“She is.”
“I always wondered what happened when—”
“Zach ...”I shake my head, struggling for words.“Please keep this professional.”
“Is it so wrong of me to want to know what happened and where you’ve been, how you’ve been, how you are?”
I don’t say a word.
“It was so unexpected, running into you like that.It was nice.It was ...the best thing, seeing you again.”
His words knock the air out of my lungs.It was the best thing seeing me again?I blink a few times, unsure of how to respond to that.For Zach, us meeting seems to have been a bigger event than it was for me.He sees it through rose-tinted spectacles, whereas I see it in another light.Something dark and foreboding.
“I was supposed to be somewhere else on the night of the VIP event,” he confesses, sitting back, his hands resting on the arms of the chair.“But I’m so glad I canceled and went to the event.”
My mind starts to drift and wonder what it was he canceled.A date?An important meeting?Does it matter?
It seems to matter to him because he’s carrying on like we never lost touch.Like it hasn’t been fourteen years since we last saw each other.
“What do you want from me, Zach?”I ask wearily.My heart pitter-patters inside my chest.He’s not sitting too close, but I can feel his presence as if he’s touching me.I hate how easily my body remembers him, and how my mind drifts, absurdly, to whether he’s single or if he’s seeing someone.
And if he is, what sort of woman he’s with.Whether she fits into his world as effortlessly as I never could.
The thought spirals before I can stop it, pulling me into questions I don’t have a right to ask.I clamp down on it hard, annoyed with myself for drifting there at all.
“What do I want?I want you to tell me why you’re so indifferent to me.Why did you hide from me at the VIP event?”
“I had things to do.It wasn’t a social event for me.”
I glance out of the windowed wall, and suddenly feel paranoid that people might hear us.That Katherine might suddenly appear.She won’t like this at all, me and Zach sitting here, like this.
“Come to dinner with me.”
Dinner?
No.I can’t.Not ever.Mom would never forgive me.
“No!”I shriek.Then look out onto the open plan office.A few people look up, and I turn away, heat rising along my cheeks.
“Why not?”
“Not possible.”
He throws his hands up in the air, clearly exasperated.“Why not, Maya?You hid from me at the VIP event.”
“I was busy.I had work to do.”
“You hid.Tell me you didn’t hide.”
I look at him, but I can’t say it.I can’t lie to him.I’ve never lied, and I’m not about to start now.
“Why are you avoiding me, Maya?”
“Why are you doing this?”I snap.
“Doing what?”He sounds genuinely surprised.“We find each other after so many years, and you don’t want to talk about the past?”
I do not.But I can’t say that to him because it will only make him question me more.One thing is slowly dawning on me: he has no idea why we left.
