he wanted and if they could ever be the same thing.

He would stand by his decision to leave. But did she have to be so damned needy? Did she have to confuse everything he did and said?

"No, not like that." He spit out. "Just." started again. "God, you're frustrating." then ended with nothing getting across. He had no words because he knew that she was just going to take whatever he said and turn it back around to make him look like the villain.

"A mistake. Frustrating. Anything else?" She goaded him on.

"Selfish. A bitch. Oh and don't let me forget childish and insensitive." He played his part well. One day he'd learn to control himself better. Not that she deserved better. If she wanted to toss insults he would go with it.

"You should talk." The ice returning to her voice as she turned her head to look at him.

"I didn't come over here to fight with you."

She could see the sincerity in his eyes. He really hadn't come over to fight with her, but the devil in her wouldn't let it go. The hurt rejected girl wanted revenge. She wanted him to hurt as much as he hurt her. Because as she stood there watching him, she knew.

The only reason she was mad at him was because it hurt too much to be anything else.

"Then don't. Get off my porch." Her voice almost cracked but she caught herself, gathered her nerves around her and spat it out as quickly as she could.

"I'm not leaving because you want me to." He stepped closer to her and she stepped back.

"And I'm childish?" She questioned, her resolve quickly fading away. Her eyes burning as her throat picked up that strange thick quality that made breathing hard.

"Kate! Come on. Give it up already." He closed the gap between them and place a hand on her arm. She looked up to meet his eyes. "I'm a bastard. Ok?"

No. It wasn't okay. She ripped her arm free and turned her back to him as she felt one eye overflow.

"Well, I knew that. Why you think that makes everything ok, I don't know." She spit out as she quickly wiped at the weakness in her. Removing the moisture from her cheek in a quick swipe that she ended by tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, hoping he wouldn't catch her.

"I want to go back to the way things were before." He said after a moment and her heart clenched in her chest, as if he held it in his fist. As if with each of his words he pressed just a little harder, squeezing everything out of her.

"No, we can't do that. I think you proved that the other day. There is no before." She murmured softly.

He thought she might be crying, but he couldn't be sure. Didn't want to be sure. He had hoped that his words would ease whatever turmoil she felt. He still wanted her in his life, he didn't want to lose her.

"Sure there is. We were fine before Monday." He said as he placed his hand on her shoulder, hoping to soothe.

"No, we weren't. If you can't see that then you really are blind. We've never been fine." She said quietly before turning to face him and raising her tone to a normal and controlled level. "Just like we've never been friends."

Her eyes may have been a little red, and a little wet, but she wasn't crying now. And he didn't like her suggestion.

"Yes, we have. Don't even try to pull that with me." His tone was full of warning, but she didn't want to heed it. She wanted him to explode, she wanted him so mad he would turn around and leave her alone or deny her words and finally tell her what she was to him.

She was tired of fine. They weren't fine.

"No, we've always just been two fucked up people spending time together; because the rest of the world doesn't want us."

And just like that it's out there and she can't take it back. Maybe she believed it. Maybe she really did think that the reason they worked together was because they couldn't really work with anyone else. Default lovers. Too broken to waste the time on repair. Cobbled together with bits and pieces, here and there, never complete. Not whole.

"Fuck you. What gives you the right to take what we have and spit on it like that? We were friends. You were the best thing to come along in a long time." She watched him explode like she was trapped in some other room. Like it was happening somewhere else.

Her heart pounding in her ears, she took a deep breath then laid it on the line.

"Ok then. Were. We were friends. But if you were really my friend, you'd make up your damn mind and stop playing games. If you want me, fine. If you don't, fine."

He wanted it to be that easy.

"It's not-" He started to defend himself but she cut him off.

"No, it is that easy." She paused for a second, her finger hitting his chest to punctuate her words. "It is like that." She stepped toward him pushing at him with her finger and he stepped back, almost losing his balance as one foot hit the top stair instead of the porch. "You just can't do it."

"Wasn't too long ago you were the one running." He said as he grabbed her hand and tore it away from his chest, keeping it locked in his hand until she pulled it free.

He was right, she did run from him. But as the sun dipped low in the sky and he stood before her, she knew she was done running.

"But I'm not anymore. I'm here. I don't know where the hell you are, and you know what? I don't care anymore." She lied.

She cared.

A lot.

"Don't stand there and act like you've got it all together. You're not any better than I am. You've still got your secrets and you're still walking around like a wounded animal. You're going through the motions, but you're dead inside." He was grasping at straws and he knew it.

"Says the man who fills up a notebook with all the things he can't say or do." She sighed.

They were both dead inside, until... Well until he was ready to admit it, they would have to keep pretending to be dead inside.

"Says the woman who flips out at the thought of visiting a beach." He lashed out.

His words hurt, but not as much as the truth did.

"Fuck you." She whispered.

The truth burned inside and made her want to vomit.

"You tried. Didn't work." He sneered. She had pushed him as far as she could. Only she knew how. She would bet that no one else could get him as worked up.

"I think you should leave." She placed her hand on his chest and gave him a slight shove. "Now." She added before pulling her hand back.

"I think we've just started." He grabbed her wrist and yanked her to the edge of the porch roughly.

The truth was she loved him. Maybe she always had. Nothing he could say or do was ever going to change that.

"You really want your daughter to overhear this?" she asked, tugging on her hand to free it. His grip was like a vice and she knew she couldn't break free of it without help.

"We aren't done." He insisted. She bit her bottom lip and looked away for a minute.

"No, you aren't done." She gave one final tug but he held fast. "I'm done. I'm so beyond done." He let her wrist slip free. Something in her eyes made him. Something haunting and tired.

"I don't want to see you again. Clem can visit whenever she wants, but we are finished."

He didn't know what to do or say.

"Fine." He pretended it didn't matter. If she wanted him out of her life it was no skin off his back. He would be fine without her.

"Good." She smiled sadly and he wanted to wrap his arms around her and make it better. But he didn't.

"Fine." He repeated and she stepped back from him. It felt like the whole world rushed in to fill the space. Felt like she was being torn from him. Like there were thousands of miles between them instead of mere inches. Like she was unreachable, an illusion that his hand would pass right through if he tried to grab hold of her again.

"You know the really sad part," she hesitated a moment as he met her eyes. "I have never felt like this about anyone. It could have worked. I could have... Well, it doesn't matter now. There is no room in your life for two of us." She tore her eyes away and rushed toward the door.

She loved him. Maybe she never came out and said the words, but he knew.

It struck him then that he had always known.

"...Freckles." He reached for her but she was too far from him and his fingers met empty air.

"Please don't. Just go." She paused at the door her back to him, her head resting lightly against it. Then she turned to face him one last time. This time he could see the tears that threatened to spill over. Could not deny them.

"Clem can stay the night. I just can't be around you right now." She turned back to the door and tugged it open, hurried inside as he rushed back up the stairs.

"Kate." He objected as his hand landed on the door preventing her from closing it all the way.

"We all have demons." She whispered. "I get it." He stepped back, his hand falling to his waist at her words. If anyone did, it was her.

"I'm here if you work yours out." Her promise was so quiet he almost didn't hear it.

The door closed and he stood there for a long time before he finally made his way back to his truck.

He knew what he had to do.