I want to say that she scorched that when she left me for someone else, but something holds me back. We were together so long; berating her doesn’t feel right just now. My throat tightens.
“When are you coming home?” she says.
Home.I don’t think of our old apartment like that anymore.I run my hands through my hair. What the fuck do I say here? “Actually, I promised Des I’d look after his place while he’s away.”
Her jaw drops. “What? Why?”
“He was worried about it.” Not quite the truth, but …moving on.
She huffs. “So, you’re abandoning me because Des asked you for a favor, just like that?”
What, like she didn’t abandon me first?
“God, you’re always so kind to other people. I always came second,” she pouts as she turns her head toward the window again.
It’s like a dagger to the heart. I don’t think I treated her like an afterthought—did I? “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
I could lay into her here, but where would it get me apart from some short-term satisfaction? I’ve been trying to save this relationship, not scupper it—salvage something from this mess and repair the damage.
Big, sad eyes swing back to fix on my face. “I worry about you, James.” She reaches out and squeezes my forearm. “You’re my best friend. I want to help.”
Herbestfriend? How can you be best friends with someone who kicks you in the teeth? “Help with what?”
“You haven’t been yourself lately.”
I want to laugh and laugh. Of course I’m not my fucking self! She’s the one who caused all this, and this conversation is making it worse. Whosayssomething like that?
“Of course I’m not myself, Jane. I lost the person I thought I was going to marry.”
Her eyes flutter away. “Will you come back home when Des comes back at least?”
And every time I say anything about that proposal, she ducks it. “He’s away for two years.”
“Two years!” She rolls her lips together. “What am I supposed to do about the apartment? I can’t pay for two bedrooms on my own.”
“I can cover the rent for a couple of months until you find someone else to pay for the room.” It’ll take most of my money, but I can do it.
The sad eyes are back. “But I want to live with you! I thought you’d want to stay and save money. I miss having you there. I liked our nights doing Sudoku and …” She trails off.
Welcome to your consequences, I don’t say. And where’s Kevin in all this? He’s based in Philadelphia, but I expect they’ll move in together at some point. God, I am not asking those questions. The less I hear about Kevin, the better. Des said she wants to have her cake and eat it, too, that she’s totally oblivious, and he was spot on.
“Perhaps someone at your work could take care of Des’s apartment, and you could come back home?” she says.
Reality seeps into my skin. She scorched my home as well as me. She threw a flamethrower over everything until there was nothing left except the charred remains of this awkward conversation.
I shake my head. “I don’t think they’d be able to afford Des’s place.” Something about how she’s leaning on me like this, when Sadie gives me all the space in the world, makes something dark uncoil inside me.
I stare out of the window at the lunchtime crowds streaming past. “It was nice living together, but ultimately you found something better.” It almost kills me to say it, but I have to draw some line under this, to make her understand, to stop her asking me for something I can no longer give her. My inclination is always to be accommodating, but I can’t do that here. I turn back to her to find her eyes shimmering with tears.
“Hey, don’t sweat it, Jane. The first few meetings will be difficult, but then the awkwardness will pass, and we’ll be like old friends again.” I squeeze her hand and glance at my watch. “Oh, wow! I’ve got to dash. I’ve taken over Des’s role and I’ve got a staff meeting in about ten minutes. Let’s catch up again soon.”
There’s no meeting, but who cares at this point? I knock back my coffee in one, scalding the roof of my mouth.
“Sounds like you’re taking over his whole life,” she grumbles.
“Pretty much!” I give her a wan smile and then lean over the table and kiss her cheek and bolt out the door.
Once I’m out on the street, I gulp in a huge gust of air. God, that was brutal.Never again. I am coming up with excuse after excuse to not put myself through that again. I reel up the sidewalk. Cars whizz past me when I reach Broadway. Why did I walk over here and meet Jane in the middle of a workday? The thought of going back to the office … My hand twitches against my leg as I turn left, and I’m about two blocks down when the red sign of a bar down one of the side streets catches my eye, like a mirage.A whiskey.One shot would take the edge off all this.
