I cross my arms, not knowing what to say. It has nothing to do with how I feel for Asher, but everything to do with my career. My future. His career and his future. I can see the disappointment on my mother’s face when she learns why I was placed in one of the worst clinics in the program. I can see Juliet’s disapproval when she learns that Asher had to get a job at a smaller university. I can’t leteveryonedown.
“So, none of it matters? It doesn’t matter that we want to be together? Or that I love you? Or that I have never in my thirty-six years of life felt about anyone the way that I feel about you? It doesn’t matter that I think you feel the same?”
“No,” I whisper, even though it kills me. “None of that matters.”
And with those devastating words, and the feeling of my heart breaking in two, I leave Asher standing alone in his apartment.
34
ASHER
I’m at Dean Callahan’s officebefore he is the next morning. I’m standing in the hall anxiously tapping my foot while I wait.
Summer’s words echo in my head, and I know that I have to beat her to this decision. She can’t quit the program. She can’t transfer somewhere else that won’t accept all the credits she’s already worked so hard for. She’s so close to being done. She’s supposed to be doing her clinical work with actual patients through a local school.
This isn’t something that I can let her do. It’ll set her so far back, career-wise, timing-wise, and financially.
I can find another job. Dean Callahan likes me, despite how he may feel about the situation; it’s the only negative mark on my flawless reputation at Cascadia University. I truly believe that if I take responsibility for the situation, he won’t put anything on my record that could affect my chances of getting a job elsewhere. He’ll see it as a bad call in judgment, not something more malicious.
Because it wasn’t. I love her. I can’t lose her. It doesn’t matter that she didn’t say it back.
I can’t let her go through with this.
At some point, I’d started pacing and was about to wear a hole through the carpet when Dean Callahan finally approached.
He meets my gaze, and I can see his shoulders droop as he deflates just slightly. He quickly looks away as he pulls out his keys to unlock his office.
I’m on his heels as he walks inside, and I don’t bother taking a seat when he does. I shake my head. “This won’t take long,” I say as I cross my arms and brace myself for what I’m about to say next. “I’m here to resign,” I state firmly before he can speak up.
He sighs and fiddles with a pen on his desk, still unwilling to meet my gaze. “Asher, that’s unnecessary.”
“No, it’s not, I heard what you said the other day and?—”
“She already transferred, Asher,” he cuts me off.
“What?” I ask, dumbfounded. I blink, wanting to believe that I must have heard him wrong.
“She informed me of her decision to transfer a few days ago. She went to her administrator and immediately dropped all her current courses at the university after speaking with me. She never even scheduled her clinical placement interviews.”
I want to break something. I want to yell. I want to cry. I want to make demands, but instead I say, “Can you tell me where?”
“Even if I could… she specifically asked that I don’t.”
My stomach plummets. “What do you mean?” I ask, quietly. A devastating feeling of defeat washes over me. I had come in here intending to quit with some big speech about how much she meant to me. With grand ideas of getting a job elsewhere and continuing to make a life with her while she pursued her career here. But none of that mattered.
She had decided to leave anyway. She’d made the decision before speaking to me. The conversation that she’d had with melast night hadn’t in any way indicated that she’d already made any drastic changes to her academic career because of what happened.
How could she leave without saying goodbye?
“She specifically requested that I not tell you where she had transferred to if you were to ask.”
Ouch. A sharp pain spears through my chest.
She’s gone. Not only is she gone, but she doesn’t even want me to know where she’s left to.
After everything… this is where it ends.
“Thank you for your time, sir,” I say with a curt nod of my head. I turn on my heel and head toward the door at a brisk walk. My dress shoes make dull thuds against the carpet, and it feels like they’re matching the slow pounding of my heart.
