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When he gets up to leave, the sun is already setting, painting the city in vivid shades of red and gold under a cloudless sky. Tristan cups my face in his hands and kisses me deeply.
“Cora.” He breathes my name. “I have about a hundred meetings set up for the coming weeks, but—”
“Don’t.” I stop him. My voice is colored with sadness, but I’m resigned to his departure. “Don’t promise anything. Not when you don’t know how you’ll feel about this once you’re back home.”
He holds my gaze. “I know how I’ll feel.”
I breathe. Me too. I know it’ll be impossible to stop thinking about him, that I’ll always wonder what might have been. I know he has taken a space in my heart no one has ever occupied before. “Even when I get home, we’re still going to be two people living on opposite sides of the country.”
His chest rises. “I know. I also know that I want you.”
“You want a lot of things besides me,” I remind him. I’m trying to convince myself as well as him. “I want a lot too. We shouldn’t lose sight of all the other important things.”
He exhales and draws me into his arms, first kissing my hair, then lifting my face up to meet his. He claims my lips in a fierce kiss and I kiss him back with equal intensity, with the desperation of knowing there won’t be another day for us.
When he releases me, he looks like he wants to say more. I wish he would say more. I wish he would try to convince me that I’m wrong, that we’re wrong to let this end, that we should make plans for a future together…anything but goodbye.
“You should leave now before I start crying or begging you to stay,” I sniff.
He laughs softly. “You wouldn’t have to beg.”
I don’t reply. I’m too heartbroken. In the silence, I feel his chest rise and fall.
“I’ll call you when I land.”
I shake my head, deciding right then that I hate goodbyes. “Don’t. Not unless you’re coming right back.”
He kisses me again, then rests his forehead on mine and with his arms around me, starts to sway side to side in a slow, silent dance. With my head on his chest, I surrender myself to the moment, moving to the rhythm of our bodies united, the rhythm of my feelings for him…
And then, with one last kiss on my lips, he’s gone.
I remain standing in the middle of the room, trying not to cry. I hear his car start, and as the sound of the engine slowly disappears, I fall apart.
There’s a ball of sadness in my chest as I crawl back into bed and pull the covers over me. It’s as if I can feel him moving farther and farther away, like there’s a thread connecting us, stretching tighter and tighter over the distance until finally, it snaps.
* * *
Tristan doesn’t call,and as much as I regret telling him not to, I know it’s for the best.
The sooner I stop hoping for a way to drag out our connection, the sooner I can move on.
Except I don’t want to move on. I want Tristan.
The days pass in a fog. I miss him so much. I see him everywhere. Every tall figure on the street reminds me of him. Every place we’ve been together is haunted by memories. My body misses him with an ache that leaves me hugging my pillow every night.
Lonely days pass into long weeks. I focus my attention on my courses and try not to succumb to my misery. It doesn’t work.
Trying to stalk him online is useless because like me, he doesn’t do social media. I end up deep in software and tech blogs reading articles about his work. It’s surreal to see the admiration, respect, and the sense of expectation that seeps through everything written about him. All the experts in his field take it for granted that he’s a genius.
And I’ve fallen in love with him.
“Fabio and I are going to a party tonight,” Lisa tells me one morning in the kitchen. Fabio is her new guy, less of an ass than the last one whose name I’ve forgotten. “Do you want to come with?”
I shake my head.
“You know you can meet someone else and forget about Tristan like this…” she snaps her fingers. “You’re acting like he’s the only guy in the world.”
“I’m not…” The denial feels like a lie on my tongue. I am acting that way because that’s how it feels to me. Like the characters in my mother’s romance novels, I went and fell in love with a guy I only knew for a week.
