Page 65 of Take What Hurts

Hannah rolled her eyes but smiled. “You’re such a type B sap.” After a moment, her brows pulled together and she turned properly in her seat to face Elliott. “I’m still not clear, though.”

Elliott huffed out a laugh and waved a hand at Hannah to continue. “All right. Which part?”

Hannah’s eyes lifted to the scuffed roof of the car—like she was contemplating how not to send Elliott into a blind panic. “Like, where does Mackenzie fit into all of this? I know you’re doing long distance, but you can’t do that forever. And you’ve just bought a house here, and she’s looking for jobs in Seattle and owns a place there.”

Elliott shrugged but didn’t immediately answer, because despite the way the immediate decisions had laid themselves out before her and her resolute feeling things would work out, this was the part she couldn’t visualize clearly.

Because before Elliott had closed on the house and sublet her apartment, she and Mackenzie had spent every night wrapped up in each other. Elliott had mapped every inch of Mackenzie’s body with her hands and her tongue, learned the way Mackenzie’s whimpers turned to ferocious moans right before she tipped over the edge. For her part, Elliott had relished how her own body responded to those sounds and the feel of Mackenzie’s skin sliding against hers.

And their days had been lazy. So blissfully lazy. Waking up in each other’s arms, they would rock together with a tenderness foreign to both of them in its intensity. The softness with which they gazed at each other, while one or both of them was inside the other, threatening to beat down the door on the phrase that each of them danced around but never let slip out—not even in moments when their frantic fucking turned to gentle caresses and murmured sweet nothings against the shells of ears. Then they would go about their days—Mackenzie applying for jobs, Elliott filling out paperwork for the house and the sublease, both walking the city together and discovering it as tourists—never not in physical contact with each other in some way, such was the way they craved each other’s presence. And they savored it like it was the last breath of oxygen in a room, counting down the days until all they had was weekend visits and phone calls.

Then Elliott had closed on the house and sublet her apartment, and they’d clung to each other in the shadow of the U-Haul trailer hitched to Elliott’s car, Elliott pressing her lips roughly to Mackenzie’s, feeling the wetness of her tears on her own cheeks as they’d finally pulled apart and promised to see each other the next week, after Mackenzie got through the job interviews she’d lined up. That had been two weeks ago, and if phone plans still made you pay for text messages and phone-call minutes, Elliott would be bankrupt. But in Elliott’s mind, the point was that it had worked for those two weeks—the texting and the visit Mackenzie had made and the one Elliott had made to her.

It had worked… aside from the absolute agony that was leaving each other at the end of each visit to go back to their empty homes that didn’t feel quite right without the other in them. They’d talked about it almost every day since Elliott had moved, and though they approached it from every angle, their conversations were circular and always ended the same way. If Mackenzie wasn’t ready to leave big law, especially with how her job had ended—if she wanted to make partner—then she wasn’t ready. And Elliott couldn’t bring herself to be the person who asked Mackenzie to choose between her career and herself on the one hand and being physically close to Elliott on the other. But the ferocious agony of leaving Mackenzie lived in Elliott’s brain and niggled at the doubtful, traitorous thoughts she worked hard to keep buried in the back of her mind in the moments when she missed Mackenzie most.

And as much as Elliott loved Hannah and wanted to tell her everything, she found she… couldn’t. Because she didn’t know where to start. But also, because the thought of verbalizing the niggle made a cold sweat break out under her arms—because what if verbalizing it made the doubt and the possible reality that accompanied it worse? What if they couldn’t work it out?

Elliott shifted her eyes from the road, grip tightening on the steering wheel, and, mustering every ounce of nonchalance that lived in her body, she shrugged. “We’ll work it out, but what we’re doing at the moment is working, so why fix what isn’t broken?” She swallowed and ignored Hannah’s grimace, returning her eyes to the road back to Heston.

THIRTY-SIX

MACKENZIE

Mackenzie tried to suck in a breath through the tight ball of anxiety that had lodged itself in her chest when she was about thirty minutes outside Heston.

She’d returned to her empty apartment after her fourth job interview of the week and hadn’t even properly crossed the threshold before she’d burst into racking, sobbing tears. Because the firms where she’d interviewed? Great. Like the firm she’d left. Big. Reputable. Prestigious. Obviously with the added bonus that they wanted her to work for them. All of it. The problem was that when she thought about working for any of them, rather than it being a new, exciting prospect that allowed her to continue pursuing her goal of reaching the pinnacle of her career, Mackenzie’s brain—traitorous as it was—filed the thought away in the space reserved for things that were hollow and sad and outgrown.

And why? If she was honest with herself—and she had tried to be as she’d trudged home in the mild afternoon heat of Seattle in the spring—it was the prospect of climbing back onto essentially the same hamster wheel she’d only recently extracted herself from. The one that asked her to keep her values but file them down around the edges—compromise them here and there—for the good of the cause. For the good of her career.

The weeks she’d been unemployed—that she’d spent with Elliott—had been gentle and slow and quiet in a way that was as unfamiliar as it was a relief. And Mackenzie hadn’t even noticed exactly how much of a relief. Until she’d started interviewing. Until the firms had started talking to her about billable hours and networking and mentoring and fitting it all into a working day. And then there was the talk of “reasonable overtime” and “expectations” and the many unique hurdles each firm erected for those senior associates pursuing the partnership track.

If she was even more honest with herself—and as she’d pushed open the door to her silent apartment, she’d allowed herself to be—it was because she was only half in it. Like everything inside her had decided, without her permission, that it was all temporary. All a placeholder while she waited for something inevitable.

Because why would she stay in Seattle, doing a job that punished her and made her compromise on absolutely everything but the job itself, but kept her coming back with the promise of more—more status, more money, more… ugh. Well, it wasn’t exciting at the best of times. And the prospect of doing it without the person who made her excited about everything was like a cold hand squeezing at her throat.

She had allowed herself ten minutes of waterworks before managing to suck in a few deep breaths. Eyes narrowed, she’d stared, unfocused, at a spot on the rug under her bare feet while her brain ripped itself down the middle. Should she take one of the jobs and stay in Seattle like she’d planned to do? Or, well, not really planned to do. She supposed she’d given it the minimum amount of thought required. Because the partnership was what she’d been chasing—always—and she had almost had it. It had been right there. And she would have the opportunity again at another firm. She was certain of it. That had been her logic when she’d decided to stay in Seattle. But now—since Elliott had left and taken what felt like a whole ventricle of her heart with her—well, she was itching for an alternative.

And the alternative was not chasing a partnership in big law. And every interview, every passing minute, made that alternative infinitely more attractive. And if she didn’t pursue big law, what would that look like? Scary. And big. Because she knew where she wanted to be and who she wanted to be with, and that was what felt inevitable. But, god, she didn’t know where Elliott stood. Sure, they’d talked and said that they missed each other, but you could miss someone without wanting to permanently join your lives together. Maybe Elliott had settled in and decided that they both had made the right decision but didn’t want to verbalize it. And then, of course, there was that old stereotype of the U-Hauling lesbians—did they want to play into that? Ugh.

She wiped her eyes as they dropped to the phone vibrating in her hand with a message from Elliott, full of enthusiastic inquiry about Mackenzie’s latest interview. Her tears refreshed anew, and Mackenzie sniffed, opening the message thread.

Elliott 11:02AM

Babe! How did it go? Bet you killed it xx

Mackenzie 11:03AM

They made me an offer. I miss you like crazy xx

Elliott 11:03AM

That’s great news. I miss you too. You ok? Xx

Tears notwithstanding, Mackenzie’s face broke into a smile, and, warmth radiating from the tips of her fingers to her toes, she let out a watery chuckle. You ok? Even without seeing her—without having seen her for a week—Elliott could read her, and being known so instinctively by another person… Well, she wasn’t sure anyone ever had, and it made her hands shake and her cheeks ache from the smile that split her face like a seam.

Without another thought, she tapped out a quick everything’s great response to Elliott and packed a bag.

And it had started off so well. She’d been so confident in her decision as she climbed into her Prius, so filled with the sense of rightness that the potential consequences of the impulsive decision she’d made didn’t exist in her brain. Neither did the several emails from the firms she’d interviewed at, enclosing their offers and promising the sun and the moon and a partnership.