The lesson couldn’t be more obvious if it clubbed me over the head.
I can watch him walk away from my perfect life, or I can give it up and walk away with him. Besides, what good is perfect if the person you made it perfect for saw it and walked away?
The truth is, if he could walk away from it that easily, it’s not perfect.
Not for him.
And if it’s not perfect for him, it’s not perfect for us.
Maybe it was perfect for me, my bachelor pad. I didn’t wait for him to start my life. I started the day I walked out of that rehab center. Every day, I lived for the next. I focused on getting better, being better, living better. I focused on the good. I didn’t wait around, stuck in the past, like he said. I moved on. But I alsoprepared. For the day when I’d see him again. For the day when I’d be good enough. That started with being good enough for me.
And I am. This is.
But I didn’t think about what would happen if, when that day finally came, he said no. If he didn’t want the life I offered. I didn’t think about his family in Arkansas because I was done with it. I haven’t gone back in five years. I have no reason to.
The only person in my family who still lives there is my sister, so she comes here to visit. My mom never left New York. My dad is buried here. My two older brothers live in the state, even if one of them isn’t in the city anymore. And my twin is off at med school.
But Colt isn’t me. He had a point. I was being selfish to ask him to drop his entire life to come here. His family has lived in Arkansas for generations. As far as I know, they pretty much all still live there, except for his sister, who went away to college with Baron. His parents live there, his aunts and uncles and cousins, who were like brothers to him. He left with Lo for a while, but when they broke up and he spiraled, he must have gone back to the place he knows, the place that’s home to him, comfortable and safe.
I can’t expect him to give all that up when all I have to offer in return is me.
I have to be willing to sacrifice something too, to prove to him that he’s worth more than all of it. So what am I doing still sitting here in my perfect, lonely apartment, letting the one that got away get away again?
I jump up and run to my room, hurriedly dressing before grabbing my coat on the way out. They’re predicting a white Christmas, so maybe the impending snow will delay his flight. Maybe I can still get him. On the way to my car, I punch his hotel into my phone, silently thankful that he told me where he wasstaying last night. He would have had to wait for a car, so I’m probably not too far behind him.
I start my car and leave the garage, not waiting for it to heat up even though it’s freezing out. I pull out onto the road, and I’m immediately surrounded by fucking traffic. Of course.
I tell myself that means Colt is also stuck in traffic. By the time I get to his hotel, and argue with the front desk, and pay off the manager for his room number, I’m ready to tear through the wall to find him. Spotting a line for the elevator, I race to the stairwell, taking the stairs two at a time. When I reach the upstairs hallway, my heart is beating double-time, and I don’t even know what I’m going to say. I just rush down the hall to his room.
The door is standing open, the maid’s cart blocking the way.
Everything inside me sinks.
I missed him.
“What you want, kid?” asks the woman cleaning the room, her Jersey accent nasal and demanding.
“Did you see the guy leave this room?” I ask. “Do you know how long he’s been gone?”
She gives me a look that’s somewhere between scorn and pity. “What do I look like, his mother?”
“Right, yep,” I say, backing out of the room. I look up and down the hallway, clinging to a shred of hope that I’ll see him walking toward the elevator, having gone to get ice or something from the vending machine before he left. But there’s only another maid’s cart.
I don’t bother checking the elevator, just rush down the stairs again. Back in my car, I pull out into traffic once again. Even driving like the world’s biggest asshole, it takes me way too fucking long to get to the airport. He didn’t tell me his airline, but I’m able to look up the flights to Arkansas while sitting intraffic. Unfortunately, none are delayed, despite the low, heavy cloud cover that promises the snow will be here sooner rather than later.
At the airport, I throw my car in park at the curb and hit the hazards, taking a guess which terminal he’ll be leaving from, and run inside. My heart sinks even lower. The lines are almost to the doors at every counter, everyone getting flights home on Christmas Eve morning, wanting to be with their families tonight. I search the line for Colt, praying he’s here, even if he’s all the way at the front, but I can’t find him.
Everything in me is screaming with frustration. I try to pay people to let me in front of them, but most of them look at me like I’m insane. Only a few take me up on it.
By the time I get to the counter, the frazzled lady tells me the flight is already boarding. I try to buy a ticket anyway, but she reminds me I’d still have to go through customs, and even in the express lane, I won’t make it in time. She looks a me with a complete lack of emotion, like she couldn’t give two shits that I’m clearly having a breakdown.
“Next,” she calls, before I’ve even decided what to do.
In a daze, I step away from the counter. I could go to another terminal, get a flight on another airline, but he won’t be here. He won’t even be in New York anymore.
I shuffle back outside, only to see my car being hauled off by a fucking tow truck for illegally parking at the curb. I’m not even surprised. That’s how the whole morning is going, like the universe is conspiring to keep us apart. Maybe that was the lesson he was here to teach me.
Don’t hesitate. Don’t wait too long. Don’t sit on your ass and watch the love of your life walk away.
