“Not an answer to the question.” Lisa grabs a rumpled T-shirt off the end of the bed and uses her palm to smooth it flat. “Want me to guess, or do you want to just tell me?”
For some reason I appreciate that she doesn’t give me the option of not talking about it. That’s off the table, and a small part of me is glad she won’t let me burrow into my sad little cave to lick my wounds. Won’t let me retreat into avoidance the way Ian would want to do.
“I’m sort of curious what you’d guess,” I admit. “What you’ve observed.”
Lisa studies me a moment longer, then starts to fold the shirt. “I’ve seen the way you look at Ian,” she says. “I know you’re in love with him.”
I flinch, noticing she’s picked up on the one-sidedness of it. I love Ian. Ian doesn’t love me.
Has it been obvious to everyone but me?
“And I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” she continues. “With absolute terror.”
“Terror?” I frown and fiddle with the nametag on the handle of my suitcase. “Is this supposed to be helping?”
“He’s terrified that he loves you,” she says. “For a guy who likes to be in control, it’s horrifying to realize he has so little control over his own emotions.”
“He seemed pretty in-control last night.” I frown as I pick up a white ankle sock and start searching for its mate. “I practically threw myself at him, and he just sat there.”
All right, that’s not exactly fair. Even I can acknowledge he was more sensitive than I’m making him out to be.
But I’m too hurt to focus on anything besides the fact that I’m aching and that Ian had a role in that.
And also that I can’t find the damn mate to this sock. Where the hell did I lose it?
Lisa picks up a pair of yoga pants off the floor and begins folding them into a perfectly proportioned rhombus. It’s like fucking geometry for laundry.
“Fear, hurt, vulnerability—these things don’t tend to bring out the finer qualities of the opposite sex,” she continues. “Ian’s not the first guy to panic and run when he realizes he’s in over his head in a relationship.”
“That doesn’t make it easier to be on the receiving end.”
Lisa knows what she’s talking about. I helped her pick up the pieces when Dax cut and run.
“It’s different with Ian and me,” I continue. “At least you and Dax had the starting point of a normal relationship. All Ian and I had was a business agreement.”
Lisa shakes her head a little sadly. “If that’s your idea of a business agreement, remind me never to leave you alone in a meeting.”
I sigh and keep hunting for the sock. “He left—just walked out the damn door after I told him I loved him.”
“Did you ask him to leave?”
I bite my lip. “Maybe.”
“Look, sometimes guys need a while to figure things out,” she says. “To process their emotions, or even acknowledge that they have emotions. Give him a chance to do that.”
“If you love someone, set him free and all that?”
“Precisely.”
I shake my head, not wanting to argue, but knowing she’s wrong. Ian made it clear what he wanted. I’m the one who tried to change the rules. When I stop being hurt, I’ll probably be willing to admit that.
But not now. I feel like someone slammed my heart in the car door.
“It’s okay,” I tell her, sounding anything but okay. But I force out a hollow little laugh anyway. “A month ago I wasn’t engaged at all. I was totally okay with turning thirty and knowing marriage wasn’t on the horizon any time soon. I can just go back to that.”
Lisa watches me with such pity that I have to break eye contact. I need to keep searching for this damn sock anyway. I’m sure I would have spotted it by now if it weren’t for the stupid haze of tears in my eyes.
“You can’t go back, Sarah,” she says with achingly soft kindness. “Some relationships change you to the point that there’s nothing left of the life you knew before. Of the person you were before.”
