Текст книги "Tempting"
Автор книги: Alex Lucian
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Chapter Thirty
When I walked back into the room carrying the delivery menu for Crazy Dough, I’m sure I still wore the same contented smile that I’d seen in the fogged up bathroom mirror. It wasn’t even that it got better every time we were together; it got sweeter and softer, got deeper into my pores, like I’d never be able to pull her out. And because that’s where my brain was at, it was also why I didn’t notice the strange look on her face when I cleared the door.
She was just sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in my sheets, hair rumpled and cheeks still flushed. But it wasn’t the sated, almost tender look that I was used to seeing in her eyes. I was about to ask her what was wrong, when my mouth closed and I narrowed my eyes. It was guilt. She looked guilty as hell. And then her eyes flicked down to her left hand.
The light from the lamp on the bedside table hit the ring, that modest speck of diamond Grandma Coulton had given to me before she’d died. My heart stuttered to a stop, a cold flush covering my skin, and for a second I actually wondered if I was going to pass out.
“Where did you find that?” I croaked out. The icy flush of my skin fanned to heat, making me blink against the sudden swing in my temperature.
Adele fisted her left hand underneath her right and pressed them against the bunched-up sheet covering her breasts. I’d never seen her look so … terrified. She looked terrified.
“I’m so sorry, Nathan. I didn’t think … I didn’t—”
I held up a hand for her to stop, pinching my eyes shut for a few seconds while I tried to collect my thoughts. My gut reaction was to rip it off her finger, clench it in my hand and feel the cold metal against my skin. But I’d never told her a single significant thing about Diana. Not how she died, not the guilt I’d carried on my shoulders since the day she had. And I’d never told Adele that sometimes, even when I was wrapped around her, I was afraid that I’d never love anyone the way I loved Diana.
She stayed quiet, only the sound of her uneven breaths filling my ears.
“I’m not,” I wiped a hand over my mouth and let it stay there while I finally opened my eyes, “I’m not mad, Adele.”
I half meant it. Her ghost-white face helped ease my racing heart a little. She nodded and I walked over toward her, making sure my towel was tightly knotted around my hips.
“Why did you go looking through my stuff?”
Her nostrils flared, and she blinked rapidly, like she was fighting tears. “I don’t know, honestly. I was just happy, Nathan. I was so happy, what happened in the shower and ordering naked pizza in bed and … and we’ve never done that. And you were so happy to see me when I got here,” she paused, looking up at me with giant pleading eyes, and I could see the pulse hammering in her throat. “Weren’t you?”
“Happy?” I repeated, trying very hard not to sound snappish, since her nerves were obviously limiting her vocabulary.
“Yes. You seemed like it, at least. And it felt real, like I was coming home to you. Like we were real. And with what I did today, it just… I don’t know, all bubbled over, and I was cleaning up water and—”
My brain had caught mid-way through her rambling, tripping words. “What did you do today?”
“Oh.” She swallowed, shifting on the bed and hiking the sheets a little higher on her chest. “I did something for us. So we didn’t have to hide as much.”
Suddenly, I needed clothes for this conversation. I reached down to grab my fleece pants, hiking them up my legs, only dropping the towel when I was covered. “Adele, what are you talking about?”
The smile she tried to push across her face was shaky at best, but her eyes were so genuine and beseeching, asking me for something when I didn’t even know what the question was yet. “I changed my major.”
“What?” I yelled, ice prickling over my skin again. “You did what?”
“I changed my major,” she repeated, her voice stronger this time, her chin tilted up an inch.
“Why? You’re a damn good writer, Adele. Why the hell would you do that?”
Holding her head up like a queen, instead of a girl wearing a wrinkled sheet, she stood from the bed. “I changed it because of what happened today in your office. Because it will make our lives easier. So I don’t have to constantly worry about who’s looking at us and who suspects something. I changed it for you. And I changed it for me.”
I spun, hands gripping my hips, because I had a split second where I actually wanted to throw something across the room.
“Nathan, I can do anything else and still be satisfied. I’m smart, it’ll be easy for me to find something else. And now once this class is done, I’m not technically your student any more. I’ll be twenty two in three months, there’s nothing anyone can say about us.”
The walls pressed in on me, the pale grayish blue that always used to soothe me now felt like I was being swallowed by salt water, filling my lungs until I couldn’t breathe. That was the thing about guilt, it filled every part of you until you couldn’t get the oxygen that you needed to survive.
I felt guilt over Diana, how I’d not only ruined, but ended her life. And now Adele, making a unilateral decision about her future, which seemed so long and unending given how young she was, throwing away something that she was so talented at. Because of me. I think my skin started vibrating, because I clenched my stomach muscles tight to try and stop my shaking.
When she laid a hand on my shoulder, I erupted, whipping around and shoving it off of me.
“Why would you do this?” I bellowed at her face, and she shrank back. “Did we have a talk about our future that I missed?”
“Okay,” she said, staying remarkably calm considering I was ready to shatter my entire room, “I get that I surprised you. And I’m sorry that I put on Diana’s ring—”
“Don’t you dare,” I whispered. “Don’t you fucking dare say her name right now. My wife has nothing to do with this bullshit conversation we’re having right now.” Her face paled even more, but the black bile churning in my head wouldn’t slow, wouldn’t settle. My body wanted it out, like the words I aimed at her would somehow purge them from me forever. “You don’t just flippantly make those decisions, Adele. A grown-up would know that.”
“Fuck you,” she snapped. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. And if you’d calm down for one second so I could explain, you’d know that.”
“Explain? Oh yes, please explain to me how any of this makes goddamn sense.”
“You know what? I’m going to go. You need to chill the fuck out before we talk about this again.” She moved over to where her clothes laid in a pile on the floor. For the first time since I’d met her, she hid her body from me. She kept her back turned while she slipped on her leggings, kept the sheet wrapped around her shoulder while she put her bra on.
“Ahh, so now you want to talk to me about things. I get it. You’re one of those girls.” Her body stilled, shoulders curved in while she’d been attempting the awkward task of pulling her shirt on while not exposing herself to me. “Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. And that makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? You come in here and think that getting me off, that screwing me before you tell me is somehow going to make it better that you made a huge fucking decision about a future that we have never talked about.”
“You’re being an ass, Nathan,” she said on a slightly wavering voice, avoiding my gaze at all costs. “And I’m done talking to you about this until you’ve calmed down.” She finished dressing, tossing the sheet back onto the bed that we’d found release on together only a few moments earlier.
“You’re right,” I said, and her eyes finally found mine. “You are absolutely right, Miss Morello. We are done talking about this.”
“What does that mean?” Her voice sounded shrill, taking on a panicky edge.
“I bet you’ll figure it out when you grow up.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Like it wasn’t controlled by my brain, my left arm reached out and my hand swiftly slapped him across the face. The resulting stinging in my palm paled in comparison to the pain splitting my chest down the middle.
“Fuck. You.” The words were laced with venom, the power behind them causing my voice to sound cold, furious. But my limbs shook from the boiling in my veins. “Grow up? Are you fucking kidding me?” He stared at me, unmoved, and I badly, desperately, wanted to throw something across the room, if only for the satisfaction of seeing it break into a million pieces.
I wanted to scream, to punch a hole in his chest, anything to make him feel what I was feeling.
I grabbed my jacket off the floor and shoved my arms through the holes, my mind a storm of anguish and humiliation.
My palm still stung, but I wouldn’t let him see me in pain. A sob climbed up my throat, but I refused its release as I pushed past him, flying down the stairs and out the door. The slam of the door behind me was completely unsatisfying.
It wasn’t until I’d reached the nearest subway station that I allowed myself to crumble onto a bench. I’d held it in, the vinegar that burned my throat—a product of unshed tears. But now that I was far from the cause of my heartache, I was safe to grieve. Sobs shook my chest and I held a fist to my mouth, pressing hard against my lips to keep me from crying aloud. I let my hair form a curtain around me as my composure dissolved on the cold cement bench.
When my train arrived, I sent up a silent thanks for the empty seat and leaned my head against the glass, desperate to disappear. Fortunately, no good Samaritans were after making me feel better, so the tears rolled freely and endlessly down my face as the crack in my chest split more and more each time I replayed his words in my head.
“Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. And that makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? You come in here and think that getting me off, that screwing me before you tell me is somehow going to make it better that you made a huge fucking decision about a future that we have never talked about.”
It was a mother fucking echo in my head. “…a future that we have never talked about” echoing the loudest, painting his own thoughts for us perfectly clear. While I’d been imagining spending more time with Nathan, his thoughts had run a different way. He hadn’t been making plans, I had; Alone.
When I was back in the safety of my apartment, I turned my phone on silent and curled into my bed, the down comforter like a cocoon around me, over my head.
The quiet of my apartment was unwelcome, but it was all I had. And that realization pressed upon my chest, causing me to cry once again.
The worst thing about what Nathan had said hadn’t been the delivery—which was fucking horrible in and of itself—but what he’d said. He’d essentially called me a manipulator, a child, and an idiot. He’d assumed I’d buttered him up with sex, had made this big decision about my future without thinking things through. And he’d insinuated that I wasn’t mature enough to understand the gravity of the situation. All of it hurt, but the fact that he’d questioned my intelligence hurt the most.
Given the way I’d been feeling toward him over the last several weeks, I’d finally accepted that Nathan was more than a fuck, a conquest. He was the real deal, a man worth holding onto. And after running from dozens of men, it was a big fucking deal for me to find the one I wanted to stick around.
“Fucking asshole,” I blubbered into my pillow. I’d surrendered to him, given him things I’d never given another man. And he’d reduced me to what essentially amounted to nothing.
In my head, I’d seen the whole situation going differently. I’d imagined Nathan taking my news in, realizing it was ultimately my decision and while I would have respected his opinion—had it been delivered more kindly—I would have ultimately stuck to my guns. Because that was who I was. I’d never bent for a man, chased a man, wanted a man the way I wanted Nathan.
Not that it mattered anymore. I rubbed a tissue over my nose and winced when I felt the sharp cut against my nostril. To my sheer horror, when I pulled my hand back I realized I was still wearing the engagement ring. The very catalyst to our fight.
Wrapping the fingers of my other hand around the band, I yanked to pull it off, but it wouldn’t budge. Fuck. I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom, rubbing lotion around my finger before twisting. The lotion loosened it enough to help it spin, but it still wouldn’t slip past the first knuckle.
“No, no, no,” I said, tears of frustration now falling. I couldn’t wear this. I couldn’t have this on my finger still.
After trying to remove it, unsuccessfully, for twenty minutes I gave up.
I was a shitty friend, but luckily for me, Leo wasn’t. So I dialed his number.
“Hey, stranger.”
I closed my eyes, breathed a sigh of relief into the phone. “Leo. I’m sorry. For the last month, for ignoring you. I need you.”
“I’ll be there in a few.”
True to his word, he arrived at my apartment just when I was on the verge of hysterics. I threw myself into his arms, clinging to him like the savior he was.
“Hey, hey.” Leo pulled me back and looked at me with concern. “What’s wrong?”
I held up my hand with the ring on it, my lips turned down. “This.”
His brown eyes grew as wide as saucers. “Holy shit, Add. You got engaged?”
If I thought this situation couldn’t possibly get more humiliating, I was sorely wrong. “No. This isn’t mine and I need to return it. But it’s stuck!” To illustrate my point, I tried to pull it from my finger but it wouldn’t do anything but twist, almost mockingly so.
“Okay, it’s fine. We’ll get it off.” He placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed reassuringly.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” I blurted. It wasn’t just because of the ring situation, but until he was in front of me I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed him. “I’m sorry I’m such a dumbass.”
He smiled his trademark Hollywood smile, the one that could get him anything he wanted. I wished I had such a weapon in my arsenal, to make him forgive me. “It’s okay. You’re still my friend.” He said it in a little kid voice, and I laughed. Just like that, my kissing him and ignoring him was forgotten and we were back to the friends we were supposed to be. Just friends.
He held my hand in his and turned it over. “It’s a little swollen. Did you hit a wall or something?”
I thought of the slap I’d delivered to Nathan’s face. “Or something,” I admitted. “Is that why it won’t come off?”
Nodding, he rubbed at the skin around the band. “Probably. But I saw a video on YouTube, I know just what to do.” He strode into my bathroom, returning with floss. “Do you have olive oil?”
“Hell no. I have vegetable oil. What do you think this is, The Ritz?”
Leo laughed and grabbed the oil from where I’d pointed. When we were both settled on my couch, he started wrapping the floss around my finger, just above the band, all the way to my knuckle. I watched the compression on my skin, the way it turned almost purple.
“Hold this so it stays taut,” he said, pressing the end of the floss in my hand. He poured a little of the oil into a cup and dipped his finger in, rubbing over the top of the floss and around my finger. The floss was wrapped so tightly that when he tried to tug the ring over the floss, it slid a lot more easily up my finger. Encouraged, he wrapped more floss right around my knuckle, squeezing my finger. Within seconds, the ring slid completely off and he quickly unwrapped the floss from my finger.
“You’re a genius,” I praised, rubbing the feeling back into my finger.
He was holding the ring between two fingers, examining it. “What’s the story with this?”
I moved to the kitchen sink to wash the oil from my fingers as I contemplated what to say. I didn’t want to reveal too much, but so much had happened in the time that Leo and I didn’t speak that I couldn’t blow him off.
“I met this guy and we’ve been seeing each other for a while now.”
Leo joined me at the sink. “And what? He proposed?”
I shook my head almost violently. “No. I … I found the ring and tried it on. I don’t even know why. But it belonged to his dead wife.” My stomach clenched at the thought. “And we got into a fight. I left still wearing it.”
Leo nodded thoughtfully as he washed his hands. “I’m surprised he kept it.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “Well, wouldn’t you bury your wife with her ring? Why would you keep it? Unless it’s a family heirloom.”
Bile shot up my throat. “Fuck, don’t talk so morbidly, please.” But what Leo said had made sense. The setting looked old, the gold a little dull. And I’d run out of his house wearing it.
Really, my humiliation was growing by the minute.
But it was no match for the pain in my heart, the pain that had eased some by Leo’s presence and reassurance. When he left later that night after promising to see me over Thanksgiving break, I only cried for ten minutes instead of all night, like I’d anticipated.
I slept until noon. It was almost stubborn, as if my body had taken initiative to force me to be either incredibly late for Nathan’s class or to skip it entirely. I opted for the latter, but visited campus ten minutes before class was over, the ring sealed in an envelope, and slipped it under his door. I’d held onto the frame of the door longer than I cared to admit, almost wishing he’d end class early and come find me.
But he didn’t. And he wouldn’t.
It wasn’t until I was on the train out of the city that I received Nathan’s first communication with me since our argument. I had been expecting it, after missing class, but didn’t think he’d actually message me until he noticed my absence the following Monday, as I wasn’t planning to return until after Thanksgiving.
To: Alice Carroll
Date: Friday, November 20, 2015 02:27 PM
From: Nathaniel Easton
Subject: I’m sorry
I thought I’d get the chance to see you today, but I don’t blame you for skipping class. I’m so sorry, Adele. I hate what I said to you. Please, let me know that you got this. You didn’t answer my call or my text.
N
• • •
I debated for several minutes whether or not I should reply. On the one hand, getting an apology from him was like a temporary reprieve from the non-stop churning heartache I was feeling. But on the other hand, once I closed my phone and allowed myself to fall into thought, I was still so deeply hurt that I feared talking to him would only open my heart up for more destruction.
And considering I was on my way home, willingly placing me in the clutches of my family, I needed to avoid whatever stress I could, to steel myself for whatever I faced at home.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Here.”
My father handing me a beer was the most gracious he’d been in all twenty-one years of my life.
I accepted it almost unwillingly, looking at the brown bottle as if it held poison.
“I’m pleased you’ve changed your major.”
They were six words, but they were the most my father had spoken to me in years. And the first time, in recent memory at least, that the words weren’t coated with revulsion.
I’d need to drink to process this. I tipped the beer back, absorbed the bite of the fancy shit and then held the bottle out in front of me as I swallowed. I knew, because this was a craftsman brew, that this bottle alone cost two to three bucks. And to think of the cases my father had in garage, to imagine the hundreds of dollars he owned in beer, made me a little ill. I had scraped change together for my Charlie card for the subway more times than not, often bumming a ride off of Leo’s card when funds were low. And one of these beers could have paid my daily fare to class.
“What did you change it to?”
Finally, he said something that required an answer. Often when my father spoke, it wasn’t to receive an answer but to simply express his thoughts, because his thoughts were of value.
I was going to milk him for all he was worth.
“Journalism.”
I saw the twitch of his lips and continued before he could tell me it, like creative writing, was another unworthy degree. “It relies heavily on English still, yes, but it can transition me to a number of careers.”
He stared forward, at the fireplace before us. “What? Like newspapers? You do realize that traditional circulation for mediums like magazines and newspapers is declining, right?”
I’d braced myself for this conversation the moment I’d arrived home the Friday before. The fact that it had taken my dad six days until Thanksgiving Day to bring this up, a day before I was to return to campus, was telling. He’d kept silent for six whole days, letting me sweat his reaction while my mom busied me with her new curtains and latest dessert recipes she’d tried. All the hobbies she’d filled her life with since becoming an empty nester, married to a man who spoke little.
No. My father waited until Thanksgiving Day, hours before we were all to gather around the table for our first meal together, to discuss my future and how his wallet factored heavily in my plans. It was so like him, to let me walk around on eggshells, waiting for him to ask. He loved the control it gave him, the fact that I needed him was a power trip.
And because I knew him and because I was still trying to heal from the heartache that was thanks to another man who had taken my news not so well, I nearly slumped in my seat, letting him tell me in so few words how stupid I was to choose a degree like journalism.
Instead, I straightened the spine he’d forced upon me—that line of steel—and said, “You’re right. With the evolvement of print publications moving to a digital format, there’s been a decline in newspaper and magazine subscriptions, but that’s because that content is now easily accessible online. The internet is the new frontier for journalism, and demand is high. And that’s still only one route I can take with a journalism degree.” I paused, waited for his rebuttal, but when he remained silent I continued. “Because journalism focuses on critical and analytical thinking, I can transition into other fields. Many public relations firms hire people with a journalism background. I can work in advertising, as a copywriter, or I work as a market researcher. These are all occupations that have need and won’t become obsolete.”
I waited, for him to say something, anything.
“Well, I suppose it’s better than going to school to learn something you already know how to do. You shouldn’t have to study creative writing; you should be born inclined to be creative.”
It was how he delivered what amounted to praise from him, with a bite reminding you how absurd he thought you were.
But because he hadn’t asked me a question, I knew that was my sign to not continue. He’d heard enough. And, blessedly, he’d decided to support me.
Some people spoke the loudest when they said nothing at all, and my father was a prime example of that.
Two hours later and a belly full of three very expensive bottles of beer, I received a text from Leo.
Leo: Wanna escape?
Adele: Pleeeeease.
Leo showed up at the door, snow in his brown hair. He hugged my mom and Celeste, and shook hands with my father. My father had always admired Leo, though I knew that was because Leo was athletic and his family was, like my father, well off. When I thought of my father’s study and its expensive furnishings, I imagined that had he seen my apartment in person, he would have considered it squalor.
Leo held his arm out for me to grab hold of and I looped my arm in his.
When we were halfway down the block, our boots covered in snow, Leo said what I’d been waiting for him to ask.
“About the kiss…”
“Yeah, about that…”
He rubbed one gloved hand over his hair, brushing the snowflakes away. “I’d always wondered, you know? About you and me. If it was meant to be.”
I stopped walking, turned to face him. Please, please don’t tell me my kiss made you realize you loved me in that way, I thought.
“And when you kissed me, there was just … nothing.”
I was silent for a beat, absorbing that. “There was nothing for me too.” I tucked my hands into my coat pockets. “I was drunk, and I know that doesn’t excuse my behavior. But I guess…” my voice trailed off and I looked down the road, thinking. “I guess I wanted to kiss you and have it be you, you know?”
I turned back to him and he nodded. “I feel the same way. After the shit with Darcy and the girls since, I’m just over it. I’m not cut out for this game.” He lifted his shoulders and dropped them a second later.
“It’d be easy if kissing you solved my commitment issues.”
“It’d be easy if kissing you solved my bad luck.”
I stepped forward and wrapped my arm around his back. “Aw, Leo. You don’t have bad luck. Just bad taste.”
He laughed, his head bobbing back. “Just that. No bigs. I’ll just train my dick to zero in on a different type.”
“See? Easy?” I laughed along with him and squeezed him to me.
He sighed and wrapped both arms around me, pulling me in for a hug. “To be honest? I’m kinda glad you kissed me. Because I was never going to work up the nerve to do it, even as I wondered.”
I leaned my head back to meet his eyes. “What? That’s crazy. Why not?”
Gesturing with a hand from my head downward, he said, “Because you’re intimidating as fuck. When you want something, you don’t just go after it—you stalk it. You grab it by the balls and demand its attention. You’re like that bitch from Fatal Attraction, without the crazy.”
I laughed, nearly slipping on the snow under my feet and held on to him. His eyes grew serious. “And you’d never looked at me that way.”
“Yeah,” I said solemnly, shrugging. “That doesn’t mean I know my type either.”
“What about the guy? With the ring.”
It was the first time someone had mentioned him to me since I’d left him, but that wasn’t exactly surprising given the very secretive nature of our relationship. I hadn’t even told my best friend about him. But bringing him front and center in the conversation brought all of the baggage along with it and I rubbed my chest absently.
It turned out a week away from Nathan, even while ignoring the legions of emails he’d sent me since then, wasn’t enough time to turn me back to normal, to heal the hairline fracture on my heart. It was what I imagined the pain must be from, because nothing else made sense.
I pulled back from him, so we were at arm’s length. “So.” I exhaled, watched my air cloud up. “That night I left the bar with that guy? Well, he was my professor.”
Leo didn’t say anything, but looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to finish.
“Well, you were on the money with the Fatal Attraction comparison, because I’d known he was my professor when I’d taken him home with me. And he hadn’t known that I was his student.” Just admitting it aloud highlighted how very villainous that action was, but I continued. “And when he found out, he pushed me away and was very insistent that we not continue. But you know me; I’m not easily deterred. It turned into a month of back-and-forths and another month of accepting that we couldn’t get enough of each other. Until last week.”
He nodded, taking it all in. “What happened last week?”
“Oh, fuck. This is a long story. But basically, I changed my major.”
Leo’s eyes widened. “What?” he asked incredulously.
Nodding, I said, “I know! A lot has happened! Anyway. I changed my major because I’m sick of choosing rent over groceries that don’t have a shelf life of a hundred years. All that ramen was really wearing me down. And—long story short—my dad offered, because my mom worries, to support me financially if I changed my degree to something more practical.” I heaved a breath, the words having come out in a rush. “And because the professor and I had kept sneaking around, I saw this as a way for us to date publicly, especially since I wouldn’t be his student anymore.” I looked around, almost expecting someone to be listening in to our conversation. “But when I told him, he called me stupid and I happened to be wearing his dead wife’s ring at the time, so that didn’t help things and well, I haven’t talked to him since then.”
“Holy shit, Adele.”
“Right?” There wasn’t much else for me to say, so I just waited while Leo processed.
“Have you heard from him since?”
I pulled my phone from my pocket. “He’s emailed me almost every day since.”
“Have you replied?”
I shook my head. “I haven’t even read them.” I opened my phone, scrolled through the eleven missed calls—all from him. I probably would have answered if I hadn’t been asleep, the sheer number was cause for alarm. But when I’d seen the subject line of his follow up email this morning, The mortification of a hangover. And another apology, I’d deduced that he’d drunk dialed me repeatedly. I still hadn’t read the email.
“Why haven’t you read them?”
There was no easy answer to that, because there were many reasons why I couldn’t:
Because despite how much he’d hurt me, I still wanted him.
Because wanting him made me feel as stupid as he’d said I was.
Because stupid or not, I wasn’t over him.
Because I had a feeling that reading his emails would either break my heart completely or propel me back into arms.
Because either option was gut-wrenchingly terrifying.
“Maybe you should read them. Take it from me, Add—guys aren’t always the best at communicating. You and I have said a lot of things to one another in the heat of the moment that we’ve regretted later on.” He raised his eyebrows, hinting at the whole drunk-sloppy-kiss thing. “And even if he apologizes to you, it doesn’t mean you have to forgive him.”
“Maybe,” I replied unconvincingly. “Or maybe I’ll keep chilling out here, on the island of denial. Population of one.”
He tugged me forward for another hug. “Just think about it. Maybe he’s as sad as you clearly are. Either that or he’s already on the rebound.”
I shoved him playfully away. “Whatever, Leo.” The thought itself stung a little and piqued my curiosity enough that I considered what he was saying.
As we walked back to my home, I realized that talking to Leo was just what I needed to shove me to the right direction.
After settling on the leather recliner next to the fireplace, I pulled my email up on my phone and took a deep breath before I clicked the first one, sent this past Sunday.
