Page 106 of 13 Rules For Fantastic Phone Sex

She toys with the lip of her paper cup and says softly, “Well, everyone likes closure, don’t they?”

No. No, they don’t. I don’t want closure. Is this finishing the last chapter rather than starting a new one?

“I told you we would, at the minimum, be the kind of friends who have coffee. Here we are, in a coffee shop, doing what we’ve always said we were going to do. This is supposed to be fun, right? I’m keeping my word.” She looks at the walls of paintings and hesitates on the With Or Without You paintings.

She waves a hand toward a wall covered in paintings. She plays with her cup, but she can’t hide. The hint of anger, the pain in her eyes, sadness. It’s all there. “I find this incredibly embarrassing. I wrote Rule Five, and yet I ended up in this situation.” Pretty sure Rule #5 is never trust a caller. I deserve that reminder that I was special at one point and she shared things like her list of rules; now, I’m just another caller.

At a loss for something witty or profound to add, I try giving her something she used to want. “It’s lovely to finally meet you, Kait. I’m Henry Benedict Alister Sterling.”

She bursts into wry laughter. “The dog. The Declan Sterling got the damn dog to answer to Alister.” She guffaws, unabashed. I stare at her while she laughs at me, wiping tears from her eyes.

How lucky am I to see her laugh before she leaves me behind? Or is this adding fine details to the torture when she’s gone?

“Nice to meet you,” she says, shaking my hand like we’re at a business meeting. I’m touching her, and the heat of her soft hand slipping into mine echoes through my entire body like a gong.

“I’m Kaitlin Eóghann MacGregor. Another promise kept. I said we would have coffee one day and I’d tell you my name. That squares things up nicely.”

The stupid Henry poop song starts, and she can hear it too. She giggles, then sobers, looking over all of the paintings.

“I’m pretty sure ‘Lucky Man’ is supposed to be playing right now,” I say, and Kait winces. Moving on.

We sit at Kait’s favorite table like old friends who see each other every few years to honor the old out of obligation for a minute or two. “An Arrow In the Wall” plays in my head. I take it for the warning it is as she escorts me toward the door to usher me into the night.

“I’m glad we made time to do this like we always said we would. Closure obtained?” she asks, polite, her words soft, but her jaw clenches as she waits for my response.

No. No. The word is a scream in my brain. Closure has not been obtained. I’ve barely apologized. My chest is weighty, my heart a lead ball filled with regrets too numerous to count and too heavy to bear.

This was her word meaning something to her, not me meaning something to her.

I know her better than I know myself. She’s never coming back here for tea in the morning. To the depths of my soul, I understand that she will be vapor the second she leaves this shop. I know her name now, but I’m not welcome wherever she’s going.

I’m never going to see her again.

“Kait.” I’ve hurt her deeply. I’m still hurting her. I should let her go, but I can’t. Not without a fight. I’m not above begging, but I go with gut-wrenching candor, the kind that costs me something precious.

I stand my ground, holding space in the doorway while she holds the door open, politely imploring me to leave.

Now or never.

“Kait, if you can’t forgive the man who hurt you, maybe you can find a little grace for the one who’s been lost without you?” I sniff, and then she sniffs, and the freaking busybodies and staff and everyone are watching. I lean closer and whisper, “I must have left you wondering if any of it was real, while I was left knowing that I destroyed something extraordinary. Something magical.”

I want to comfort her, but I can’t bear to see her flinch away from my hand, so I stuff it in my pocket instead.

“Can we walk for a moment? The park across the street, no audience, some real truth that needs to be said?”

She’s quiet, her eyes sad, but she gives me a small nod. We walk side by side and slowly stroll the perimeter of the small green space in the darkness. She rubs her bare arms, and I put my too-large coat on her. She starts to protest, but I must have a look because she allows me to help her into it.

“Thank you, H—” she says, cutting herself off, and it’s like a steak knife to my belly. “Thank you. You’re very thoughtful.”

I take a big breath, release it slowly while counting to ten, and summon courage. I stop, take another deep inhale, then launch into it. Eye contact with her while drowning in shame is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but she deserves it.

“Kait, there are no words to adequately describe how wrong I was or how sorry I am.” I say it while wrapping my scarf around her neck but holding her gaze. “I watched that show and told myself I was being used yet again, but I acted out of fear. Fear of losing control, fear of putting myself out there, and more than anything, I knew one day I was going to call, and you’d be gone, off to grad school. I thought it would be better for me to choose when our⁠—”

Call it what it was, Henry.

“—relationship ended. I haven’t been okay since. I’m hollow, aimless, shuffling through life. I get on the plane, I show up on the conference calls, but my life is empty. Even worse, I know it’s empty.” I was lonely before her, but ignorance was bliss. It wasn’t painful; it was normal.

“It’s always been you. From the first time we spoke, it’s been you. I’ve paid every single day for my stupidity and selfishness. I see something funny, and I want to text you about it. I fly to Ireland, and I miss talking to you before I go to sleep. Everything, tea, chairs, music, sleeping, breathing… it all reminds me of how much I miss you.”