Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 61942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
“Because you’ve never had anything else or anyone else to spend time with. All you have is work because you’ve never slowed down to enjoy life. You’ve never enjoyed life because you don’t know how. You don’t know how to celebrate Christmas. There’s no one in your life who even knows your birthday. Not even me, your closest friend—”
“You want to sing happy birthday to me and watch me blow out some fucking candles? Fuck that.”
Benton hesitated. “It’s what makes your life rich, it fills all the emptiness, it hides the loneliness.”
“You’re a therapist now?” I snapped.
“No, but I know exactly how you feel. Been there, done that. Remember?”
I looked away.
“All things come to an end, Bartholomew. It’s your time to walk off the stage. Not in defeat, but victory.”
I still didn’t look at him.
“Don’t lose her over this.”
“Even if I did…I can’t give her what she wants.”
“Which is?”
“Kids. I fucking hate kids.”
Benton didn’t say anything.
“I’m not having a kid just to neglect them. Just to hate them. Just to regret their very existence.”
“That’s not how it would be.”
“Yes, it would.”
“Just because your parents—”
“Shut the fuck up.” I looked at him again. “I’m done with this bullshit conversation.” Maybe the booze had started to wear off a bit, because I no longer felt loose. I felt rigid, hard, impenetrable. “I’d be an idiot to give up everything for a single person. If she wants to be with me, it has to be my way—and that’s it. She made her choice, and she made the right one.”
“So you’re saying you only want to be in a relationship if they risk everything and you risk nothing?”
“Yes.”
Benton’s eyes narrowed. “So you don’t trust her.”
“I don’t trust anyone, Benton.”
24
LAURA
A month had come and gone.
I went to work then returned to my apartment like clockwork. When I was home, I continued to work on my laptop because I had nothing else to occupy my mind. In all that time, Bartholomew had never texted me.
I didn’t text him.
It was a clean break. A breakup we both wanted.
Sometimes I wondered if he’d already slept with someone new, but then I forced myself to stop thinking about it. It didn’t matter whether he did or not. It didn’t matter whether I did or not.
It was over.
I knew I should try dating again, put myself out there and resume a regular life. The sooner I did normal things, the sooner I would feel normal. Maybe I’d meet a nice guy and that would spark excitement again.
But that wasn’t enough to make me try. I didn’t sign up for any dating apps. Didn’t go out in the hope of meeting someone. I stayed home—alone.
I’d just finished dinner when someone knocked on the door.
They had to check in with the doorman first, so they must have said the right thing to make it up to my floor. I looked in the peephole and saw a handsome man I didn’t know. I’d become a paranoid person, carrying a Taser in my purse, checking my surroundings at all times, never leaving the office after dark. So I didn’t open the door.
“Benton,” he said into the peephole. “I’m a friend of Bartholomew’s.”
I recognized the name, and that was what made me open the door. I hadn’t heard his name in a month, and I suspected I would never hear his name again. “Is he alright?”
He was in a gray t-shirt and dark jeans. He had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. A hard face. A wedding ring was on his left hand. “Can I come in?”
I opened the door wider and watched him enter my apartment. “Is he okay?” I repeated.
“He’s fine.” He turned to face me, the two of us having our conversation in my entryway. “I’ll make this quick…don’t want to disturb your life.”
My life of being alone. “Okay.”
“I just wanted you to know I did my best to save him from himself. But no matter what I said or how I said it, he wouldn’t budge.”
“I don’t understand your meaning.”
“I tried to convince him that he’d made the wrong choice. That he should walk away from everything and have a quiet life with you.”
“Oh…”
“And if it helps, he’s been miserable. I mean…more than miserable.”
“No, that doesn’t help at all,” I said coldly. “I wouldn’t want him if someone had to talk him into it.”
He slid his hands into his pockets.
“Thanks for trying…I guess.”
“He has his demons. He has his issues. I just wish he were strong enough to leave all that in the past and take a chance.”
I didn’t quite understand what that meant, but I had a good idea. “Bartholomew isn’t the kind of man that changes. He won’t change for me. He won’t change for anyone. And that’s fine, because that’s who he is.”
He watched me for a while. “You’re taking this breakup a lot better than he is.”