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I roll my eyes at myself. I sound like some pathetic sap rambling on at the end of some cheesy nineties romance movie, but this might be the only chance I get to have his ear. I’m sure the second he’s gone, I’ll think of a hundred other things I want to say to him. Meanwhile, he’ll be deleting my number, I’m sure. Ready to move onward and upward and forget the entire last month of his life ever happened.
“I was going to tell you Friday,” I add before he’s gone forever. “That’s why I didn’t want to do the hotel thing . . .”
His eyes soften—or maybe it’s wishful thinking on my end.
“Remember Monday? I asked when I could see you next,” I remind him. “We decided on Friday. And when you called me and you kept asking if everything was okay . . . I knew you knew something was off. But I didn’t want to say it over the phone. I wanted to tell you in person.”
His lips flatten as he studies me.
“For what it’s worth, Roman,” I add, “it was real. It was real to me. Every second of it.”
“Everything except your identity.”
We linger in silence, and he glances toward the woman waiting in the car, who shoots him a quizzical look. She’s parked in a no-parking zone with her hazards on. Another car careens past, blaring its horn.
Rising from the bench, I take the opportunity to share one more thing before he leaves.
“For the record, I loved getting to know you, loved spending time with you,” I say. “And the last thing I ever wanted was for you to get hurt. I’ll spend the rest of my life regretting that, wishing things could’ve been different for us.”
He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t react, doesn’t speak as his thousand-yard stare burns into me like hot coal.
“If you ever change your mind,” I say, “or if you ever feel like talking, if you ever find it in you to look past the insanity of the situation and see if maybe we could try again . . .”
I let my words dwindle into nothing.
“Wow, um.” My cheeks burn hot, and it isn’t from the heat of the day this time. “Now that I’m saying that out loud, I realize how insane I sound.”
He continues to glare, gifting me with a single slow blink.
“I’m sorry—I don’t want to keep her waiting.” I point to the girl in the Malibu. “She seems like she’s anxious to get going.”
“Right. She’s my Uber driver.” He breaks his quiet streak with a detail that gives me a raindrop-size speck of hope despite the fact that it shouldn’t. I have no right to feel relieved at the fact that he’s not running off with some mystery woman to spite me. “And your apology—at least I think that’s what this is—is wasting that poor woman’s valuable time.” Clearing his throat, he rakes his hand along his jaw. “Not unlike all the ways you’ve wasted mine.”
I deserve that.
“Right. I just . . . I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight and . . .” I bite my tongue to stop from rambling. I could say a million other things to him right now, but the fact is, none of them would change a damn thing. There isn’t a single sentence I could utter that would make him magically look at me the way he used to—like I meant something to him.
Those days, those tender, sweet moments, are officially gone.
Roman pinches the bridge of his nose, his shoulders falling as he exhales.
“Are you done?” He waves his hand in a circular motion. “With all of this? Did you get it all off your chest? Do you feel better now? Can I go?”
I cock my head as his words sting, though it’s not like I don’t deserve them. I guess deep down I hoped if we could talk face to face, he’d see how truly sorry I am and offer a microscopic sliver of grace.
I step backward, away from the direction of Roman and his waiting ride, and I offer a tight-lipped nod—a silent apology or white flag.
Turning on my heel, I walk home with a tightness in my chest, thankful for the dark blanket of sky to help disguise my tears and the unfazed New Yorkers who pay me no mind because they’ve seen crazier things than some random woman crying on the sidewalk.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
ROMAN
“Did you know about this?” I ask Theodora over the phone later that night. The girls are tucked into their beds, fast asleep, and I should be doing the same, but my mind is far too loud to let me so much as think about relaxing. While I’d love nothing more than to shut the book on this shit show of a day, I’m not quite there yet. “Did you know Margaux sent her twin sister on that date? Did you know I’d been seeing Sloane the entire time?”
