Page 19 of Paradigm

“We talked about it, yes, but it would’ve been too hard and a lot of pressure, Eline. What if I’d moved there, assuming we could’ve even made it happen, and it didn’t work out, or vice versa? We decided together.”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean that I wanted to lose you completely. I needed time.”

“I was giving you that time,” Arlowe argued. “For twelve years, I’ve been giving you that time. My friends have wondered since the beginning why I never tried to look you up online; why I didn’t try to get in touch, even to just get some kind of closure after all that time. I thought you’d moved on, didn’t want to hear from me at all, and then, I get this email after all these years.”

“Arlowe, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to talk to you, but I couldn’t. I kept thinking we might find our way back to each other, but then, that didn’t happen. You didn’t call or anything, and eventually, I…”

Arlowe swallowed because she knew where Eline was going with this. She wasn’t sure that she was prepared to hear it, but she’d come to meet her, which meant that she had to force herself to be ready for this.

“When was eventually?” she asked gently.

“It was five years later,” Eline replied.

“Are you still with her?”

“What? No,” Eline said quickly.

“How long?”

“About a year,” Eline told her, nodding solemnly.

“You’ve got me beat,” she said and leaned back in her chair.

“I do?”

“I can’t manage to make it work with anyone for more than a few months.”

“When was your eventually?”

“Depends on what you mean by that.”

“I don’t–”

“I slept with someone for the first time after you about a year later.”

“Oh,” Eline said. “A year?”

“I was drunk that night. I met her at a bar, and we went back to her place. I left before she woke up, and I honestly don’t remember much of what happened. I’m not proud of it.” She paused. “I didn’t go on a date for another year or so after that, and it went nowhere. I’ve dated some since.”

Arlowe chose to leave out the fact that she’d probably kissed more women in the past twelve years than most people do in a lifetime or even two lifetimes.

“I’m sorry,” Eline said.

“For what?”

“For never reaching out. I should’ve known you’d wait for me to be the one to do that, but I couldn’t help thinking that you just didn’t want to. The longer it went on, the easier it got to imagine you living your life however you wanted and not thinking about me at all. I mean, we had an amazing relationship, Arlowe, but when it started, we convinced ourselves that it was just one of those college things that would end on its own. I decided that it must have been that for you after all, and I didn’t want to face that if it were the case.”

“What do you mean?” Arlowe asked.

“I mean, had I contacted you and you told me that you were happy without me, it would’ve broken me then.”

“So, you emailed me now because it wouldn’t break you anymore?”

“Technically, you emailed me first,” Eline argued before she gave Arlowe a soft smile.

“I had no idea who you were.”

“And I had no idea you worked there, let alone founded the company. When I figured it out, I thought I at least owed it to you to tell you who you were talking to.”