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They had to check in with the doorman first, so they must have said the right thing to make it up to my floor. I looked in the peephole and saw a handsome man I didn’t know. I’d become a paranoid person, carrying a Taser in my purse, checking my surroundings at all times, never leaving the office after dark. So I didn’t open the door.
“Benton,” he said into the peephole. “I’m a friend of Bartholomew’s.”
I recognized the name, and that was what made me open the door. I hadn’t heard his name in a month, and I suspected I would never hear his name again. “Is he alright?”
He was in a gray t-shirt and dark jeans. He had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. A hard face. A wedding ring was on his left hand. “Can I come in?”
I opened the door wider and watched him enter my apartment. “Is he okay?” I repeated.
“He’s fine.” He turned to face me, the two of us having our conversation in my entryway. “I’ll make this quick…don’t want to disturb your life.”
My life of being alone. “Okay.”
“I just wanted you to know I did my best to save him from himself. But no matter what I said or how I said it, he wouldn’t budge.”
“I don’t understand your meaning.”
“I tried to convince him that he’d made the wrong choice. That he should walk away from everything and have a quiet life with you.”
“Oh…”
“And if it helps, he’s been miserable. I mean…more than miserable.”
“No, that doesn’t help at all,” I said coldly. “I wouldn’t want him if someone had to talk him into it.”
He slid his hands into his pockets.
“Thanks for trying…I guess.”
“He has his demons. He has his issues. I just wish he were strong enough to leave all that in the past and take a chance.”
I didn’t quite understand what that meant, but I had a good idea. “Bartholomew isn’t the kind of man that changes. He won’t change for me. He won’t change for anyone. And that’s fine, because that’s who he is.”
He watched me for a while. “You’re taking this breakup a lot better than he is.”
“I’m really not. I’ve just come to accept that it’s over. That’s it for the best. He either would have had to make sacrifices to be with me or I would have had to make sacrifices to be with him, and that’s not how a relationship should be.” The fact that we’d had no contact whatsoever made it easier too. If I saw his handsomeface, it would probably evoke all the feelings I’d worked so hard to bury. “It’s over. And it’s okay that it’s over.”
I was at the shop, taking in a dress to my client’s exact measurements. It was the end of summer, so the tourists had finally started to dissipate, but the heat lingered. It’d been a few weeks since Benton had paid me an unexpected visit.
I wished he hadn’t—because it only made me feel worse.
I wanted nothing to do with his world.
I didn’t want any reminder that our relationship had ever been real.
My phone started to ring, and I almost didn’t notice because my thoughts were so deep. I thought of our first kiss. I remembered the way he looked at me from across the room. I remembered the way he made me feel loved without ever saying the actual words. A series of images and emotions flashed by.
Then the phone caught my attention.
It was Victor.
Bartholomew disappeared from my mind, and I wondered if my father had suffered from a heart attack or a stroke. There was no other reason Victor would call me. My father was either dead or in the hospital.
I took the call. “Victor, what’s going on?”
He whispered, like he was in a compromised position. “I have less than thirty seconds, so just listen.”
Oh fuck.
