She’s silent for a minute. “I really don’t know where she went, but you have your work cut out for you. I’ve never seen that girl look so damn heartbroken.” She goes inside her apartment and I sag against Amelia’s door.
I don’t know what else to do but return to work. Julia’s sitting at Amelia’s desk and I fight the urge to tell her to leave. For the first time in almost a year, I close my office door behind me.
Once at my computer, I enter my password to access the employee files. I’ll find out where she went and fly there. Then I’ll do whatever it takes to fix this.
But her profile is blank. We had a glitch in the system a few months ago that wiped out data, and she must have forgotten to re-enter hers. There’s no emergency contacts listed, no secondary addresses, and nothing I don’t already know about her.
“Fuck!” I drop my forehead onto my desk.
I’ll have to hire a private investigator…
But maybe I should give her a little space. Give her some time to process what a fucking idiot I am. Maybe she’ll reach out to yell at me. I’ll take whatever I can get.
Two weeks. I’ll give her two weeks. If I don’t hear from her by the time I get back from Lizzie’s wedding, I’ll hire someone to help me find her. I can’t leave things like this with her. I want her in my life. I’ll beg her if I have to. I might not be above kidnapping at this point.
When I raise my head, a small piece of paper is stuck to my skin. I pull it away and drag in a ragged breath at the sight of her signature. Instead of adding the note to the pile I’ve been collecting in a drawer for a year, I tuck it into my wallet.
Then, because I haven’t punished myself nearly enough, I pull up our text thread and scroll back to the messages from before I screwed up when she texted me yesterday morning from the coffee shop. She hated that I didn’t eat breakfast and started bringing pastries along with our coffees every morning her first week here. I couldn’t say no to her, and before long, it became one of my favorite parts of the day.
Amelia
They have the cherry fritters!
Me
Buy them all!
Amelia
There’s like 20.
Me
Your point?
Amelia
*eye roll emoji*
Me
Fine, leave like 3.
Amelia
I got a dozen because they also have the chocolate croissants and apparently neither of us possesses the willpower to resist pastries anymore.
Everything after that is me begging her to answer her phone and give me a chance to explain. I close my eyes. I miss her so damn much already.
Being in my office is impossible. It’s the scene of one of the greatest moments of my life, and where everything came crashing down around me.
How did I let her walk out of here? Fuck, Ipushedher out with my bullshit fears.
Our professional positions and age difference are issues, of course, but in the end, I don’t think they actually matter. What we had was amazing, but I wanted more. I was also terrified that crossing the line we’d been straddling for a year would ruin everything.
It all happened so fast. We didn’t just cross the line, we obliterated it. And while in Amelia’s beautiful sunshine mind we easily moved into a new phase of our relationship, I imagined it crumbling around us. In that moment, the fear overwhelmed me, and all I wanted was to go back because I would rather have what we already had than nothing at all.
That fear shattered us. I watched it break her. I don’t deserve her forgiveness…
