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KEVIN: You’re full of shit. Are you bringing your boyfriend with you?
ME: He’s not my boyfriend.
KEVIN: He’s your boyfriend.
ME: He is not my boyfriend. We’re just friends.
KEVIN: Absolutely nothing I ever saw between the two of you said you were only friends.
ME: Will you drop it? I’ll be home in time for Mum and Dad’s visit, don’t worry.
KEVIN: Ok ok. If you’re sure.
ME: I’m sure. I’m so happy for you and Aaron!!
KEVIN: :) even if it took you a minute to be happy
ME: Oh, shut up.
KEVIN: :P it goes without saying but please don’t tell anyone. I don’t need Mum to beat my arse because she was the last to find out.
ME: I won’t tell anyone.
I finished that last text with the emoji with a zip across his lips and put my phone down. I couldn’t say I hadn’t wondered how their chat had gone, and I’d assumed it’d ended badly when he didn’t respond.
Like Max, Kev tended to bury his head in the sand when things went badly.
Maybe that was why I wasn’t too annoyed at Max’s silence. Sometimes you just needed to deal with things by yourself, and that was okay.
Huh.
Maybe I also wasn’t the best at communicating. As proven just now with Kev, when I was blanked, I tended to withdraw and not make an effort with the other person myself. I’d rather annoy someone than make them think I didn’t care at all.
Sigh.
I really had to work on that.
I pulled my laptop onto my legs and switched windows to my Word document. I really was close to the end—I just had a couple of chapters and a previous scene to write, and one of those chapters was already partially written.
A part of me just… didn’t want to finish.
Finishing meant going home.
It meant saying goodbye to Windermere and Max and Esme. It meant leaving behind this incredible place that I’d absolutely fallen in love with.
A place I knew I could never return to.
How could I possibly come back here one day? Even if I were to get married and have children, there would be a part of me that I wasn’t sure would ever let go of Max. He’d had such an unexpectedly profound impact on my life, and as much as I wanted him to find happiness, I didn’t know if I could stand to see him with anyone else.
I wasn’t sure I could stand to see him alone, either.
Maybe just seeing him was the issue at hand.
I’d asked him last night if we would remain friends, and I wished he’d said no. A friendship would make getting over him harder than it needed to be—and it was already going to be nigh on impossible—and the inevitable slow decline of such a long-term friendship would hurt more than a clean break.
Maybe it was my own fault for asking.
I’d opened the door.
