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When I wake, it’s light out, and he’s shaking my shoulder.
“Tali,” he says, “our flight leaves in just over an hour. Our car will be here in fifteen minutes. Can you be ready?”
I’m so tired it feels like I’m swimming through water as I try to form words. It was after dawn when we finally fell asleep, and he’s making no sense. “Our flight’s not until two,” I slur.
“It’s twelve forty-five.”
“Oh my God. Your speech!” I bolt upright. Surgeons came from all over the country to hear his talk, and if he slept through it...
“All behind me.” I suddenly realize he’s wearing a suit and appears very relaxed. “But I got stuck down there afterward, and now we’re cutting it close. Can you be ready, or should I change the flight?”
I fling myself out of bed, freaked out enough not to worry that I’m running across the room butt naked. “How did it go?” I shout as I climb into the shower, shuddering at the blast of cold water. “Were you nervous?”
“I was too exhausted to be nervous,” he replies, coming to the bathroom door. “Congratulations on finally making me feel my age.”
“You stay up all night frequently,” I reply, frantically soaping myself. The water still isn’t warm. “Don’t blame that on me.”
He laughs under his breath. “We had sex sixteen times, Tali, and as you love to point out, I’m ancient. I probably won’t be capable of having sex again for a month.”
His words sink in my stomach with an audible plop. A piece of me waited all last night for something to indicate this wasn’t a one-off. Mostly I was too busy enjoying him to think it over, but now that I am, now that I search all the words he did say, I find nothing. Wet, tight, hot, and hard are great in the moment, but they’re not really the stuff of wedding vows.
He was stressed about his talk, and he wanted to exhaust himself. Mission accomplished for one of us. But there were things I wanted, too, things I was stupid to have even hoped for. And I will need to let them go.
I’m ready to leave quickly. Hayes takes both our bags as we go downstairs to checkout. “We hope you’ll join us again,” the clerk says.
“I’ll be back in October, actually,” Hayes replies. He doesn’t say we’ll be back. He’ll be back. My chest aches.
“I’m going to find the car,” I tell him quietly. I reach for my bag.
“I can get that for you,” he says.
“I have it,” I reply.
I spent last night hoping for a happy ending, and now it’s time to pay the price for that. Although I want more, I have to be realistic with my expectations. I’m not some cosseted princess who lays about in a plush bed ordering room service and being pleasured. I’m a desperately poor twenty-five-year-old with a book she can’t finish, a family she can’t fix, and a commitment-phobic boss she might be in love with. And it’s best if I allow reality to intrude right now, because it always intrudes eventually. Hayes might not be capable of giving me more. And maybe, at the moment, I’m not capable of it either.
31
Monday morning, I’m full of adrenaline and dread.
The trip home to LA yesterday was silent, and awful. He asked if I wanted to come to his place when we arrived, the question so forced it was painful to listen to. I told him I had to do laundry, and we haven’t spoken since.
When I arrive at Hayes’s house, I find him downstairs already, looking less pulled together than normal. He’s wearing scrubs instead of a suit, and his hair looks like he’s run his hands through it once too often. I want to ask him what he’s thinking, but I’m not brave enough, and he’s in a rush anyway.
He grabs his coffee as he rises. “How was your night?” he asks abruptly.
I swallow. “Good. Yours?”
“Fine.” His mouth closes, then opens, then closes again. “Can we talk later?”
My heart starts to hammer in my chest. Can we talk is never good. It’s like “no offense, but...” or “with all due respect...”: a warning you won’t like what you hear next. I give him the smallest nod imaginable in response, my stomach in knots, but I pull myself together quickly. I knew this could be Hayes’s reaction to our situation and for both our sakes, I have to accept his choice.
I’m not the same girl who was devastated when Matt cheated, nor am I the one who snuck out of Brad Perez’s house and ghosted him for a full month after. I can survive whatever Hayes has to say …but I’m glad I’ve got the rest of the day to psych myself up, because at present, the specter of it is making me a little sick.
I dump out my coffee and get on with my day. I’ve been at work for two hours when the doorbell rings, and I find Jonathan standing there with Gemma on one hip. In spite of my foul mood, I smile at the sight of them together. “You look like an old pro.”
“Old is the keyword, because I feel extremely old,” he says, putting Gemma down. She promptly runs in a wobbly toddler style for the stairs, and he lunges to catch up with her. “I’m aging about a decade per week. Keeping her alive is a full-time job.”
