Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78108 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78108 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Wait for me.
Would she wait for me? Could I ask her to? Is that the next step after this third date? I’ve been weighing all day how to broach whatever this thing is between us, but I’m not sure I have a handle on it yet. I’m about to ask something safe like how’s your dinner, when she says, “I need your advice, professor.”
Oh. Okay. We’re back to the roles. Fair enough. “Yes, Miss Dumont?”
She takes her phone from the pocket of her purple leggings, then clicks on her texts, swiveling it so I can see the screen and the last one from her Mom. What happens next with him? Will you see him next week when you return to the city?
My shoulders tense. Shit. She wants to do this now. She’s readier than me.
“That’s interesting,” I say noncommittally. I don’t want to screw this up.
“See, I don’t want to lie to my mother, but the situation is kind of sensitive.”
“How so?” I ask carefully, letting her lead.
She nibbles on the corner of her lips. “I don’t know what’s next. I work with this guy, so I don’t know what to say to him about what happens…well, next week.”
My pulse speeds. My instincts tell me to shut down this conversation, but I try to push past them. I fight against them, as I open my heart a bit, cracking the door a little. “I bet it’s hard for him too.”
There. That’s a start. That’s being open, right?
“Maybe he’s thinking about next week too?” she asks, sounding so vulnerable as she finds a way to ask me what happens when we’re back in the city, back in the studio, back in the real world. When we’ve left this make-believe land in the rearview mirror.
She’s always been so much braver than I am. I try to meet her with the same emotions. “He doesn’t know what’s next either.”
Her lips flatten, and she dips her face. “Oh.”
Shit. That wasn’t the way to be brave at all. No more role-play. I reach across the table, lift her chin, make her meet my eyes as I try again. “I want to see you again, Juliet. So badly. You have to know that. Please know that.” I sound desperate. I feel desperate. There’s something else, too—something deep and powerful, something like forever—as she gazes at me with hope in her eyes. I want to run to that something else and run from it. “But I don’t know how to be a good…partner.”
Even saying the word scrapes my throat.
“Right. Because of…” She waits for me to finish the thought.
If I could tell Sawyer, I could tell her. At the very least, I need to be honest with her about my fears. “I wasn’t there for Elizabeth. I’m not sure I know how to be there.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that,” she says. It’s prickly, but in the way an animal bristles its fur in self-defense.
“I know you didn’t mean marriage,” I say gently.
“I just meant next week.” There’s hurt in her voice, but she tries to keep it at the edges as she clears her throat and adds, “That’s all, Monroe.”
It’s like she’s saying: Can you do even a little? Can you see me next week?
But with her, there’s no just next week. There’s no halfway. My chest aches as I look at her. I can’t test out a few more dates with someone I feel this much for already. What if it doesn’t work out? “Relationships are like…” I cast about for an analogy. “The piano. I like the way it sounds. I want to play it. I can tap out Chopsticks. But you deserve Ode to Joy.”
She’s quiet for a long, painful spell. “I get it.” She picks up the plates from the table, saying in a soft, sad voice, “Goodnight, Adam.”
As she retreats inside, new awareness dawns. For this last date, she chose a man almost exactly like me.
30
A PIECE OF MY MIND
Juliet
Thank god for Eleanor’s house. There’s so much to do on Saturday that we don’t need to interact much.
I handle packing up clothes in the Closet of Wonders, putting my blinders on as I sort through feather boas, sequined dresses, and fabulous corsets. Chin up. Move on. Just like Eleanor’s moving on from this house into her bright and bold new romance.
Monroe’s out of the home most of the morning, handling yard work, then finishing up minor handiwork in the poker room. Good thing because I don’t think I could handle seeing much of him. It hurts too much now. It probably will for a while. But it’s better I face these truths now, and I can’t even be mad at him. He was honest with me from the start right up until…
As I stuff a sparkly sapphire boa into a box, I blanch inside. I don’t even want to finish the sentence in my head. The echo of the words, the end, is too painful.