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“Okay,” I said stiffly.
“But it was time for you to go back,” he continued. “I can accept reality. I can accept that I’m not good for you anymore. Maybe I never was.”
“Xavi—”
“No,” he cut me off gently. “It’s the truth. Look, I know we had something special once. And for what it’s worth, I want you to know that I did love you all those years ago. Just like I love you now. But we aren’t those people anymore. I’m not the man I was at twenty-seven, and you’re not the girl I met in that bar. You don’t fit into this life. Not because you’re not good enough for it, but because it’s not good enough for you. Or Sofia.”
I could practically see him shaking his head as he talked. I was glad he couldn’t see me. See the way tears were already running down my cheeks in currents. See the way my lip was trembling, my pulse quickening, face reddened with fury and frustration and sorrow all at once.
“I’m only going to break your heart, Ces. I break my own fucking heart every day, and I don’t even try. I don’t want to hurt you and Sofia more than I already have. So it’s best you’re gone.”
I covered the receiver and hiccupped back a chest-deep sob. My throat ached, both with the need to scream and wail. I couldn’t do either. Not with my brother and Sofia around to hear. This was my life, and always had been, and that, if anything, was the real difference between Xavier and me. I didn’t have the luxury of flying into rages and screaming when things didn’t go my way. I couldn’t act on impulse whenever I wanted, whether that meant sleeping with random men or kissing women in my office.
I had to just sit with it. Feel it all deep in my bones. Let it all rattle and rage until eventually, like the current in a river, it too would pass.
If it didn’t break me first.
“Can I ask one thing?” Xavier wondered.
I drove my nails into my knee. “What’s that?”
“I have to stay here until Henry passes. Take care of the estate and keep things in line. But once that’s gone, I’d like to come back to New York and see Sofia. Would that be all right?”
I softened. I was angry at Xavier. So, so angry. But he was Sofia’s father—that too would never change.
“You’re still her dad, Xavi,” I said quietly. “Of course you can see her. Whenever you want.”
“Good.” His voice was soft too. “Thanks.”
We sat on the phone together for a long time, not hanging up, but also not sure of what else to say. I had a world of questions and thoughts inside my mind, but none would come out. And yet, I didn’t quite want to say goodbye either.
I had a feeling that would be goodbye to more than just a call. It would be goodbye for us. For good.
“All right?” Xavier asked sometime later.
I swallowed, tears starting to well again. “I—yeah.”
“What is it?” he wondered. “It’s all right. You can tell me.”
I sucked in a breath. I had a thousand things I wanted to say. I wanted to tell him this was wrong. That I still loved him and always would, even if he cheated on me, even if he smashed my heart every day for a year. I also wanted to tell him he really was a bastard for letting us go so easily. That we were worth fighting for, Sofia and me, that fighting for the future was what families did, no matter how hard it got.
In the end, I decided to just say the final thought that entered my mind and seemed to linger. “I don’t want this to end.”
It was the most honest thing I could think of.
Xavier was quiet for a bit more, breathing heavily, to the point where I wondered if he was crying too.
But eventually, he answered. “Me too, Ces. Me too.”
I swallowed, and it felt like my chest threatened to split in half. “I—Xavi?”
“Yeah?”
He sounded almost hopeful. Like I might take everything back. Like I might ask for another plane ticket, beg him to let me stay, plead for him to love me all over again.
He would say yes if I did. I really believed that.
But those were all just fantasies. This was our reality. This heartbreak. This goodbye.
