Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86799 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86799 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
That was it.
There was nothing left to be said.
I swallowed my hurt, and I let it fuel me, since I wanted to inflict some hurt on him. “So you’re over romance. I guess that explains why you can’t keep a girlfriend,” I said.
It was a low blow.
Sarah had devastated him when she took off.
But he’d hurt me. It was his turn to feel some pain. He simply shook his head, said nothing, and left the country.
Leaving me to clean up the mess.
21
STOP TALKING
Hazel
This evening, as we return to the train after the signing, I keep replaying our split. I couldn’t figure out what went wrong back then. I still can’t figure it out now.
I should shut off this loop, but when I open the door to the suite, I’m still stuck on it.
Just like we’re stuck in this room, it seems.
Amy said earlier she was still waiting on word of an open suite. “There might be an empty one in another car at the other end of the train,” she’d said on the way back to the station.
“That’d work for me,” I’d told her.
“Same,” Axel had said.
And so, we wait.
And as we wait, I revisit.
Maybe this late dinner will help me stop remembering that day at the coffee shop. How much it hurt. How much I regret my parting words. How much I still wish I understood him.
But as we dine while rolling across the French countryside hurtling toward Barcelona, I can’t stop the loop from playing in my head.
I can’t stop it after dinner either, even when Amy pulls us aside after the meal, a sad smile on her face, one that says she has bad news. “I don’t have another suite. This route is popular and since the train line launched, JHB has been selling out. Is there anything I can do?”
“Thanks, but it’s fine,” I say, defeated, then I head to the compartment. But as I unlock the suite door, the words I can’t work with you play louder in my head.
I have to know. Once he shuts the door to the suite, I wheel around, wasting no time. “Axel, what happened?”
He frowns, clearly confused. “Like Amy said, they sold out.”
I huff. “That’s not what I mean.”
That mask I saw cover his eyes the day he took off? It returns, like blinds shuttering. “Then what do you mean?”
“Don’t play dumb with me.”
“I’m not playing dumb. I legit don’t know,” he says, but his voice…it’s like he’s trying too hard to be cool, to be blank.
“You said this afternoon let’s just have a nice day together, and we did. And let’s be honest, we’ve been having a nice trip, right?” I say, standing in the tiny anteroom, arms crossed, like I’m caging him into this small space. I am not letting him wriggle away again.
He’s quiet for a beat too long.
My hackles rise. What the hell? Is this all in my head? “Are you not having a good time? I am. Why aren’t you?”
“I am,” he says, evenly.
There it is again. That…veneer.
Like he won’t let me see how he really feels. Fine, if he’s going to play it that way, he can see how I truly feel too.
I strip off all the self-protective armor I’ve worn.
“Axel,” I say, fueled by outrageous hope that maybe, just maybe, we can try again to be friends, “I’m sorry.”
His eyes widen. “What?”
“I’m sorry for the shitty things I said on the street when we split. I’m sorry I didn’t handle it better. I’m sorry I said you can’t keep a girlfriend. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t want you to go to Europe. I felt terrible about what had happened to us. Like you didn’t want to work with me, and I was an awful writer, and you had to get as far away from me as possible, and I’m just so sorry,” I say, my voice trembling as I lay out my own complicity.
He closes his eyes, but not before I see pain flash through them. A deep sigh comes next, almost forlorn as it falls from his lips. Shaking his head, he opens his eyes. “It’s not your fault. It’s all mine,” he says quietly. But full of emotion this time.
I don’t feel much lighter though, or exonerated. I still feel shaky, and sad, and so far away from him. But I feel some of this new longing for him too. This want. All these opposite feelings are stirring inside me, jockeying for position. “Why is it yours?” I press.
“Hazel,” he says, and it’s a warning, like he’s borderline begging for me to stop asking. “Can’t you just accept it’s not your fault? It’s entirely mine. And it had nothing to do with your writing.”
“But how can I just accept that?” I ask, frustrated he won’t let me in. I take a step back from him to get some space.