He looked around, at anywhere really but me, while he ran his hand through his hair. “I’ll take care of you. I’ll make sure you get a better job elsewhere. We won’t need to see each other at work anymore.”
“Desmond, please. Think straight. You’re tired and exhausted from a night spent in a waiting room. Please don’t do this.”
He was pushing me away again. Hurting me again.
He stepped back. I looked at him and wished, just for once, that instead of pushing me away, he’d reel me back in.
Why didn’t he fight for us? Why didn’t he care about us?
He shook his head. “This is my mistake, Ava. Believing I could do serious relationships. Believing I could do a serious relationship withyou.”
“Because I’m bad luck?” I asked, fighting with feelings of fear and helplessness.
There was no arguing with Desmond anymore. He was stubborn.
I had fallen for him all over again. And he was pushing me away all over again. I was a fool. He was a fool with a foolish heart but a strong mind. One that couldn’t be swayed to leave his family. I had no such tug-of-war going on within me. I had nothing to hold on to, except for my restaurant. And I was prepared to give that up while he would give nothing up for me.
If only I hadn’t watchedMaid in Manhattanabout a trillion times and cried over how amazing Ralph Fiennes was to follow Jennifer Lopez. We needed more Ralph Fiennes in this world.
“The serious Desmond—the one who is capable of commitment—doesn’t exist. This incident showed me that. I should not have let you believe I was serious about my relationship with you. I’m sorry.”
Desmond turned away, his voice starting to shake. “If I pretend that my fears don’t exist and try to live with them, even while they constantly hound my every waking moment, I’ll soon be a miserable shell of a man. Someone you can’t love. And I don’t want to see that happen, Ava. It’s best we end things this way. We part with the best memories of each other instead of when we see the worst in each other. I don’t want us to go down that trail of unhappiness.”
I closed my eyes for an instant, feeling both pain and anger before I faced him. “I don’t know what’s more terrible—the fact that you’re afraid of a future with me or that you simply don’t trust me enough to work through your fears with me. We ought to talk things out together, Desmond.”
His face contorted with pain as he took two steps back.
Des shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ava. You deserve to behappy, and I’m just not the man who can make you happy anymore.”
I had been happy until a few minutes ago, but Desmond didn’t want to hear that. He’d decided that protecting Brody at all costs was his job, and when it seemed rightly impossible, he’d convinced himself that no one could be happy in this situation.
“It’s time we end things,” he said, the terrible words falling off his lips easily, as though he wasn’t destroying me again.
I turned away, the tears falling freely down my cheeks.
“Goodbye, Desmond,” I said as my throat burned, my voice sounding alien to my ears. “For the last time.”
I didn’t wait for a response.
Holding on to my handbag, I turned on my heel and marched back down the same path we had come from. This time, I didn’t have a warm hand to clasp. Five minutes later, I found an empty bench and sat down, willing my body to stop shaking as I sobbed.
He didn’t follow.
That evening,as I sat alone in my studio, an empty box of Kleenex by my side, I heard a calm knock on my door.
“It’s me,” came Rishi’s voice. “Just checking to see why you canceled our dinner plans for today. Though, if you’d rather I go away, just yellleave me alone, and I’ll let you be alone for another half an hour.”
I got up and padded to the door in my slippers. I opened it and stared at him with bloodshot eyes.
“You’d come back in half an hour?” I asked as Rishi stood there, his expression getting graver when he saw me.
“Sure. I’d be armed with a hot chocolate and marshmallows next time around.”
I rubbed my cheeks and eyes. “And Kleenex,” I added in a low voice. “I’m all out of Kleenex.”
He walked up to me. “I’d definitely get you more Kleenex,” he began. But one look at my face, and he stopped speaking. He had no more questions. “Come here, my dear,” he said and enveloped me in a gigantic hug.
“It’s over,” I sobbed, my tears soiling his blue cashmere sweater.
