Get out.I kept hearing this in my head, in Georgia’s broken voice.
So I then gave myself a week.
To think things through. To make some new lists. Set some new goals.
At the end of that week, all my lists led to one common goal.
And I’m standing outside her apartment. I buzz.
Her voice sounds tinny over the intercom. “Who is it?”
I clear my throat. “Georgia? It’s Oliver.”
Silence.
Then she buzzes me up.
I take the steps with a confidence born of conviction, replaying my lists, my apologies in my head. Ready to work, ready to mend this and move on. Ready to tell her I love her. Georgia is mine, and we’re going to get through this together.
She opens the door before I can even knock, and I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe the same devastation I see when I look at myself in the mirror, with the huge bags under my eyes and sallow skin, but that’s not what I get.
She looks… fine. And this makes me feel… fucking awful.
I blink at her, frozen in the hallway.
She gives me a small smile, eyes roaming across my face. “Come in.”
As I walk behind her through her open door, I take a huge inhale of the airstream she leaves behind her, drinking it in. I miss the way she smells.
She closes the door behind her, and we stand there awkwardly for half a second before I hold my arms out. She walks forward at the same time and mashes her face into my chest.
Relief flows through me as I wrap my arms around her slender body, squeezing a little too tight, kissing the top of her head. Breathing her in. “I’m so sorry, baby. I missed you,” I say into her hair.
“I’m sorry, too,” she says against my shirt, but that’s all I get. She pulls back, gesturing to her living room. “This is a couch conversation, I think.”
I move to the Porn Couch, trying like hell not to thinkabout everything that’s happened on it. She takes a seat next to me, putting a few inches of space between us.
“You look…” I start, drinking in her face, “so pretty,” I say lamely.
She smiles, a small one. “I’m beautiful, actually,” she scoffs.
I blow out a laugh. “Why does this feel like it’s going to be a bad couch conversation?”
Georgia looks at the floor, and I miss the color of her eyes. “This is going to be a couch conversation we should have had a long time ago?—”
I cut her off in desperation. “Georgia, I want you to know?—”
“Stop,” she whispers. “Please let me say this. I promise I won’t lash at you this time.”
“I deserved it last time.”
She shakes her head. “Just let me say this.” She takes a deep breath, gathering herself, the strength I know she has deep in her bones. “I’ve been working with my therapist. She’s making me realize some things.”
“I’m glad you’re talking to her,” I say, weakly, fighting the urge to pull her into my lap.
She nods. “What we’ve been doing… our relationship… it’s always been inherently unfair. Please listen to me,” she says, when she sees me start.
I shut my mouth.
