“The ending. I can see it on your face.” She pulled her legs up, shifting to face me fully. “You get this look. Like you’re bracing for impact.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I do it too.” She picked at the hem of my shirt. “Every time something feels perfect, I remember that I have to leave. That this ends.”
“What if it didn’t have to?”
The words were out before I could stop them. Leigh’s head snapped up, eyes wide.
“What?”
I sat up straighter, suddenly desperate to solve this. To find a way.Any way. “What if we tried to make it work? Long distance. We could figure it out.”
“Dex...”
“No, listen.” I turned to face her fully, taking both her hands in mine. “Blue Point Bay is what, three and a half hours from here? Four? That’s not impossible. We could take turns. Alternate weekends. You come here one weekend, I come there the next.”
I could see the hope flickering in her eyes, warring with practicality. “And what about during the week?”
“We FaceTime. We text. We call each other every night.” I was gaining momentum now, the idea taking shape. “It’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing. It’s better than just... ending.”
“Weekends,” she repeated slowly, like she was testing the word. “Every weekend?”
“Yeah. Or... well.” I paused, reality starting to creep in. “I mean, the garage is busiest on weekends. People need their cars for the work week, so they bring them in on Saturday mornings. And I usually have to be there for at least part of Saturday to handle the complex jobs, the ones I can’t delegate to the other guys. I shifted jobs around for the run up to the wedding but I can probably, I don’t know, maybe see about working evenings through the week.”
Her expression shifted slightly. “Right. And I have exhibits and shoots at the weekend. That’s when people are free. When shows are generally scheduled for.”
“But maybe...” I was scrambling now, trying to hold onto the solution even as it started to slip away. “Maybe I could hire another mechanic. Someone to cover weekend shifts. It would cut into profits, but if it meant I could see you...”
“And I could try to maybe slow down on the amount of exhibits I do,” Leigh added, but her voice lacked conviction. “Or maybe try and get a couple scheduled on the same weekend to free up other time?”
We both fell silent, the logistics piling up between us like bricks in a wall.
“Every other weekend, then,” I said finally. “That would give us both time to handle our work obligations. One weekend a month you come here, one weekend I come there.”
“So twice a month.” Leigh’s voice was small. “We’d see each other twice a month.”
“It’s not…” I stopped. Because it wasn’t enough. We both knew it wasn’t enough.
“And holidays,” I added, desperate. “And we could take vacation time. Week-long trips. Make up for the weekends we miss.”
“When was the last time you took a vacation?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. Because the truth was, I couldn’t remember. Five years? Six? I hadn’t left Willowbrook for more than a day since I’d taken over the garage.
“I could start,” I said weakly.
“And I have networking events that I need to attend to make gallery connections.” She was crying now, quiet tears that she didn’t bother wiping away. “The reality is, we’d both be choosing between our careers and each other. Every single weekend. Every holiday. Every chance we had to see each other would mean sacrificing something else.”
“But we’d be together. Sometimes. That’s better than never.”
“Is it?” She looked at me with those beautiful, heartbroken eyes. “Is seeing each other twice a month enough? Is it enough to sustain a relationship? To build a life together?”
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to believe it could be.
But sitting there, looking at her, thinking about all the nights I’d come home to an empty house. All the weekends I’d wake up alone. All the moments I’d want to share with her and wouldn’t be able to because we were three and a half hours apart.
It wouldn’t be enough.
