AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Once they’ve both left, Meric closes the door and sits in the seat that Claire vacated.
“You do not seem yourself,” he tells me.
“I’m fine.”
“Triste? Yes. Malheureux? Yes. Fine?” He shakes his head. “I do not think so.”
“I’m allowed to be sad or unhappy,” I retort like I’m six.
“All emotions are allowed, mon ami, but only matter if they are defined by their opposite.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have seen your frown this week, but not your smile. What has happened? Do you no longer wish to be my successor?”
“That’s not it. I do,” I say. “Mia and me. We—”
We what? Broke up? You’d have to be with someone—not be just a convenient bed partner for a friend—to break up. Right?
“Argumenté?” he suggests.
“It—it’s not working out.” I blow out a breath. “We’re splitting up.”
“Pourquoi?”
Why? That’s the question I keep debating in my head.
I don’t want to admit to my boss that it was a drunken mistake in Vegas.
“We’re too different,” I finally come up with. “We have different visions for the future.”
“Ah, I see.” He studies me for a moment before continuing. “It is hard, is it not, to change for the ones we love?”
No. Not for Mia. If she had loved me back, I would have done everything in my power to stay with her. But she doesn’t.
“It…can be.”
“Do you know who George Eliot is?” he asks. I shake my head. “He was an English author. He said that there is no greater thing than for two souls to join for life that strengthen each other, that they are at one with each other in memories that do not need to be discussed.”
“I—I don’t understand,” I tell him.
“Is she your soul mate, Garrett?”
I open my mouth, closing it again when no response comes to mind.
“I wanted her to be.”
“Pfft.” He waves that answer away, unsatisfied. “When you are with her, what do you feel?”
“Everything,” I breathe out.
He nods. That must be the right answer.
“But it doesn’t matter,” I continue. “I can’t be with her and run Arabesque.”
“Who told you that?”
“You did, didn’t you?” Suddenly, I’m second-guessing what I remember.
