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“Ellie.” I grin.
He leads me into the living room, where I make myself comfortable on an old black leather sofa and I immediately feel at home. I don’t know why, but I was expecting something a little flashier, with modern furnishings, funky artwork, and expensive appliances, but his style is more subdued. Nothing matches, but it all works together.
“Do you want a drink?” he asks, reading my mind.
I nod, and he disappears into the kitchen.
He returns a few minutes later carrying a bottle of wine and two glasses. “Hard day, I’m guessing?”
“Yeah. The mediation. It solved nothing, as I expected.” I let out a bitter laugh. “God, I don’t know why I’m so upset. I expected this.”
“Maybe even though you weren’t expecting things to resolve, a part of you was hoping she’d come to her senses before this went any further?”
“Well, look where that got me.” I rub the bridge of my nose and sigh. “She’s taking him out of the hospital this weekend. I just wish there was some way I could make her see how stupid she’s being.”
“She’s a mother who’s struggling to cope with losing her son,” Max says, his voice gentle. “I’m not supporting her actions in any way, but that doesn’t mean I can’t understand them. He’s her only child?” he asks.
“Yes,” I whisper. A pang of guilt hits me. Am I being selfish and not allowing myself to see things from her point of view? “I guess I see what you’re saying. And after Aiden . . . Tilly is the only piece of her family left.”
“We do irrational things when we’re faced with losing those we love,” Max comments.
I sip my wine, the sharp liquid rolling over my palate as I digest his words.
“Maybe she’ll figure it out before things go too far—maybe she won’t. But eventually she’ll see that all she’s doing is prolonging everyone’s pain. And when she does, for Tilly’s sake, you need to forgive her and move on.”
“When did you get so wise?” I grumble, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Trust me, I’ve had plenty of fuck-ups in my life. I’ve learned a lot from my mistakes.”
“Oh?” I grin, raising my eyebrows. I take another sip of wine, the alcohol beginning to relax me. “Well you can’t just say that and leave me hanging. I want details.”
“Okay,” he says, laughing. “Let me think of something I can say that won’t send you running.” He rubs his jaw and sinks back further into the cushions next to me. “In high school, I had a thing for a girl in my class. I wrote her this seriously mushy love letter. It was bad. Some of the shit in this letter…” he shakes his head, cringing. “I’m embarrassed just thinking about it. So anyway, I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, but I gave it to her. The next day, right in the middle of class, her boyfriend—who I didn’t know she was with—stands up and reads the letter to the entire class. I was mortified.”
“Oh, you didn’t,” I gasp, laughing.
“Trust me, I did. It took a whole year for me to live that down, too. And my fuck-ups only got worse from there.”
“Tell me about your relationship with Jules,” I say.
He raises his eyebrows, and my face heats up. He’s never mentioned his ex to me before. The little I know I’ve dragged out of Ellie, who’d forced it out of Grant.
“I thought she was the one,” he admits. He sits forward, cradling his glass in his hands. “We met in college and she was my first serious relationship. We were together for about three years before I proposed.” He laughs, his attention firmly on the rim of the glass as he turns it in his hands. “I went all out with the proposal. I was terrified she was going to say no. But it turned out I didn’t have to worry. She was as excited as I was to spend her life with me. Or so I’d thought.”
“What happened?” I ask gently.
“One day out of the blue, literally a few weeks before the wedding, she comes home and says we need to talk. Those words never end well.” He chuckles. “She told me she couldn’t marry me. She was in love with someone else. She insisted she hadn’t cheated on me, and I respect her for that, I guess, but at the end of the day she didn’t love me.”
“Wow,” I mumble. “That’s harsh.”
“Oh, it gets worse. After our breakup, I find out she’s shacked up with some female colleague. I confronted her about it and she admitted that she’d always been into women, and that she pushed herself into our relationship because she thought her family wouldn’t accept her if she was gay.”
“I can’t even imagine how that would feel,” I say, reaching for his hand.
“Really?” He shakes his head. “God, you’re amazing. You’ve been through so much worse than me, and you’re still able to feel sorry for me? I feel bad complaining about my love life when I think about what you’ve been through.”
“I don’t see it as that different,” I reply. “We both lost people we loved without warning. Neither of us woke up that day expecting it to
be the last time we’d kiss our partners, or share the words ‘I love you.’ How is what you went through any less of a tragedy than what I’ve been through?” Even as the words come out of my mouth, I realize I don’t truly believe that. His loss is a loss, sure, but is it comparable to mine?
