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That’s how long I stood leaning against my car across from her building, waiting, counting down the minutes as they passed with excruciating slowness.
At the eight-minute mark, Ryan exited the building, looking all schmucky with a personal organizer tucked under his arm and one of those douchebaggery phone pieces hanging from his ear.
At the fourteen-minute mark, her Chinese food order arrived.
At the sixteen-minute mark, there was almost a car accident at the traffic lights, a near rear-ender as the light turned green to orange. The screeching of brakes snapped my attention from my phone to the street up ahead.
At the twenty-third minute mark, a loud group of schoolgirls scurried along the street, giggling at pitch as they passed.
At the forty-eight-minute mark, I watched as five other people entered her building, a couple with three small children, two boys and a little girl holding onto what I assumed to be her father’s hand.
At the fifty-five-minute mark, an older couple strolled past, holding hands as they walked. The lady was talking to him animatedly with a warm smile on her face. She chatted, and he listened intently while nodding occasionally and smiling back at her. The way he looked at her like she was made of magic gave me confidence and hope for Alina and me.
The entire time I was waiting for her, the knots in my stomach grew tighter, and by the fifty-eighth minute, I wondered if she really wanted to see me.
Maybe it had been just a ploy to get me to leave her door.
Maybe she’d shuffled her way down the fire escape while I was out here waiting for her.
All my doubts faded to black when I looked up, and there she was. Dressed in a yellow sundress, her hair hanging loosely around her shoulders, she perched on the bottom step of the staircase that led to the door of her building, her eyes on me, fixated and nervous from the other side of the street.
Lifting my hand, I offered a small wave, matched by the size of my smile at the sight of her. For a moment, it felt like we were stuck in the vortex, just the two of us, the world comprising of only her and me for the length of a heartbeat.
Instead of returning the wave, she folded her arms across her chest.
Boy, this is going to be fun… said no one, ever.
ChapterForty-Three
Alina
He came.
After Ryan left, I sat on the couch staring at the wall for twenty minutes, consumed by concentrating on my breathing and slowing my racing heart.
He’d come to find me.
But why now, after weeks had passed?
I twisted my hands together and drew my bottom lip between my teeth. I sat and reeled through the possibilities of why Callum was suddenly here, or I could go down and find out.
I could say all the things I’d had on a loop in my mind since the day I had driven away, believing I had escaped Beddington.
I could ask him, no,demandan explanation as to why he would have me fall in love with him all over again if he was already in a relationship with someone else. How could he treat my heart so carelessly?
I had tried to convince myself of the lie that I didn’t care. I could move on with my life.
I had once before.
I’d picked myself up, dusted myself off, and turned the tide of my fate to become what I am today, and as sure as Callum was sitting outside, I could do it all over again.
I clenched my fists, slamming them into the cushion of the couch on either side of me before snatching up a throw pillow. I used it to muffle my scream. The last thing I needed right now during my breakdown was the neighbors crashing in or calling the police.
Standing, I pulled myself up to my full height, straightening my back and squaring my shoulders before taking steady and determined strides to my bedroom. If I were going to talk to Callum, I wasn’t going down in my tattered house jeans and a tank top.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” I replied.
