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He’s probably scoping out the place. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him breaking and entering one day. I’d probably just let him come on in, to be honest. Let him take whatever he wants, except anything that’s Luke-related
No, I’ll be keeping all of that.
“El, stop pacing,” Jane says, holding out a glass of wine. “Drink. It will help you feel better.”
Eliza grabs onto my shoulder lightly and walks me over to the couch, where I sink down between Kate and Jane. Eliza squeezes into the chair on the opposite end of the room and Lex flops onto the ground. I sip on the bitter wine and close my eyes.
I’ll never admit it out loud, but it helps, just a little, having them around to keep my misery at bay.
But the truth is, I’m just fucking sad.
There is no flu.I’m not dying.
No, I’m just heartsick.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
1 WEEK LATER
ELLIOT
“Oh god, this baby is killing me. I’m a whale. I can’t move, and can’t see my feet. I’m just a swollen, blubbery mess.” Eliza lowers herself onto the kitchen chair, and Jane hands her a glass of water and then hands me one too.
“You need to drink, El,” Kate says, reaching out and grabbing my hand.
I do as she says. I know why I hurt so much now.I’ve come to terms with the fact that the achy, awful feeling gnawing inside me is just me being ridiculously in love with a guy who I don’t deserve and who, in the end, let me go.
I’m positively heartbroken.
Today, I called out sick for the first time since starting my practice. Amanda was silent on the other end of the line before hanging up.
I assume she’s calling my patients to reschedule. Don’t really care either way.
Eliza puts her hand on my forehead. “You don’t have a fever.”
“I know,” I reply. “I’m just falling apart from the inside out.”
“Have you spoken to him?” Eliza asks, sympathy on her face.
“No.”
“Why not? You know that woman was his sister-in-law. He wasn’t cheating. He told me so,” Eliza says.
Apparently, my sisters angrily texted him the following morning demanding answers and he’d responded that it was just Anne, his sister-in-law. He was going to one of her art gallery openings that night.
For hours after learning that, I’d stared at my phone, thinking he’d text me, but he never did. He never said a fucking word to me. And, to be fair, I didn’t text him either.
We are stuck in some kind of silent vortex neither of us seems to be able to escape.
“I know,” I reply, but that doesn’t help. Nothing seems to help anymore.
The simple fact is, I miss him terribly but I don’t quite know how to go forward from here. How do I move past my insecurities and let him in? How do I reach out after everything I’ve done?
I don’t know what to fucking do. I’m almost paralyzed with anxiety.
“It’s a two-way street. He can contact me as well. But he hasn’t. He’s probably over it. Over me.”
“Like hell he is,” Kate mutters, but we all just sit in silence, mulling it over. Because it’s the truth. Luke could have reached out just as easily as I could have, but neither of us is making the first move.
