“I have no idea, Everett. I don’t want to leave. I want to stay right here, right like this,” I say, pulling one of my hands free only to twine our fingers together.
He looks down at our hands, his face carefully blank. I can’t see his eyes in the shadowy light, and I’m kind of grateful for it. I don’t think I could bear to say any of this to him if I could see emotions flicker over his face.
“I just… I don’t know what to do,” I say. “My job is still in the city. I still have to pay my bills. I still have career goals, and I never thought about how a love life would fit into that. It almost feels like Ihaveto go back to that, because I don’t know what my life would look like if I didn’t.”
It sounds a bit pathetic out loud, but it’s the truth.
Everett stands, releasing the wrist he was still holding. He doesn’t pull our hands apart, squeezing my fingers in a way that’s both soothing and hopeful. A ray of sunlight falls over his face, and the look I see in his eyes isn’t sadness or frustration. He looks optimistic, like he has a plan. Like he might have a solution.
He lifts my hand up so he can press a kiss to my knuckles, his eyes never straying from mine.
“What if you didn’thaveto leave?” he asks.
It’s such a heavy question that I have no idea how to answer it. If I didn’t have to leave, I’d plaster myself to his side until the end of days, but that’s not real life. Real life isn’t all about excited looks and abandoning your career.
If I didn’thaveto do anything, I would only do the things that matter to me. I wouldn’t pay rent to a shitty, price-gouging landlord, I wouldn’t even think about walking away from the best thing that’s ever happened to me. All I want is to curl into Everett’s chest and forget that I ever had a life away from hisside. I want to be here, and I don’t want to leave, but I have no idea how to pick between this and what I’ve worked my entire life for. It would be so much easier if someone else could make the decision for me. That way, at least I wouldn’t feel guilty for whatever I left behind. But life doesn’t work like that. I can’t just close my eyes and wish really hard.
You don’t get places in life by wanting something. You get what you want by working for it.
I can’t pretend like life is so simple that I can just do whatever I want and ignore the consequences. This isn’t some holiday movie where everything works out in the end.
No matter what I would give for it to be like that..
“Do you want me to stay, Everett?” I ask, my voice shaky.
He smiles so softly it almost hurts, reaching out to cup my face and brush his thumb over my cheek. There’s a look on his face like there’s some long explanation he wants to launch into, but he just nods.
“I do,” he says.
God, if only it were that simple.
EVERETT
The door to my office is open.
It’s not often that I go in there these days. Those walls house a lot of memories that have been too painful to think about until recently. There’s still the familiar twinge of grief that flares in my chest as I walk closer, but it’s shrouded in something soothing.
If I was more superstitious, or maybe softer—or a bit of both—I might be inclined to say that it’s Laura giving me her approval.
I’m not much of either of those things, though, so I’ll continue thinking of it as Mary’s influence.
She’s made me want to be softer and kinder to myself and to the people around me. Maybe this is the first step to that.
I hesitate for a moment outside the door to my office. Part of me wants to step away and leave it be, but I can hear Jenny moving around and mumbling to herself. In the past, I’ve pretended not to notice her habit of talking to the photos of her mom on the shelves in there. She’s pretended not to notice when I go in and cry at my desk because of how much I miss Laura, too.
But the time for that is over.
I take that last step forward, knocking softly at the door frame. Jenny jolts and turns on her heel, but she relaxes when she sees it’s me. It’s been a long time since she’s been anything but tense around me, and the thought of saving our relationship firms my decision even more.
“You scared me,” Jenny says, tapping her fingers mindlessly over the corner of my desk. “What are you doing, knocking on the door of your own office?”
I grin bashfully, rubbing the back of my neck.
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” I say. “But I wanted to talk to you. And your mom.”
Jenny blinks in surprise, her fingers stilling on the desk. She follows my gaze over her shoulder to land on one of the framed photos of Laura, her lips twitching in a smile.
“Yeah.” There’s hope in her voice, and it makes my heart beat a little faster in my chest. “I was just telling her I wanted to talk to you, too.”
