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She pulled off her glasses and rubbed her brow for a moment before replacing them. "Well, there's the distance, for one."
"That never stopped you before."
"I know, but that's when it was just..." Jane trailed off, leaning her head on a pillow. "Now it's different. I actually like him. But Sky, I don't have time for a real relationship, and neither does he. What are we going to do, trade flights between Chicago and Boston while we both work eighty-hour weeks? Where is this going? Is someone going to move and retake the bar all over again? Who's that going to be?"
She shook her head and drank more of her mimosa.
"I just don't see how it's going to work out," she continued. "Long distance is hard enough without all of the other pressures. We're not serious. It's better we break it off now."
I didn't say anything for a bit, just reached out and patted my friend's shoulder. I couldn't exactly argue with her, nor was I in any position to be giving relationship advice at the moment. Not when I couldn't even figure out my own.
"Will you look at us?" Jane said with a half-snort. "What a pair of tools we are. Moping around after a couple of dudes."
"Yeah," I agreed.
"Hey," Jane said sharply as she sat up to refill both of our glasses. "This is the part where you tell me what the hell is going on with Brandon that he would basically abandon you in this condition. That is exactly the opposite of literally everything I know about the man."
I pressed my lips together and hugged a throw pillow to my chest. "Well, you know. You were there when he had that bomb dropped on his lap. I'm not sure what to do. He asked for space, but that was almost a week ago now. I...I'm trying to give it to him, but it's driving me nuts. He's so hurt, that much is obvious, and I don't know what I can do to make it better."
Jane examined me for a moment, rubbing her chin. Then she pushed her bright, red-framed glasses further up her face.
"I'm going to say something you're not going to want to hear," she said as she crossed a thin leg over the other.
I grimaced. Jane's reality checks could be brutal, but they were often what I needed. "Shoot."
"I'm not sure you can come back from something like this, Sky."
At first I wasn't sure if I had heard her correctly. Jane had been Brandon's and my biggest champion, even in the early days when he acted like an ass and tried to buy my affections. But now Jane's face was long, her eyes honest and sad. She didn't want to say it to me; that much was clear.
I stared hard at my hands.
"But..." I stumbled. "Don't you think..."
It was pathetic. I couldn't even finish my own sentences. Angrily, I swiped at a few tears that rose unbidden.
"Don't you think he'll forgive me eventually?" I asked at last.
"Not like this, he won't."
Jane's voice was uncharacteristically sharp. It's not that she wasn't blunt––if anything, her candor was often what got her in trouble with most people. That was something we had in common. But she wasn't heartless, and right now her tone had shifted into frustration.
"Real talk, my friend?" she asked.
With a face that felt like it might crack into pieces, I nodded.
"Right. Skylar, that man has done nothing but love you, done nothing but try to give you the fucking world. And from the beginning, you just kept throwing it back at him."
"But––" I started, but Jane shoved her finger across my lips to stop me.
"Nuh-uh," she said. "Just listen."
My mouth was still held shut, so I just nodded.
"He's not coming back to you this time," Jane said bluntly. "You crossed a line when you did what you did. I'm not talking about the abortion. You were in a shitty place, and you were scared, and you had your reasons for it. I'm talking about the fact that you cut him out of the decision, and the fact that you kept it from him for months. Not days. Not weeks. Months. And then he had to find out from his ex-wife? You fucked up majorly, Sky. You know I'm right."
She took her finger from my mouth, and I blew out a long breath I hadn't known I'd been holding. Every word she said was true, but that didn't make it easier to hear. With Bubbe coming around every day, pointing out the nice things Brandon had done for me around the apartment, it was easy to believe that eventually he'd come around. But maybe he was just making it easier for him to leave eventually. Maybe he was just setting things up so he wouldn't feel guilty upon cutting me loose.
"So that's it then," I said to myself after I tipped back the rest of my drink. "It's over."
