“Why the fuck not? Let’s just cut our losses now and call it a day, no need to make a big deal out of it.”
My mind races. I can see the hurt in his eyes, and I know he’s just lashing out. But I don’t know what to say, what I can tell him anymore. This is all too much.
“Dex…” I start, pleading.
“You can stay,” he cuts me off. “You’ll want to see them cut the cake, right? You like torturing yourself, after all. You can watch your precious Hunter be all happy and in love, and wish the whole fucking time it was you.”
“Don’t leave like this,” I tell him, tears stinging in my eyes.
“Too late, baby,” Dex looks at me one last time, “I’m already gone.”
He turns to leave, walking away. My heart clenches in my chest.
“Wait!” I cry, but he keeps walking. “Dex, please!”
For a moment, I’m frozen in place. My limbs won’t move, I can’t do a thing but watch him leave.
Dex. My Dex.
Walking away forever.
I break, taking off at a run. I have to stop him. I can’t let him leave, not like this. I stumble around the corner, desperation tight in my chest. “Dex—”
I stop, my words dying on my lips.
Dex is nowhere to be seen, but someone is standing there, frozen by the door. They’ve heard the whole thing, every terrible word.
Brit.
I see the confusion and hurt in her eyes, and it’s more than I can take. My heart is splitting wide open in my chest, and I couldn’t keep it together anymore if I tried.
Everything’s breaking. Everything’s wrong.
With a sob, I push past her and flee.
32.
“You’ve got the conference call at two, and Jacob’s waiting in his office with the new summer fabric samples. Alicia? Alicia!”
“What?” My head snaps up. Lily is looking at me across my desk over the stacks of untouched paperwork.
“The conference call? Did you just listen to a single word I said?”“No,” I admit slowly.
Lily gives me a sympathetic look. “I’ll resend those notes so you have everything. And watch out, Jacob is in a serious mood today. He saw some girl in culottes on the way in to work, and now he’s questioning the ‘aesthetic black hole’ that is American fashion.” Lily grins, but I can’t even smile at the joke.
“Look, I know you don’t want to talk about whatever’s been going on with you,” she adds, dropping her voice. “But I’m here, OK? If you need to go out and drink mojitos and just get it off your chest.”
“Thanks, Lily.” I exhale. “I’ll try to pull it together, I’m sorry.”
“Hey, break-ups are tough. Not that you had a break-up,” she adds quickly. “I wouldn’t know anything about that at all. Oh, and you got another message from that Brit girl. She really wants you to call her back.”
I wince. “Just tell her I’m out of the office.”
Lily raises an eyebrow, but she doesn’t argue. “I’m running out for lunch. You want a salad, right?”
“Right,” I sigh.
Lily heads back out, leaving me to a brief moment of peace. The phones are ringing non-stop; the company just announced a big collaboration with a chain of stores and work has never been busier.
And all I can think about is him.
Dex.
It’s been a month. One whole month since that disastrous fight between us. One month where I’ve done nothing but wonder if I made the worst mistake of my life. I can’t even bear to think about Brit and Hunter, not with memories of Dex consuming my mind. Rushing back to the beach house that day, I found the place empty, with nobody around. I thought that if I packed up my things and came back to the city, just gave him some time, we’d both calm down and talk about it when we weren’t so stressed and emotional. Calmly, like rational adults.
But he hasn’t called, not once. And with every day that passes, our time together drifts further away, so out of synch with the rest of my ordinary, mundane life that it feels like a dream. Some mornings I wake up still lost in the feel of his lips against my skin, and have to stop and wonder if it was a memory or dream; if my mind is playing tricks on me now, showing me visions of things that never happened at all.
I’ve tried to pull it together. I can tell myself all the rational arguments under the sun. I spent five days with him, and it’s been six times as long since then, I calculate. More than enough to get over it: a brief fling, the only reckless hook-up of my life to date.
But no matter how much I try and write it off as a hook-up or sexy adventure, I know those words are an insult to the time we shared.
It was real. It meant everything. And now it’s over.
Where are you, Dex? How can you just walk away?
**
I drift through the rest of my day on auto-pilot, until finally the clock hits six and I can leave. But heading home is no better: when I open my front door and step inside, I’m hit with the silence all over again.
I’m alone.
I grit my teeth and flip on the lights and radio. I was happy before Dex, I tell myself, unpacking my takeout and setting the table for one. I don’t need him to be happy again.
But you want him.
I stare at my dinner salad, limp and boring on my plate. Why did he have to do this to me: sweep me up in a riot of excitement and sensation, and then leave me back in my ordinary life again? Everything seems bland and dull without him, my usual routine suddenly empty compared to the few brief days I spent in his embrace.