AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I thought back to our fight. It had blurred in my head, all but the worst moments. She’d called me a douche. She’d said we were done. She’d walked straight out the front door without saying goodbye.
“It was supposed to be fun,” I said. “And it was, for a while.”
“But then?”
“But then she was done.” I shook my head, knowing that was a lie, or at best a half-truth. Not the whole story. “She wanted things for her life. Still wants them, I guess. She’s moving on, and I’m part of her old life.”
Leon’s brows rose. “She said that to you?”
“No, not exactly, but what do they say? Actions speak louder than words, and she was acting a lot. Looking at apartments. Applying for jobs in New York. I think she’d have moved there if they had hired her. I never came into that, so?—”
“They did hire her.”
I stared at Leon. “What did you say?”
“I mean, they tried to hire her. They offered her the job. She went for a different one, right here in town.”
I sat stunned, blindsided, trying to digest that. She could’ve gone to New York, but she’d chosen to stay. But that didn’t mean she’d done it for me. She could’ve picked the job she did for any number of reasons, good benefits. Room for advancement.
“She still applied,” I said. “She didn’t feel how I felt.”
Leon pressed his lips together. “And how did you feel?”
I felt my chest squeeze and my stomach turn over. How I felt around Izzy, how to describe that? I swallowed hard and said the first thing that came to me. “I felt like if she’d let me, I’d be hers forever. I’d work my whole life to earn her smiles. I fell for her hard, but she didn’t feel the same way.”
Leon closed his eyes like he was trying not to roll them. “Did you ask how she felt?”
“Not exactly, but?—”
“Did you tell her how you felt?”
“I tried to show her. I made her this dinner, but she kept talking about work.”
Leon made a choking sound, close to a chuckle. “So you made dinner for someone you care about, and who cares for you, and she talked to you about what’s going on in her life. And somehow, you took that to mean she didn’t want you?”
When he put it that way, it sounded ridiculous. But he hadn’t been there. He hadn’t heard her. She’d seemed so excited about moving on.
“You need to tell her,” said Leon.
I scowled. “It’s too late.”
“How is it too late? She’s ten minutes away. We can drive over right now and you can tell her you love her, and maybe she’ll tell you she loves you too.”
“And maybe she won’t.”
“Maybe she won’t, but think, if she does. You could have that whole life with her. All of her smiles. You could have it all with her, the house, the kids. Whatever your dreams are, you could build them together.”
I let myself picture that just for a second, my life with Izzy. Our lives together. I saw us in a new house, one we’d picked together, with a green lawn and a white picket fence. Maybe she’d even design us a house. She’d build it out perfect with a gym and a pool, a sunny conservatory for when she worked from home. We’d have two kids, no three, so there’d be a tiebreaker. A big hairy dog, a golden retriever.
“And if she doesn’t,” Leon went on, “well, then, at least you’ll have no regrets. You’ll know you went to her and put your cards on the table. If she still tells you no, then that’s her loss.”
“Her loss,” I repeated, though that wasn’t true. If Izzy didn’t want me, the loss would be mine. But the rest of what Leon said, he made a good point. I’d always wonder what could’ve been if I didn’t come clean with Izzy. If we could’ve had that house and our three noisy kids.
“Go shower,” said Leon. “You know where she’s staying?”
“Yeah, with some work friend near Silver Hill.”
“Great. I’m headed out there to pick up Delores. I’ll drop you off and you two can talk.”
