Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 82868 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82868 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
I step back from the counter. “So what, that’s it? We’re not even going to try? We shake hands and say, nice to have known you?”
She presses her fingers to her forehead. “I start in January,” she says, like this explains everything. “In four weeks. I have to find a flat. I have to prepare.”
“So I’ll go with you.”
“You’re going to Norfolk for Christmas.”
“So we’ll go to Norfolk and then we’ll go to Paris. Or we’ll go to Paris on Thursday this week to start looking. That way you can get something sorted before the holiday.”
She groans and tips her head back. I step in close again and slide my hands up her thighs. “You’re going to be busy.”
“So I can’t have a relationship?” I ask. There’s no way I’m going to ask her to stay in London, but at the same time, I don’t understand why she’s calling time on our relationship just because she’s going to Paris for a year. We’re meant to be on the same side, working together to achieve the same thing—being together. But now it feels like we’re on opposing teams.
“You’re going to be meeting a lot of new people.”
“I’m a doctor. I meet a lot of new people all the time. I’m not interested in anyone else. It’s you I want.” I’m trying to rebut her arguments, but it feels like I’m trying to break down a brick wall by launching cotton swabs at it.
She sighs. “It’s not the same. You’re going to be meeting glamorous people. People in PR. And you’re going to be on book tours and staying overnight in hotels and I’m going to be in a different country.”
“You say different country—but it’s a couple of hours on a train.”
She sighs. “No, it’s not. It’s half a day once you add in travel at either side. And it’s two lives moving in opposite directions.”
“No, it’s two lives living, Ellie. That’s what we’re talking about.” It’s early in our relationship, but it feels like we’ve known each other a lifetime. She feels it. I feel it. We both know. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We’d be happy for each other’s success, and if things ended a couple of months after she moved, maybe we’d be sad about it, but maybe we’d be expecting it too. One of us needed to mention the we-like-each-other-a-lot elephant in the room. “Yes, we’re not going to be in the same city for a year. But I like you. I like you a lot. And I’m willing to do what it takes to make sure things work between us. Are you saying you’re not?”
She grabs the bottle of champagne and pulls off the foil that covers the cork. I take it from her. She’s going to drop it or at least spill some of this shit and I could do with a drink. As I finish uncorking the wine, she begins a new sentence three or four times.
“I like you a lot too, Zach.”
I try and ignore the twitch at the corners of my mouth when she speaks. It feels like a big concession, despite the fact that she’s not telling me anything I don’t already know.
“But that’s not enough,” she continues. “I thought I was going to marry Shane. We were together a decade and shared a life—our home, our friends, our bank account. It didn’t stop him from cheating.”
I take a beat before I reply. I can’t imagine how much a decade-long relationship that ends in betrayal can dissolve and destroy someone’s confidence. Shane has left scars worse than I’ve ever witnessed on someone’s skin. “If someone wants to cheat, they’re going to cheat. I don’t want to cheat on you. I won’t cheat on you.”
“But being apart makes it easier,” she says. “That’s all I can think about.” She presses the heels of her hands over her eyes. “If I were a couple of years down the line from the lies and deceit, then maybe every time you came over to Paris, I wouldn’t be thinking about what you’d been doing the week I hadn’t been with you. But right now, that’s all I’ll be able to think about. I don’t want us to end with me being paranoid and you being weary from my questions. This has been so good. We’ve been so good. I don’t want to ruin it.”
I swallow and take a breath, trying to assimilate what she’s saying. There really is no response. She wants to end while things are good—before we have a chance to know if they would have gone bad. I have no defense, because there’s nothing to defend myself from.
“So that’s it?” I ask.
“We can still be friends,” she says. She looks like she’s in pain as she speaks—but it’s all completely unnecessary. I don’t know if I’m more frustrated at her for not believing in me or for not having more faith in us.