“Please, Bri. Stay in the city. Give me a chance to make it up to you.”
“Make it up to me? David, you are having a kid with someone else! Do you think an entire human child will exist in the world and you deciding not to be in their life won’t hurt them?”
“That’s not what—”
“All I wanted was for you to love me, as I am, in full. And you couldn’t.” I steel myself against my tears. “You lied to me, you made me feel broken, and I will never let either happen again. We are done.”
“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I do love you. All of you. We should talk in person, not over the phone.”
“No. There is nothing left to say, and I have shit to do,” I tell him. “Lose my number and leave me the hell alone.”
I end the call and, soon after, lose myself to tears.
Getting the last word doesn’t feel as good as I imagined.
Nineteen
Liem
I fucked up. Yet again.
Sai: Great job! It will be good to have you back in the office again next week.
Me: Back in the office? What do you mean?
Sai: You got the contract now you come back.
Me: ???
Me: Call me
Staring at the message. I pace back and forth in the living room, trying to comprehend what happened. How did I fuck up this much? How could I not see that getting the contract would be the end of everything?
And to think I had plans. Candles, Bri’s favorite wine on the countertop, a cake to replace the one I never brought home from the party hiding in the fridge, and me, ready for the conversation we’re going to have, confident that she will make everything feel as safe as it did the night before last and be ready to take it further. And now this.
Finally, my phone buzzes with his call.
“Sai, I don’t understand. What do you mean I have to come back?”
“You did perfectly, my buddy. Dickerson is peeing in his pants! I know you want to get back together with Natalie, but management won’t let me keep you there if money isn’t involved. Everyone has to be in the office three days a week minimum.”
The fuck?“Since when?”
“Since last month.”
“Last—? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Sai laughs as if the world isn’t crashing down around me. “It didn’t apply to you because you weremaking us money, my buddy.”
I’m being punished for succeeding? This can’t be real.
“There’s nothing I can do to get you to let me stay here?”
“You think I get to make the decisions? If I was the boss of this company, I would be on a yacht.” Another ear-grating laugh. “We’ve missed you here. You’ll still have weekends to fly back and see her.”
The “she” he’s referring to is not the person I want to see.
We end the call, and my hope ends with it. My eyes dance over the pieces of the plan I had for the night. Cake. Wine. What was I attempting? Romance? No wonder the universe intervened. I’m not meant to be happy.
