AllFreeNovel
Share Us
No. Meredith wouldn’t leave things like that. Right? She said she was here to stay, which is what I should’ve thought about before texting her. She wouldn’t leave at the first problem, would she? I want to say she wouldn’t, even though my thundering heartbeat suggests otherwise. My gut says she wouldn’t leave without saying something first. She has to still be here. Plus, my car is here.
So, where is she?
It takes five long, panicked minutes of staring at my empty bed for it to click. I turn and walk the short distance to the guest bedroom. My lungs freeze as I slowly push the door open. The air empties out when I see her asleep in the wrong bed.
She didn’t leave.
Ignoring her choice of where to sleep and the volumes it speaks, I hurry to the bed, getting one knee onto the bed before I stop short as something wiggles in front of Meredith’s chest.
What the hell?
I crawl the rest of the way, lean over her body, and turn on the lamp. There’s a little white puppy trapped in her arms. I brace my arms on either side of her as the puppy stares at me and lean down to kiss her cheek. Her eyelids flutter.
“Why is there a puppy in my apartment, Mere?”
At the sound of my voice, she rolls onto her back, blinking slowly at me a few times. “I wanted something to cuddle with when you’re gone.”
“Where’d you find him?”
“At the pet store. He was up for adoption and I had to have him.”
Her brain must be lagging because she hasn’t realized she’s pissed at me yet. I pick up the puppy and lie next to her with my back against the headboard. He’s a cute little guy. Some kind of terrier, I think.
“Why aren’t you in my bed?” I ask, nuzzling the sleepy puppy under his chin.
She reaches over and gently takes the puppy from me. “Because you’re a jackass and I’m pissed off,” she deadpans, rolling away from me as if she’s going to sleep, cuddling the puppy to her chest again.
“Mere,” I begin, but she cuts me off.
“Don’t Mere me, Noah. Just get out. We can talk about it tomorrow.”
“No.”
She rolls over with a glare. “No? Fine. Let’s talk about how a weekend for me to go home and get clothes, so I can live here with you, freaked you the hell out! Don’t throw out any bullshit about me leaving you either. You told me you were okay with it. You didn’t fight to keep me, Noah. How is it my fault?”
“Fight to keep you? What would’ve been the point? So you’d stay and resent me? There’s no way I would’ve told you to stay, no matter how much I wanted it. I had no problem with the idea of long distance. You were the one who didn’t think we’d last.”
“That’s not why I left!” she shouts. She’s right. She left because she wanted her career more than she wanted me. Meredith huffs and rolls back over. Her voice is calm, and that scares the hell out of me. “Get out of my room.”
“Since when do you give up so easily?”
“Since I realized I don’t have to talk about it if I don’t want to.”
“And look how well that’s done you.”
“Yeah, back here with you,” she deadpans.
I
run my fingers through my hair, tugging on it in frustration. There’s no way I’m leaving this room without her. Sliding down until my head hits the pillow, I turn on my side. Instead of pulling her to me, I scoot closer to her. The fact that she doesn’t push me away relaxes me just a little.
“You know that is not why I left,” she says in an even tone.
“I know,” I reply quietly. “I think it would’ve been easier to deal with if it was.”
“Why?”
“You basically left because you didn’t want to deal with the hassle of having me in your life.” And that is undeniably true.
