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“His name is Gerald Garland, and he’s one of the best in the air,” I said. “You’ll be in good hands with him.”
“I don’t want another pilot,” she stated, her voice cracking with emotion as she spoke. I fought the lump that was swelling in my own throat as I tried to get through the moment, but it was difficult for me to do this without breaking down in tears myself.
I didn’t want to cry, but I knew my own heart was breaking with what I was doing.
However, I had come into this for the purpose of being her pilot. For working with her. I wasn’t supposed to fall for her or date her, and now that we had come this far, I clearly saw I had been holding her back. She had gotten in trouble again from her boss, and I didn’t want her to sacrifice the career she had worked so hard for because of me.
“I know you and I had fun together, but you have to put work first. The way this is going, you are on track to lose your job. You’ve told me over and over how much your career means to you, and I don’t want to be the one standing in the way of you being able to get that promotion and being the boss you deserve to be. The boss you want to be, too,” I explained.
“You aren’t to blame for this,” she said. “Really. I told you from the beginning that I wasn’t going to let us get in the way of work, and all that happened was the fact that I lost my head a bit with what we were doing. If you worked as much as I do, I’m sure you would see just how hard it is to keep it up for as long as I have. It’s time I got that break, you know?”
“I know this is hard for you,” I said. “It’s hard for me, too, but I’m telling you right now that we can’t keep seeing each other like this if you’re going to make your goals with work, and I don’t want you to choose me over the career you have been building since you were barely more than a teenager. You put in so much time and effort for this career, and you are right on the cusp of great things.”
“What if I don’t want to be those things anymore?” she cried. “What if I would rather be with you than be the boss of some interior design company? You know as well as I do that things change, and that’s what happened with me!”
“Only because you met me,” I said. “And that makes me feel guiltier than I can say. You have drive, you have skills, and you have the work ethic to go higher and higher. I don’t want to be the one who came into your life and held you back. I feel now that I’m tearing you down with everything, and I can’t in good conscience do that.”
“So you would rather come in and break my heart?” she asked, tears streaming down her cheeks. “How can you do this to me?”
“It’s killing me, too,” I said. “It really is. But I’m doing this for your sake. I know it might not seem like it right now, but I’m only doing this because I feel like you have to focus on work above all right now.”
“I don’t want this to end,” she said.
But, I couldn’t stand there and argue with her. I knew we could continue to go back and forth, but we were really just saying the same thing over and over. I knew I wasn’t going to convince her to see things from my point of view, and she wasn’t going to convince me to stay at this point, either.
I had already made up my mind that this was the best thing to do for her, and I was willing to break my own heart to do it. I knew she would hurt, too, but it would pass. She would get over me, and she would see that I was right. Her job was far more important than our relationship, and that was all there was to it.
Even if it broke my heart to do this, I would survive, and she would go on to be better than ever.
“Goodbye, Laurel,” I said.
I turned and walked out the door, closing it softly behind me.
The lump in my throat was still thick, and I easily could have broken down in tears. But, I squared my shoulders and headed back to my room to finish packing my things. I could leave that very night, and probably would. After I got the confirmation that Gerald had landed in Seattle, I was out of there.
I would head home. Back to New York City. Then I would deal with the pain of losing Laurel.
All I knew was that this hurt.
It hurt a lot.
THIRTY-FOUR
Laurel
“I’m sorry,I just don’t see it coming together as smoothly as that,” I said. “The furniture we wanted for the space is on backorder, and I think the best option from here forward is to go with Plan B.”
“Or we could go with what you said originally,” Mr. Hopkins said. “You said that those pieces are all available, and I think it might actually not be a bad idea.”
I looked at him in surprise. I knew my idea would work, but I didn’t in a million years think he was going to come around to seeing things from my point of view. Mr. Hopkins was the kind of older man who was set in his ways, and he wasn’t very open minded when it came to anyone younger than forty telling him what they thought.
I had a sneaking suspicion he was also somewhat biased against women, but he hadn’t said so directly, and I hadn’t brought it up. That was a conversation I didn’t want to have with him or anyone else, really, and I felt just going with what he wanted was the easiest way to please him.
I had all but given up on my own design with the lobby, but then things took a turn for the worse once I found out the pieces he wanted were on backorder. There were other, similar options, but when it came down to it, we weren’t going to come out with the right look at the end if we didn’t go with the actual pieces he had picked out.
Of course, what he picked out was really different from what I had, so when he told me that he wanted to go back to what I had originally designed, I could have been knocked over with a feather.
“Are you sure you want to go with what I chose?” I asked. “If you want to go in that direction, I can have the pieces delivered before the end of the day.”
