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You’re probably gritting your teeth about now and wondering what the hell my point is.
It goes like this—you hurt me when you didn’t try to stop me from leaving. Stupid, right? I know it is, so you don’t have to tell me so. I had this moment of surety that if you turned that indomitable will to us, if you loved me, too, then maybe we could figure things out.
You were pretty clear about where you stood, and I’m trying to respect that. I’m sorry if I hurt you at any point, because that really wasn’t my intention. But you know what they say about good intentions...
All this is just a long way of saying goodbye. And I’m a selfish ass, because I’m doing it in a letter that you won’t have a chance to respond to because I’m afraid if you say a single word, then I won’t go. You were right about that, too—I have to go. If I don’t, I’ll always wonder what my life would have been like, and that’s not fair to either one of us.
I hope you end up happy, Cam. I really do. Maybe not right now, or next week, but at some point in the future.
—Trish
He let the letter drift to his desk. “The fuck you think you get to have the last word, Trish. Goddamn it.” She loved him, and she was going to send him a goddamn letter instead of giving him a chance to fix this. She was going to wish him well, as if that wasn’t the height of insanity.
He stared blindly at his blank computer screen. There was a solution to this. Aaron was right on that count, though there’d be no living with him once Cameron admitted it. He just had to figure it out. The old saying about not being able to have your cake and eat it, too, was bullshit. He wanted his fucking cake.
He wanted Trish.
He’d find a way for them to be together.
There was no longer an option where he sat back and let her ride into the sunset without him.
Not when he knew she loved him, too.
Trish clicked Play for the third time in a row and waited for the credits to play out to restart The Proposal. She wasn’t sure if she’d even liked this movie before this weekend, but it was on demand on the hotel TV and after the first time watching it, she’d cried and cried and started it over from the beginning.
She pulled her comforter tighter around her shoulders. She only had one more day to get this out of her system before she had to show up for work on Monday. Barton Fashion hadn’t hired brokenhearted and can’t-stop-crying Trish, they’d hired bright and peppy and sunny Trish. She didn’t know how she was going to pull it off, but she’d figure it out sometime in the next twenty-four hours.
Plenty of time.
Just like the rest of her life, stretching out before her in a uniform without-Cameron road.
She shouldn’t have left that letter with Aaron. It was cowardly and stupid, and begging Cameron to fix things after she made this choice wasn’t fair. Trish used a tissue to wipe at her eyes, wishing the tears would just stop. What if Cameron had already read the letter? What if he was... God, she didn’t even know, but dread cloaked her in an unrelenting wave with the suspicion that she’d just somehow made everything so much worse.
She dialed her phone before she could talk herself out of it. It’s just to fix things. It’s definitely not so I can hear his voice again. She didn’t really expect him to answer. He had to hate her now, which meant he’d let the call go through and she’d leave a stammering voice mail begging him not to read any absurd letter that Aaron gave him, and that would be that. Simple.
Liar.
“Trish?”
Her heart tried to beat its way out of her chest. Oh God, he answered. “Cam?”
“Is everything okay?”
How could he sound so calm and put together when she’d cried her way through a jumbo box of tissues and eaten her weight in chocolate chip cookies? My fault. Not fair to ask him to react the same when I made this call. She cleared her throat. “I, uh, wanted to apologize.” He didn’t immediately say anything, so she kept talking, needing to get it out before she lost her last connection to him, however small. “I did a selfish thing and wrote you a letter, and if Aaron hasn’t given it to you, I would really appreciate if you burn the damn thing once he does. And if he has—”
“He has.”
Oh shit. “Oh. Ah... Okay. Maybe we can pretend it never happened and move on with our lives?” She looked around the hotel room and her gaze settled on the hot mess the mirror reflected at her. Eyes red from crying, hair in a permanent case of bedhead, still wearing the same pajamas she’d changed into when she’d left her training on Friday.
