Nothing about that sounded appealing to me, so I called it quits and hoped in time she would find someone who would give her the things she wanted. Then in early April, about a month after our breakup, she showed up on my doorstep in nothing but a trench coat and proposed a casual arrangement because her career as a defense attorney didn’t leave her time to start something new.
Foolishly, I agreed and inadvertently turned a clean breakup into a minefield of messy expectations and blurred lines.
“I got all of your favorites, so I hope you’re hungry,” Kristen says as she kicks off her heels and leaves them beside my work boots on her way to the kitchen.
I stare at them for a moment, taking in the familiar and domestic image that hints at the life she wanted us to have together. The sight makes my gut wrench, because the only person I’ve ever wanted a life like that with is Sloane, even when she was living it with my best friend. Even when I was committed to Kristen and trying my damnedest to love her like I loved Sloane.
Stop. Thinking. About. Her.
Shaking my head to bring my wandering mind back to reality, I focus my attention on the woman in my kitchen, unpacking the Chinese takeout she brought over and moving around with a familiarity that attests to the years we’ve spent together. Something—probably the part of me that feels guilty as hell for stealing years of her life to try and soothe the part of me yearning for the one woman I could never have—softens toward her a little.
“I’m starving,” I say as I join her in the kitchen.
She bumps me with her shoulder as I set out plates for her to slide the food onto. Her eyes are dry now, and her smile is huge while she talksabout her day. And even though my heart and mind want to continue to obsess over Sloane, I force myself to focus on the details of Kristen’s stressful new case and the partner offer she’ll get if she wins it.
“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything this bad, Nic.” She peeks up at me through her lashes. “Except for…well, you know.”
“Kris.”
My flat tone has her hands flying up in surrender, but there’s still a suggestive tilt to her lips that tells me she’s not taking me seriously. “I’m sorry! You know how I get when I’m under a lot of stress.”
I set my fork down. “I do, but what I told you on Saturday still stands.”
“You’re no fun anymore, babe.” I bristle at the term of endearment and rise from the table, picking up my half-eaten food and carrying it back to the kitchen. Kris is hot on my trail. “You never even told me why you wanted to end things, Nic. Did you meet someone else?”
“Does it matter?”
She crosses her arms and leans back against the counter. “Yes, it matters.”
I round on her as the irritation from earlier in the day catches fire in my veins. The last thing I want to do is argue with Kristen about our “relationship” when there’s a gaping hole in my chest where my heart used to be. I scrub a rough hand over my face and search for an answer. Even if Sloane hadn’t walked out on me, even if there was a chance we could be something, I wouldn’t tell Kristen, because she has a jealous streak a mile long.
Yet another reason why I should have never said yes to this arrangement.
“There’s no one else.”
She pins me with a hard stare, examining me with the same expression I know she uses to read her clients for the truth, and I stare back at her because I don’t have anything to hide. There can’t be someone else when you aren’t actually in a relationship, and the person you want just walked out on you.
“So we’re just done with the friends-with-benefits thing?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Relief courses through me, washing out some of the irritation as Kristen and I smile at each other. Not being at odds with her right now feels nice, and it gives me hope for some kind of resolution with Sloane that’ll keep her in my life as something between what we are right now and what I’ve always hoped we could be.
Chapter 15
Sloane
Now
The week after Eric died was the longest of my life. Seven days of emptiness. Seven days of guilt gnawing away at me, eating me alive from the inside out. A week of tears and rage, of drinking and crying and cursing my existence. Of questioning God and, at my lowest point, praying for the strength to remove myself from this world because I didn’t want to live without him.If my mother thought I was being dramatic at the funeral, my behavior during that week would have given her an aneurysm.
It was in that week that I made myself face the hard truth about what my future would look like without Eric: a quiet house, a lonely bed, no hand to clasp tightly in my hardest moments, no arms that felt like home, no kisses to my forehead while I slept.
A solitary existence. That’s what I was in for, and funnily enough, it was exactly what Eric was convinced I wanted when he walked out the door that day, and I let him believe it because I was scared. It all seems sopointless now: the fight, my fear, his hurt. I could have spared us all if I had just been brave enough to tell the truth, but instead, I let my fear keep me rooted to the spot while I watched my husband walk out of my life for the last time. That day, when my ability to be brave mattered more than anything, I was a coward, and, four years later, I still am.
Just in a different way.
