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Erik and I had been arguing for nearly a week about whether or not I would accept Connor's offer. Finally, Connor got fed up with waiting for me to decide since he needed to move forward and gave me a deadline to have an answer ready the following day. Erik wanted me to stay, claiming that California was the only place to build the life we had always talked about.
I worried that the career I had come to love would be stifled if I stayed. I wanted us to move, together, and create a new life in Virginia. It would be a fresh start for both of us.
I paced in our shared one-bedroom while he stared at me from the couch, anger steaming from him. My decision had been made earlier that day, and I told him I was leaving. Connor’s offer was too good to pass up, but I wanted Erik to come with me.
Erik refused to bend and leave his role in California. We argued about the decision, and like most of our arguments, it got loud and ugly – fast. He claimed that I was abandoning him and forcing him to give up his career, which is what he would be asking me to do if I stayed. He screamed a string of expletives and called me selfish at the end of his rant.
Usually, I would stop the argument once he brought out the curse words, but this was the one time I couldn’t calm myself down. I accused him of wanting to hold me back and not letting me grow because he was insecure about my career outpacing his. He was convinced I was giving up on us and claimed he deserved the promotion, not me. At that moment, I knew the argument had nothing to do with the future we had dreamed of but more about his bruised ego over my success.
The next day, I gave Connor my answer, and Erik didn’t speak to me until I was in Virginia. Part of me thought he didn’t believe I would walk away, and I almost didn’t. But my resolve to be successful in something I loved prevailed. I packed up my stuff while he was at work one day and stayed with my mom. A few days later, I played Tetris with my life as I tried to fit it all into the trunk of my car and hugged both of our sets of parents and some friends goodbye.
He watched from the window of his parent's house. Twenty years of memories, friendship, and love had been reduced to a single argument.
“I was so angry,” Erik admitted. “The week before the promotion was announced, I saw purple and couldn’t figure out how to tell you because you hadn’t seen colors yet. I never told you how much I loved you or how proud I was of you. I regret not getting in that car with you. For the last three years, I have wished that you were still with me. I am so sorry for what I said that night, Button.”
“Erik, I’m—”
“Let me finish,” he tightened his embrace. “I’m only here for like a couple more months, but if you let me, I will spend every minute that you give me showing you that I deserve another chance.”
“Another chance?”
“I want to give things between us another shot. You know we had something special.”
“Erik, I’ve missed you, but I don’t think so. We’ve changed a lot. A lot has happened in three years.”
“Then let me take you back to before I knew what your lips on mine felt like. Let’s go back to when we raced on the track, sat on opposite ends on the couch watching terrible movies, and went for midnight ice cream runs.”
“Can I think about it?”
Part of me wanted him back in my life, but the more reasonable part warned me that it was a bad idea. Sometimes, it truly was better to leave things in the past.
“If you think about it, you’re going to say no. What does your gut say? If you were to flip a coin, with heads being yes and tails being no, which side would you hope it lands on?”
Heads.
But could I handle that? Could I spend time with Erik knowing how my hands used to tangle in his hair? Could I welcome him back into my life knowing that, at some point before this, he resented me for being successful? Could I ignore the past for ten weeks and remember what it was like to have him back as a friend?
“Okay,” I almost whispered. “But just friends.”
“Friends, Button. Just friends.”
Chapter Thirteen
Saturday morning.
Seventy days left.
Parker waltzed into my bedroom like he owned the place at nine in the morning, exactly an hour before I was supposed to meet him at the farmer’s market. I was brushing my teeth in my bathroom in only a sports bra and spandex shorts. My hair was still pulled into the braids I slept in. Gabby had let him in, and I had left my bedroom door open.
His eyes held excitement within them and grew wide when he saw me. I wasn’t ashamed of my body, but when he took his bottom lip in his teeth as he looked at me, I was sure a blush covered my face. His hair was contained within a baseball cap, and he wore workout clothes, which was odd because we weren’t going to the gym.
“Cute…braids,” he grabbed the ends and messed with them before hopping onto my bed. “Cute room.”
I looked around, suddenly feeling self-conscious. Saturdays were also my chore days, so a pile of dirty clothes sat by my door. My bed was unmade since I had to change the sheets, and I had a collection of water bottles on the nightstand.
“What are you doing here?”
“Would you hate me if I proposed a change in plans for the day?” he asked. “Before you answer, I already went to the market and picked up the tamales and the gumbo. I was scrolling on my phone last night and came across something I thought we would both enjoy.”
