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“It’s over now,” Ross reminded her gently. “We’re here now. What I really want to talk about is the past two months. Watching you. With mom. How you were always there when I needed you. How you always would be, even if we never got where you wanted to be. That’s true maturity. That’s true selflessness. That’s true friendship. You’re not some kid anymore, Alix, and I finally realized it. You’re a grown woman. A beautiful woman. A woman with a good head and a great heart. You freaking graduated college already and I’ve never even gone.”
“Yeah, well, newsflash, my parents paid for a Business Degree. It’s not what I wanted to do. You know I wanted to go into design. Art. Anything but Business. They won, though, and now I’m going to go and get some stupid desk job and hate it for the next thirty to forty years.”
“No, you’re not.” Ross shook his head. His hand squeezed hers until it was almost painful. “That’s not going to be your life.”
“Says who?”
“Says me. I have literally over a billion dollars. I’m never going to spend all that, although I can think of a few good ways. I’ve been thinking. Mom loves Ireland. She’s wanted to go forever. There are some really nice properties there for sale. I think she and my dad would love to retire there. After this last scare, I finally think they’re ready. There’s this house, well, it’s actually an old castle, that I’ve been looking at…”
“You’re leaving?” Alix’s mouth dropped open while her heart dropped somewhere around her toes. She winced. Bertha was so clean. Old, but clean. She didn’t want to have to bend down, fumble around, and pick up her still beating heart and thrust it back into her chest. It would make an awful mess.
“Yeah. I’m leaving. I’m going to put the offer in tomorrow.”
She ripped her hand away and faced Ross. His face was deadly serious. He wasn’t just joking to get a reaction out of her. His eyes burned furiously, with a determination and a light she’d never seen before.
“You- you can’t leave!’
“It’s happening. I know mom and dad will come if I buy it. I’m not going to give them time to think about it and change their minds. I don’t know what I want to do yet, but I’m going to figure that shit out. Over there. And everywhere. As soon as I get them settled, I’m going off travelling for a couple of years. See all the places I never thought I’d be brave enough to see.”
Alix tried to force out some words, any words, but she choked on her own saliva. Ross’s brow wrinkled into a deep frown of concern.
“Are you okay? Alix? What’s going on? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Because you basically just told me that you might be able to love me one day and now, you’re leaving! Because you’re leaving me behind. You’re going off without me. Because you just wanted in my freaking pants!
She jerked away, retreating as far as she could go. In Bertha, that was pretty freaking far. There was an entire big blue bench seat of distance between them.
“I- I just- I’m so stupid…” The tears were coming so she gave up on trying to keep talking. What was there she could say to that anyway? Her throat burned, stopped up with tears and misery while her heart died a slow, painful, agonizing death in her chest.
“Why would you say that? You’re not stupid at all.”
“You’re leaving!” She wailed, finally spitting the acrid words out. It didn’t matter. They still burned inside of her just as badly. “You’re leaving! I don’t know what the point of any of this is. You can sit there and say all the nice things about me in the world that you want, but you’re leaving and I’m so stupid because I- I thought- that- you know I love you. You know that this time, Ross, and you’re breaking my heart all over. I’m so dumb. This is fucking prom all over again!”
She tried to twist away, to grab for the door handle so she could let herself out and run, stumble, blindly into the night. She didn’t know where she was going to go, she just had to get away from the car. Away from him. She was going to have to burn Bertha and she hated Ross for it. Hated that she’d always see him sitting right there in the front seat, breaking her heart after she’d given it to him all over again.
“Alix!” Ross’s hand curled around her bicep before she made the door. He jerked her back towards him so that she couldn’t escape. His arms descended around her, warm and solid. She inhaled sharply in panic. She didn’t want to smell him. To smell his deep, spicy scent that she knew so well. She didn’t want him to touch her, to break any more of her. She was already shattered. “Stop! You’re not hearing me.”
