“Call me if you need me. We’re ten minutes out.”
I ended the call and turned away, not wanting to look at him. If I looked at him, I’d see the hurt in his eyes and I’d break.
But he didn’t leave. I could hear him behind me, his breathing rough and uneven in the cold air.
“I get why you’re breaking up with me. I do,” he said, raw and uncertain. “But if I’m the reason you get frostbite, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“That’s the problem,” I said, still not turning around. “You’re still trying to fix me.”
“I know. I—” He made a frustrated sound. “I know that. I just don’t know what else to do.”
I finally stood, turning to face him. He looked wrecked—hair disheveled from running his hands through it, shirt untucked, eyes red.
“Put on your coat,” I said sharply. He looked down at the two coats in his hands, confused. “I’m not putting mine on until you put on yours.Put on your goddamn coat, Connor.”
He fumbled with them, finally dragging his arms through the sleeves of his inadequate jacket. Only then did I reach for mine, pulling it on and tugging the hood around my face.
He shifted against the wind, shivering. That thin fabric was no match for upstate New York winter.
“You’re going to need a thicker jacket for winter in New York,” I said, pulling my gloves out of my pockets.
“It was warm enough for San Francisco,” he said, tucking his face into the collar because he'd rather freeze than be an inconvenience. “But I didn’t want to buy something new I’d just have to pack.”
There it was again—the reminder that he was leaving. He was always leaving.
And I wasn’t sure if I was going with him.
But I was still going to that interview, either way. I wanted that job. Not to prove something to my parents, but because I knew I’d be goddamn great at it. He may have opened the door, but I was ready to step through, whether or not he was beside me.
And then, he said the best, worst thing he could say: “I’m sorry.”
The breath I sucked in tightened my lungs.
Sebastian had never apologized. Not once.
“I should have asked you first, before the interview, before kicking out your parents. And I shouldn’t have tried to manage everything for you. I fucked up.”
My chest tightened. I hadn’t expected him to admit it.
“I have this thing,” he said, forcing the words out, “where I try to solve any problem I see. It’s what I do for Victoria. It’s what I did for my mom when she was sick. And I—” He swallowed hard. “I did it to you. And that wasn’t fair.”
The tension in my shoulders loosened slightly. “No,” I said quietly. “It wasn’t.”
He took a breath, regrouping. “I have something to show you.”
He pulled out that damn notebook, with his endless lists and schedules and contingency plans.
I almost turned and walked away right then. But something in his expression stopped me.
“I’ve been making lists for weeks,” he said, his breath visible in the cold air. His hands were shaking as he opened the notebook. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to make this work, make uswork.”
He held out the notebook, and against my better judgment, I took it and flipped to a list dated last week.
If Hannah Doesn’t Get the Job:
? Calculate long-distance travel costs Saratoga-NYC
? Memorize MetroNorth schedule
