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Laurie comes over to lie down beside me. She doesn’t say anything, but the silence is soothing. We lie side by side for a long while, saying nothing. I wonder if she’s thinking about Brett. The thought that we’re both nursing broken hearts is infinitely depressing.
It was your choice to walk away, I tell myself, willing the tears to stop. It doesn’t work. I should be able to let him go, I think miserably. We were never going to last forever anyway. We weren’t even supposed to last this long. It should have been just one night. It should have ended the moment I walked out of his apartment without leaving my number.
It should have ended when we returned from that week in San Francisco. It should have ended before I got to the point where I fell so hard for him, but I’d wanted him too much, and he’d been so relentless in his seduction and in his unwillingness to let me go. Now, even though I’d tried to convince myself that I could live with whatever part of himself he gave me, I know I can’t. I want more. I’ll always want more. More than he can give, more than he wants to give.
“I shouldn’t have fallen in love with him,” I say softly, breaking the silence in my room. My voice is still breaking, and my eyes are stinging. “It was too soon, and we agreed that it was going to be just sex.”
“You don’t get to choose when, or how, or with whom to fall in love,” Laurie whispers, her voice gentle. “Sometimes it just happens and before you know what, you’re reeling.”
I am reeling. I draw in a shaky breath, fighting a new flood of tears. “After Jack, I should have learned to be more in control of my feelings. I don’t want to be that girl who repeats the same mistakes with men.” I’d thought I was in love with Jack Weyland, my ex. I still remember the hurt I felt when two years ago, Jack responded to my confession that I loved him with outright dismissal, but that hurt is nothing compared to the devastation I’m feeling now.
“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Laurie sighs. “You fell for Landon, and there was an emotional connection. It’s only natural that your feelings grew.” She squeezes my hand. “What happened exactly? Do you want to talk about it now?”
As soon as a woman starts to demand more than I can give, I walk away.
I close my eyes. She warned me, what seems now like a long time ago, that I wouldn’t be able to bear being in love and not knowing for sure that Landon felt the same. I swallow through the tightness in my throat. “I couldn’t take it anymore, Laurie. I tried… but I just couldn’t bear not knowing - or rather, knowing that he would never allow himself to feel anything for me.”
Laurie turns to her side, facing me. “Did you tell him that you’re in love with him?”
I shake my head. I’ve imagined telling Landon. Countless times, I’ve imagined confessing my feelings to him. But in my head, I always see his eyes cloud with pity and regret, and I hear his lips form the words to convey how sorry he is, and how he doesn’t feel the same.
“What would be the point?” I close my eyes. “He’d have walked away, just as he has from every other woman who ever wanted him to commit.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” she points out.
“Actually, I do.” I wish I didn’t. I wish I could have stayed blissfully unaware that there was no point in loving Landon. I wish I didn’t know, without a doubt, that our affair could only end one way, with Landon telling me that he’s done with me.
“So… you just left without giving him a reason?”
“No, I...”
You can’t give me what I want.
I exhale softly. “I told him I wanted more than he was willing to give.”
There’s a long pause from Laurie. “But he doesn’t know what you want exactly.” She sounds confused. “And you’ve never bothered to ask him what he’s ‘willing’ to give.”
I don’t answer.
“Rachel,” she murmurs. “Do you ever think that maybe the fear of rejection is costing you more than anything you might lose if you’re frank with him about your feelings?”
As much as I’d like to cling to the fantasy that telling Landon that I love him would make any difference, I can’t allow myself to be so foolish. I wipe my eyes with the back of one hand. “It’s not the fear of rejection,” I tell Laurie. “It’s the reality of the man. I’d be a fool to continue to hope for a happy ending that’s never going to happen.”
“So that’s it?” She sounds almost as sad as I am. “It’s over?”
It’s over.The finality of those words rip through my body, and I fight back the surge of panic.It’s over. It’s over.
“Yes,” I whisper.
Laurie is silent. She squeezes my hand lightly. “I’m so sorry,” she says gently. “But, I still think you should have told him how you feel. It’s only fair that you let him know what you want from him.”
I pull my hand from hers. “Maybe what I want is a man who would be willing to fight for me. Maybe I want a man who wouldn’t walk away as soon as I indicate that I want something more from him, or accuse me of…” I trail off, my mind going back to Landon’s reaction to my phone conversation with Jack.
Laurie rises from the bed and leans on her elbow.
“Accuse you of what?” she asks, clearly prepared to hate Landon on my behalf if he’d dared to say anything unfair.
I sigh. I’d purposely kept silent about the part Jack played in my argument with Landon. Laurie’s reaction to anything that involves Jack is never positive. Not that I blame her. Right now I’m not feeling very good-natured towards Jack, even though nothing that happened tonight was his fault, really.
