She pulled her face, seemingly a little annoyed with his rudeness. “Okay. Let me rephrase.Ineed closure. I love Oliver. I want to spend the rest of my life with him, but there’s a part of me that’s not letting go. In order to fully embrace the future, I need to close the door to the past. I want to move forward and I can’t do that until we talk about a few things.” She hesitated for a short while. “Firstly…I’m sorry for what I did. I left without a word, because with you, it wouldn’t have made a difference. You don’t talk about the things that matter. I didn’t take your calls because I knew one conversation with and I would’ve come back…and I would’ve spent the rest of my life wanting more from our relationship. That wouldn’t be fair to either of us, but it was still very wrong. It was cold and heartless and I’m sorry.”
“I forgive you. Are we done?”
Her shoulders sagged and her expression drooped with disappointment. His behavior was really bothering her. She was trying to talk to him, mend the bridge, and maybe if it had been another day, he would have listened. But today this boulder was so goddamn heavy and her feelings were his last concern.
“No,” she answered. “I want to know what went wrong with us.”
He threw his arms up. “You. Left!”
“I’m talking about before then. For our entire three years together. Was it me? Was I not enough? I mean…I see you with Jordan—”
“Trisha.” It was a soft warning. He was a little ill-tempered today and if she said one bad thing about Jordan, he was going to snap.
“I just want to know. How come you never danced in the rain with me?”
He didn’t answer.
“How come you were never affectionate with me? Whether in public or behind closed doors. You two are always holding…and kissing.”
“Trisha.”
“You were always so serious. You never laughed when—”
“We’re not having this discussion.”
“I did everything to make you happy.” She was sobbing now, but she was doing it to herself. “And I’ve never seen you laugh like that.”
“Stop comparing,” he said curtly. He pushed himself away from the fridge and headed out of the kitchen. She followed behind him, still continuing this unnecessary argument.
“How come you never looked at me the way you look at her?”
He was becoming more volatile with every passing second. “I think five minutes are up.”
“How come you do all these things with her that youneverdid with me?”
He snapped, just lost it. “Because you’re not her!” he shouted. “Dammit! You’re. Not. Her.” There was silence for a few seconds, both of them absorbing those words. He allowed himself to calm down before he spoke again. “You don’t dance in the rain because that would ruin your hair. I was never affectionate because I kinda got into the habit of not messing up your make-up. You always needed to be perfect, but that stuffnever mattered to me. Now I can take responsibility for not being all that you wanted. And while I don’t agree withhowyou did it, I can accept that you needed to leave to be happy. I can own up to that, but at some point you need to acknowledge your part in us failing.” He waited a while and let that sink in too. She took in every word without complaint. It was what she needed to hear. “You and Jordan are two very different woman. It’s two completely different relationships, so don’t compare. You never tried to change me and I never tried to change you…but looking at it now, change was the best thing that happened to us. We’ve both moved on, Trisha. We had three great years together, but now it’s over. Whether you have closure or not, I don’t care. We’ve reached the end of this discussion.”
“Okay.” She nodded and slowly wiped her eyes. “Tyler…I’m sorry if I caused any trouble…between you and Jordan. I just—”
He cut her off with a quick shake of his head. “Don’t.”
Simply hearing it reminded him of the unconquerable battle he was up against. He was sort of mad at Trisha, but mostly he was mad at the whole situation he’d put himself in and right now he just wanted to be alone.
“If you want to take a few minutes and clean yourself up, feel free, but I’m leaving.” He grabbed his keys and headed for the door. “And when I get back, I don’t want you here.”
“Alright,” she agreed with half a smile. “Where are you going?”
“To the park,” he whispered, “to feed the ducks.”
*****
Jordan nervously made her way up the sidewalk. Tyler was right. This was becoming ridiculous. She couldn’t keep ostracizing him. She still didn’t feel ready to have this talk, but it needed to happen. Two dates were insignificant when she looked at thelast six months as a whole. He’d lied to her a few times, but if he was willing to lay all his cards on the table, she would be willing to forgive. Regardless of the outcome, it was a way to move on. She’d seen a different side of him yesterday. She’d seen a slight flicker of vulnerability that made her doubt her doubt. He wouldn’t have been there, wouldn’t have said all those things if he was still in love in with Trisha…right?
She walked into his apartment building and nodded at the doorman. “Hi, Walt.”
“Hello, Miss Shepard,” he greeted with his usual friendly smile.
“Is Tyler in?”
