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“Watch it,” I huffed. “You don’t know him like I do. He wasn’t going to listen to me. He’d already made up his mind.”
“And you gave him no reason to change it. You accepted it was over and you ran away.”
“It is over.” I blew my nose as the tears flowed again. Sticking around only would have gutted me further. If I’d had to see him look at me with his eyes filled with betrayal and disgust again, I wouldn’t have survived it. Besides, I knew the truth. I was never what he really wanted.
Ward regarded me for a quiet moment. “Let me ask you this, are you planning to come back to HypeKey?”
I sighed. I’d been mulling this over as well. I absolutely wasn’t going in tomorrow, but was I ready to quit this minute? I was too depressed to start any serious job hunting yet.
“Yeah. I suppose I’ll have to. It will take a few days to get my test results after my doctor’s appointment. And what if there’s something wrong with the results and I need more tests done? I can’t just up and quit until I’ve got something else lined up.”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“What?” I looked at him in surprise.
“After everything Eirin has done? After she destroyed your chance at making something real with Drew work? Although,” he raised his hands, “you played your part in that too. After she stole your personal photo and published it in the article without your permission? After all of that, you’re going to show up at work and keep chugging along like nothing happened?”
“It’s not like I’m not pissed about it, but I need this job. And I need to keep my insurance until I know everything came back okay.”
“You know what, maybe you don’t deserve for things to work out with him.”
“Excuse me?” I sat up straighter, filled with indignation.
“You can buy insurance on the open market, Sadie. Mike and I would always help you out if you were in a bind. And you’re getting a Pap smear. You could get that done at Planned Parenthood, for Christ’s sake.”
His words stung.
He exposed the dark little pieces of fear I kept buried.
“Those aren’t the real reasons why you’re going to go back to HypeKey.”
“No? Please, do tell. What’s the real reason, Ward?”
“Because you’re scared.” His voice got softer. “You’re scared of finding happiness again with someone and losing it. You cling to this job because it gives you an excuse to keep from putting down roots anywhere. You can use the frequent travel and weird hours as the rationale for why none of your relationships since Josh have worked out. It’s the same reason you casually date safe, boring guys who don’t make your heart sing. You’re terrified if you find something great, you’ll lose it again.”
I swallowed past the softball-sized lump that had taken up residence in my throat. “It doesn’t matter now, because that’s exactly what happened. I found someone who made my heart race again, and I still lost him anyway.”
“No. You convinced yourself of this self-fulfilling prophecy. Deep down, you know you ran away because that was less scary than the idea of being happy with him and accepting that you can’t control fate. There’s always that tiny chance something bad could happen if you let yourself be happy. So instead of risking it, you’ve subjected yourself to this…” He waved his hand around in my general direction. “Misery.”
I flopped back down on my side, staring at the pattern on the quilt again. “I think I need some more sleep.”
It was his turn to sigh. “Okay. I love you, babe. Just…take some time to think about this. What do you have to lose by explaining the truth to him that you haven’t already willingly given up?” He patted my shoulder and left the room.
As promised, I didn’t leave Ward’s guest room the whole day. I stewed all day, thinking about everything he said. Could I have changed Drew’s mind? Convinced him of the truth? This was a man who’d spent five years in stubborn self-isolation because of a sense of misplaced guilt over an unlucky turn of events. How long would it take for him to even be willing to consider hearing me out after that terrible article?
But then I thought about how much he’d changed during the short period we were together. The tender care he’d given me after I ended up in the hospital. How quickly he’d volunteered for the festival after we’d bared our souls to one another. He’d made a conscious effort to change his ways, and I hadn’t even given him enough credit to think he might change his mind if I presented him with the facts of the situation.
My stomach tied itself in knots. Ward was right.
I was scared and ran away from something with the potential to be great.
Now the question was, what was I going to do about it?
