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So, the new team coach was a man of many talents. When I got back to work, I’d have to spend more time getting to know him better since we’d be working so closely. He’d made our introduction easy, and he’d made Leah’s nursery look fantastic. I guessed everyone was right; he was a good guy.
Of course, getting to know him would require me staying at work for a full day, but that was something to worry about tomorrow. I had more than enough on my mind for one day.
“Do you want to stay for dinner tonight?” Leah asked. “Bryce is coming over too. I think Radleigh wanted a buffer between us after yesterday. We’re ordering a Chinese takeaway, and I promise I won’t freak out about Radleigh making me fat.”
When she smiled I couldn’t help smiling too. Clearly Leah still had things to work through, but the stress she’d carried when I arrived had faded substantially since she’d opened up to me.
“Sure,” I told her. “I’d love to.”
Chapter 5 - Awkward
The evening at Leah’s turned into one of the best I’d had in a while. The four of us ate and chatted, and for a while I allowed myself to just be in the moment. To laugh without remorse, to joke with the people who meant the most to me, and to eat the best Chinese food in all of L.A.
I left at nine, and on the way home, I let my thoughts wander again. All in all, it hadn’t been a terrible day. Much more good than bad. Even so, I couldn’t help the gnawing sensation at the knot in my stomach about seeing Miguel in the morning. I’d intended to spend the day getting my thoughts together. Instead, I’d spent the day actively not thinking about anything that might cause the ache to return.
The truth was, it was all a temporary distraction; just like sleeping with Miguel. My grief wasn’t over, it was on hold while I tried to find a way through, but all I’d done was make things worse.
By the morning, everything I’d stopped feeling had flooded back. I’d had another restless night with bad dreams and my mind running a million miles a minute to try and figure out what was happening to me. Anxiety about work had me tossing and turning, and nerves about meeting Miguel had me pacing my apartment at three in the morning.
I was truly losing my mind and the only person who had ever been able to keep me calm was gone.
My nerves reached their highest peak ten minutes before I was due at Genie’s. My feet did that awful thing where they planted themselves into the ground as panic gripped me and I couldn’t move; not to run away nor to push through. On the beach, surrounded by Sunday morning walkers, swimmers and surfers, I breathed deeply, hoping they weren’t staring at the crazy woman who’d come to an abrupt halt for no good reason. I forced my head up to look in front of me but my vision blurred and my heart hammered.
Apparently, this was now my default reaction to anything I didn’t want to face an
d I hated it. Another weakness, another thing to add to my growing list of issues to deal with.
Come. On. This is one thing you are in control of, so take control.
With that mantra firmly planted in my mind, I commanded my wobbly legs to keep moving towards Genie’s, towards Miguel. Every step challenged me, a small voice in my head telling me to go home, to hide from what I was about to do, but each forward movement made the voice fade a bit more and when I arrived, a sense of relief washed through me.
I could beat this if I tried.
Miguel was waiting for me when I walked in. He was easy to spot since there were only three other people in there. He’d already ordered for me. As I approached, he smiled up at me. “Espresso, right?”
The wideness of his brown eyes, hopeful that we truly would be okay, relaxed me and I smiled back as I sat opposite him. “Right. Thanks.”
“No problem. How are you doing?”
I considered lying. Telling him I was totally cool with everything, and that I hadn’t almost had a nervous breakdown while walking across the beach, but blocking him out hadn’t done me any favours so far.
“I’m… surviving,” I told him, blowing out a breath. “Miguel, I don’t know about you, but I feel kind of awful about what happened between us.” The twinge in my stomach backed up my words and my breath hitched. Guilt is a nasty, gut-churning feeling, and it hit me hard. A picture of Will appeared before me, his eyes glimmering with tears, blazing with my betrayal and causing the breath to be knocked out of me again. I gripped the edge of the table for support while I pushed the image away. It wasn’t fair. I wouldn’t have slept with Miguel if Will was still alive, but even that thought hurt because it wasn’t Will’s fault he wasn’t here.
Miguel nodded, his eyes cast downwards. “I feel weird about it too. Like I let you down. You and Will. I really just wanted to make sure you were okay last night, and instead I… I did the wrong thing. I know we both said this doesn’t have to be awkward, and that we don’t regret what happened, but… I don’t know if that’s true.”
The mixed up emotions inside me took another tumble, bouncing around in my stomach and making me feel sick. No matter how hard we tried, of course it would be awkward. How could it not be? On the flip side, I’d realised how much I needed Miguel back in my life, but I hadn’t meant to do it so selfishly, by putting him in a position he felt he couldn’t walk away from. He could have walked away, but in its own way, that would have been equally as awkward.
“You didn’t let me down,” I whispered. “I let you down. I’ve let you down in so many ways since Will died, and on Friday night I should have let you go.”
Miguel lifted his head to look at me. “I didn’t want to go, Freya. I know I should have, and that would have been the right thing to do, but I didn’t want to. So if you feel like you forced me to stay… you didn’t.”
“But you just said you kind of regret it.”
“Don’t you?”
I nodded. “Kind of. And kind of not.”
As our gaze connected some of the bubbling in my gut eased. In Miguel’s eyes I saw that he understood. That when I’d told him I wanted him to make me feel something, he’d needed to feel too. He didn’t stay because I begged him, he stayed because he sought the same comfort as I did.
