He’s wrong about that. I’m absolutelythe type. I’ve been overthinking everything since I was twelve, I’ve just gotten good at doing it behind a smile.
I’ve called her every night. Tonight is no different.
It has become the scaffolding of my day in Toronto—meetings, dinners, a drink with a university friend, who spends the entire time talking about his stock portfolio, and then, when I’m back at the condo with my tie loosened and the city buzzing twenty floors below, I call her.
She always picks up. That alone tells me something, because Billie doesn’t answer calls from anyone outside of work hours.I’ve watched her stare at a ringing phone with the disdain of someone being asked to kick a puppy and then text back,what do you want?forty minutes later. But she picks up for me.Everytime. Usually on the second ring, which I suspect is a deliberate choice not to seem too eager, and which I find unbearably endearing.
But something’s off.
I can’t name it exactly. She’s still funny—still tells me stories about her crew and Neve’s increasingly unhinged color-swatch obsession and how Tammy has officially declared war on Balsam Bay residents—because she showed up on Main Street the other day and stalled traffic for three hours. She still calls me ridiculous when I tell her I miss her cooking, which we both know is a lie because she burns water. She still laughs in all the right places.
But there’s a gap. A small one, like a door that’s been left open a crack—enough to let the draft in, not enough to see what’s on the other side. She’s holding something back. And every night when we hang up, I lie in the dark and turn it over in my head, trying to figure out what it is.
Tonight, I almost ask.
“How was your day?” I ask, the same way I always do. There’s a pause that lasts half a second too long.
“Good. Normal. Steph almost dropped a circular saw on her foot, so that was exciting.” Her voice is light, but it’s the kind of light that takes effort. I know because I do the same thing—sugarcoat everything in ease so no one thinks to dig deeper. “She’s fine. Steel toes for the win.”
“Beth.” I use the name that feels intimately only ours. The one I hold close, saving it for when I want her to remember who we are to each other.
“Hmm?”
“You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”
Another pause. Longer this time. “Yeah. Of course.”
She’s lying. And I’m letting her, because pushing her is like pushing a door that only opens inward—the harder you press, the more resistance you get. She’ll tell me when she’s ready. That’s how she works. That’s howwework.
But lying in the dark yet again after we hang up, staring at the ceiling of a place I once called home, the distance between us feels less geographical and more like something I need to fix before it becomes permanent.
I rebook my flight at 5 a.m. on Friday.
The original plan was to fly back Saturday evening, get home late, and see her Sunday. The new plan is a 12 p.m. flight that’ll get me into Halifax by the afternoon, because sometime between midnight and dawn, I stopped being able to talk myself into another day of this. My parents will understand.
I don’t tell her I’m coming back early. Partly because I want to surprise her, and partly because I’m afraid if I call, she’ll use her everything-is-fine voice, and I’ll spend the entire flight wondering what’s underneath it.
The drive from the airport takes ninety minutes, and I use every one of them not to think about Martin’s offer. I don’t think about the partner track or the corner office or the compensation package. I think about Beth eating cereal for dinner and when she saidI’ll be herelike it was nothing, like she didn’t hand me a rare, precious gift.
It’s late afternoon when I pull up to her place. I’ve been here before, but only to drop her off or for a quick stop. It dawns on me I haven’t made much of an effort to come to her. She alwayscomes to mine. I wonder if that’s been another intentional way of her keeping emotional distance between us.
Her truck is in the driveway, which means she’s home, which means… I don’t know what it means. I grab my bag from the back seat and stand in her driveway for a moment, feeling stupid and certain in equal measure.
The walk to her front door takes approximately four seconds, but my brain fills them with enough doubt to last a lifetime.
What if she doesn’t want me here?
What if the space was good for her?
What if the distance clarified something that proximity had been blurring—namely, that this was always supposed to be temporary, and I’m the only one who forgot?
I knock.
Nothing. Then… movement. Slow. Unhurried in a way that tells me she wasn’t expecting anyone, and possibly wasn’t vertical.
When the door opens, the speech I’d been rehearsing on the plane dies in my throat.
She lookswrecked.
