“It’s with the LA Times,” she continues, “This is a really great opportunity for me. And I wanted to share it with the man I …”
“With the man you what, Eva? With the man you love? Don’t bullshit me!” I yell at her.
“I’d hoped you’d be happy for me,” she starts to cry.
When silence stretches and neither one of us says anything, she shouts, “Why are you being like this?”
“Happy for you? Happy for you, Eva?” I shout. “You have to be fucking kidding me. I changed my whole life around just to keep you in it. Just to be able to hold you, to love you, to wake up next to you every damn fucking day. And for what? So you could leave me?”
I step towards her angrily. She backs up, fearing me and my wrath. Her tears are replaced with a fiery defense. “I didn’t ask you to change your life for me!”
“Yeah, well I never guessed you’d want to leave. So the joke’s on both of us, darlin’.”
Eva’s tears turn into full-out sobs, and it takes all my strength not to break and hold her in my arms.
But she’s leaving. She didn’t choose me. She chose herself. In all we shared, as short as it was, I never imagined it ending this way. I thought we were special, that what we had was special. But, at the end of the day, she didn’t choose us. She chose her.
“I hate you,” she whispers as more tears fall. She takes a few steps backward, still not taking her eyes off mine. “I hate you!” she screams.
“Yeah, well, I’m not too happy with you or your damn choices right now, either,” I spit back. “So looks like that makes two of us.”
She glares bitterly at me, and I know if there was ever a moment where I might be able to reach out and grab her back to me, it would be right here, right now.
I have a choice: I could break and follow her wherever she’ll go just to be near her. Or I can stand my ground.
But I don’t know how to fight for us anymore.
And so I let the moment pass. I let it slip right through my fingers, and know I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.
She runs faster than I have ever seen any girl run, straight out of Gatsby’s and out of my life. She bumps into Rex on her way out the door. He tries to grab her to find out what’s going on, but Eva is running too fast to be caught, and Rex turns his attention to me instead.
The look of a protective brother glares back at me as he approaches. It isn’t often that I feel small in Rex’s presence, being several inches taller than him, though right now, I swear if Rex wanted to, he could beat the shit out of me. A part of me wouldn’t blame him one bit if he did. Hell, I probably wouldn’t even put up a fight.
He slows a few feet away and looks at me like I’m the worst man to ever walk the face of the earth. Time stretches over a few awkward minutes before he speaks.
“Now what the hell was that about,” Rex asks. “You going to explain to me why Eva just ran out of here crying worse than I have ever seen? You’re lucky Michael didn’t see that shit or your ass would be thrown the hell out of here.”
“I don’t know.” I sigh, running my fingers through my hair. “Fuck, I think it’s over, Rex. I’m not going to sit around and play any stupid games. She knew how I felt about her, and she wants something else. If she wants to go, I can’t stop her. I can’t change her.”
Rex’s face hardens. “You have to be the stupidest bastard on the face of the planet to let that walk out of your life.”
“I told you, she doesn’t want me. I tried, man.”
I start to walk away, because, damn it, I just want to be left alone, and for the first time in months, I’m ready to leave. I’m ready to go home. To get out of here and put as much distance between me and the West Coast as humanly possible.
“Please. You’re so full of it you can’t see through the bullshit anymore.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I ask. “Beg. Plead. Follow her everywhere like a little damn puppy. I’m not a pussy, Rex. She wants to go, she can go. Like I said, I can’t stop her.”
Silence falls between us as Rex sizes up the situation. He dissects me and my words carefully before responding. Eyeing me up and down, his callous face softens, grows almost sad for me over what I know I’ve just lost.
“Don’t look at me that way,” I say. “Fuck your pity. This is all on her.”
Taking another minute, he finally says, “Eva is the type of girl you never stop fighting for. Most men go their whole lives just wishing they could have someone, anyone, anywhere close to the kind of woman she is. And if you think you’re above that, you’re not the kind of man I thought you were.”
I let out a sigh of defeat, wondering how I even got into this mess in the first place. Looking at my friend, I beg for his help, not knowing where to go from here.
“What am I supposed to do?” I ask.
