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Francesca: Hey, we just got off a flight to New York. I know it was sudden, but it was really time to leave. We are safe at home in Brooklyn. I will call when I can.
Xavier: You’re in New York?!!
Xavier: What the FUCK
Xavier: Call me now, Francesca. I mean it.
Xavier: Ces, please. We need to talk.
Xavier: Ces, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of it. But you can’t just run off like this. I thought you were done running.
They didn’t end there. There were at least ten other messages sent throughout the night, alternating between spewing profanity-laced frustrations and shocked questions. But by the end, somewhere around two in the morning London time, he had apparently given up the fight. Just an hour ago, there was one final text, neither an admonishment nor a question.
Xavier: Ces, please. I’m dying here.
I wiped my eyes. Fuck (and I almost never say that). But really,fuck. What was I supposed to do now?
Face the music, I supposed.
I pulled up Xavier’s number and pressed the dial button. It was probably four in the morning in London, but the last text was sent at two. I had a feeling he would pick up anyway. And if we didn’t have this conversation now, I probably wouldn’t sleep either.
He answered on the first ring.
“Ces?”
He wasn’t angry. There was no shouting. Just his deep voice, groggy, but not asleep. Sad. And desperate.
“Hey,” I peeped. “I—yeah, it’s me.”
“Ces…I…” There was a long sigh. “I’m glad you called. I’m glad you’re safe.”
I twisted my blanket over my knees, then pushed it off, suddenly hot. “So, you’re not…you’re not mad?”
Xavier paused for a long time. “I was. I don’t know, maybe I still am. But honestly, I understand why you left. Took me about twenty-four hours to get here, but I understand.”
I tied a corner of the blanket into a knot. “You do?”
Did he realize I had seen him? Did he know I was perfectly aware of what was going on between him and Imogene?
“Yeah,” Xavier said. “I do.”
“Oh.”
Lord, I was exhausted, but suddenly, all the anger and betrayal I’d felt upon seeing them together came flooding back. I wanted to yell. I wanted to scream, jump, punch a hole in the wall next to me. Suddenly, the entire trip seemed for naught, since I wanted to rush right back across the ocean and slap him across the face for humiliating me the way he did.
“I’m sorry for it,” he said. “But it’s the way it had to be. I’m sorry if I ruined things in the end.”
My mouth opened and closed so many times I might’ve thought my teeth were chattering. In the end, though, I didn’t know what to say. He had done what he’d done. And I had already made my choice to leave. It didn’t really matter how either of us felt anymore, did it?
“I miss you, Ces. You and Sof. I’ll always miss you.”
I was silent for a long time. What the hell was the point of saying something like thatnow? “Well, maybe you should have thought of that before…”
I couldn’t quite say it. Before you kissed Imogene. Before you made out with that stupid blonde Amazon. Before you crushed my heart in half.
No, it didn’t matter.
Xavier just huffed on the other side of the phone. “I have more regrets than I can count. I promise you that.”
