World Enough and Time (32 page)

I sat up to avoid his absence, hugging my knees to my chest and inching away from the place that was once his. It made little difference, though. Sitting like this was only marginally better than lying where he used to hold me.

This was nothing like my split with Matt. That breakup had hurt. I’d grieved for our relationship, begged him to reconsider, cried into my pillow night after sleepless night. But deep down, I’d known it was over. The ground had moved beneath me and it was up to me to find my footing again.

This, however, wasn’t right. The echoes of the slamming door still rang in my ears, emphasizing the hollow silence of his absence. This place—my bed, my room, my world—wasn’t right without him. All the places I’d tried to hold on to were empty and I had no one to blame but myself.

Icy tentacles of truth coiled around my heart as the epiphany settled itself deep in my gut.

I’d said no to Connor because I couldn’t compromise myself again. I couldn’t uproot my life and follow someone while he followed his dreams. I couldn’t lose myself in trying not to lose him.

It was a mistake to follow Matt to Seattle, but I could no longer tell myself I regretted coming to this place. If I hadn’t, I never would have met Connor, and no matter how much it hurt to be away from him now, I could never convince myself I regretted my relationship with him. I regretted what I’d done to him, the fact that I’d walked away from him, but not the fact that it happened.

And I was lying to myself if I thought the best place for me was anywhere Connor Graham wasn’t. All this time, I’d worried about going with him and making a huge mistake. Now it was clear: the only mistake was letting him go. For all my fear of getting hurt, I’d hurt the best thing that ever happened to me.

This was the wrong ending. Whether or not I ultimately ended up going with him to California, or if we just peacefully went our separate ways, it couldn’t end like
this
. I had to make this right.

I picked up my phone off the bedside table and flipped it open. It was almost one in the morning and normally, I wouldn’t consider calling anyone at this hour unless there was blood or fire, but I couldn’t let this go.

Still, I couldn’t bring myself to call him. Whether it was cowardice, consideration, or a combination of the two, I decided to text him instead. If he was asleep or close to it, a text could be ignored more readily than a call.

Or so I could tell myself when he ignored my text.

But what to say? He deserved more than an apology by text, and a friendly, if non-committal, salutation would probably just make him roll his eyes. I needed something in between, something to bridge the gap and make a connection. From there, I’d figure it out.

With a shaking hand, I typed a few words:
Can we talk
?

I stared at the message for a long moment, then deleted it. The question invited a “no” I wasn’t sure I could handle.

I’d like to talk
.

No. If I sent that, then once the message disappeared down the line, every second of silence would be agony. It would be impossible to tell when “hadn’t gotten the message yet” became “the silence is the answer.”

I finally wrote:
Are you awake
?

It was a start. It was something. And before I could think twice, it was sent.

Hugging my knees to my chest with one arm, I stared at the phone in the upturned palm of my other hand. When the vivid blue backlight shut off, I stared at the darkness where its glow used to be.

And I waited. Hoping for a response, afraid of what it might say. Hoping for a Connorgram. I tried to laugh at that word, but the sound that came out was more like a whimper of pain, which is exactly what it was. That was what he’d called his messages back when everything was right in the world. Somehow, it just didn’t seem to fit in this situation.

A burst of shrill beeping and bright blue light made me jump, and my phone tumbled onto the bed beside my feet. With shaking hands, I flipped it open.

Yes
.

The simple message was just ambiguous enough to keep both hope and disappointment at bay. I’d made contact, he’d reciprocated, but that was all he’d given me.

Now what?

I stared at the flashing cursor on the blank reply screen. After a few minutes of agonizing over every possible response—from either of us—I said,
I’d like to talk
. Just before I sent it, I added,
In person
.

Like last night, I wasn’t sure I could deal with seeing his face, but I owed him that much. This wasn’t a conversation that could be had via text messages, and if that meant showing my face to the man I’d stupidly walked away from, the man I’d pushed away, then so be it.

I just prayed he’d give me the chance.

A full ten minutes of silence passed, just long enough for me to be certain he’d given me his answer, when another message came through.

When?

I gulped. When indeed?

It was after one in the morning. I was awake. He was awake. Why wait?

With my heart in my throat, I sent back,
Now
.

A few minutes later, the sound that broke the silence wasn’t my text beep. It was my ringtone. I stared at the phone for a second, disbelieving, unsure if I could handle hearing his voice, but before I could stop myself, I answered.

“Hey,” I said, my mouth dry.

“You really want to get together at this hour?” His voice was flat. Neutral. Offering nothing.
He’s a difficult man to read unless he wants to be read
, Susan said in my mind.

I cleared my throat. “I’d rather not wait.”

He was quiet for a moment except for a long exhalation. Even that was unreadable. Frustration? Indecision? Finally, he said, “I’ll be up for a while if you want to come by.”

Before I could convince myself that I couldn’t face him, I said, “I’ll be there in a few.”

Chapter Forty

Connor didn’t look at me when he answered the door. He simply pulled it open and stood aside, gesturing for me to come in. After it was closed and the deadbolt was in place, I followed him into the kitchen.

“Coffee?”

“Please.”

When the ritual of cups, cream, and sugar had run its course, we stood on opposite sides of the small kitchen amidst stacks of sealed boxes. I stole a few surreptitious looks at him, not sure if I was trying to gauge his mood or simply drink him in just in case this was the last time I saw him.

His glasses didn’t quite mask the dark circles under his eyes, and there was both exhaustion and tension in his posture. Whenever he turned his head, he did so slowly, as if the muscles were simply too tight to cooperate, yet his shoulders were hunched low, almost slumped.

Stanford University
was emblazoned across his gray sweatshirt in red block letters. I wondered if he’d done that deliberately to throw a little salt on the wound or if it was just the next clean shirt in the drawer when he’d dressed.

Just looking at him made my chest ache. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to run to him or away from him. I thought it hurt to be this close to him right before I walked away the other night, but that was nothing compared to this. The dust had settled and there was no longer the panic, the adrenaline, the heart-pounding need to escape. All that remained were pieces to be picked up and the uncertainty of who would pick up which pieces.

I wasn’t sure just where to start, and his expression offered me no clues. Testing the waters with mundane conversation, I said, “Is Evan home?”

“No.”

Silence.

I tried being a little more direct. “You look exhausted.”

With a half-shrug, he patiently played along with my feeble attempt at small talk, though he still kept his eyes down. “Haven’t been sleeping.”

“You never sleep.”

His eyes finally met mine, if only for a second. “Not lately, anyway.”

More silence.

So we were going to play this game again, this dance around what needed to be said and heard. But this wasn’t something we could dance around. Tonight was a night for uncomfortable truths, the kind that couldn’t be skirted with humor or contained in the occasional lyrical bit of memorized poetry.

On with it, then
. I couldn’t quite maintain eye contact. “Listen, I want to talk about the other night.”

“I figured,” he said, his tone flat. He folded his arms across his chest and rested his hip against the counter.

I forced myself to hold his gaze. “I made a mistake the other night.”

“That makes two of us,” he growled.

I flinched and dropped my gaze, the words hitting me in the chest and making breathing nearly impossible. “Connor, I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” By the sound of it, he was speaking through clenched teeth.

“Will you at least hear me out?” I said.

His eyebrows lifted and his jaw set even tighter as he challenged me with a silent glare. I struggled to suppress the anger that wanted to come out. Whatever contempt he gave me, I had earned. If I had any hope of breaking through that contempt, I had to keep myself together.

Taking a deep breath, I said, “Look, I never should have walked away the other night. I mean, even if we can’t do this, it shouldn’t end like that. Or like it did last night.” I preemptively flinched, expecting another icy dig, but he said nothing.

A few seconds passed before I went on. “I’m sorry, Connor, I—” I set my coffee cup down, afraid my unsteady hands would drop it. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

“There isn’t much left to say, is there?” Every word was carved in ice.

“Connor—”

“I mean, what’s changed?” he said. “Did you suddenly remember how much you want to leave this place and decide to come back to the one offering you a way out?”

“No, no, it’s not like that at all,” I said.

“Sure about that?”

“Yes, I am.” I took a breath. “It has nothing to do with this place or that place or anything like that. I just figured out that I want to be wherever you are.”

He sniffed sharply. “Little late in the game for that, I’m afraid.”

His sarcasm set my teeth on edge and before I could stop myself, I growled, “Not a believer in giving second chances, are we?”

“Not when I’ve already given entirely too much to begin with,” he snapped. He slammed his coffee cup down on the counter. “Dani, I offered you everything I could think to give. I offered everything I
could
give, but that wasn’t enough.” He snorted bitterly. “I guess I should have taken my own advice about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” He looked away, releasing a breath through his teeth, and when he spoke again, his tone was gentler. “I offered you the rest of my life. That’s not something I offer lightly, nor is it something I’m willing to have turned down twice.”

“Yet I’m not the first woman you’ve offered it to, am I?”

He flinched and dropped his gaze.

“What am I supposed to say, Connor?” I tried to keep my voice gentle and steady. “You were engaged to another woman a few months ago, and now I’m supposed to believe you want—”

“You know
nothing
about what happened with Olivia,” he said.

“You’re right, I don’t know a damned thing about her,” I said. “I hardly know a thing about how your last relationship ended, so how am I to know you’re over her? That you have any business even thinking of marrying me so soon after you were engaged to her?”

“Okay, fine.” He narrowed his eyes. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I haven’t told you enough about my past. I guess I was too busy being with you to want to spend any more time wallowing through history, but maybe I should have if you can’t take me at face value.”

“That’s—”

“I mean, I could have spent an evening telling you about all the fights she and I had over stupid shit,” he said. “But that would have cut into the time I was enjoying with you, and given that we were so limited on time, it just didn’t seem like a priority.”

I started to speak again, but he wasn’t finished.

“Maybe the other night, I got off on the wrong foot.” He laughed bitterly. “Or the wrong knee, I guess. Maybe, before I proposed to you, I should have stopped to tell you that I never asked Olivia to marry me.”

I blinked. “What?”

He swallowed hard, the anger suddenly fading when he looked at the floor. “I never proposed to her.”

“But you—” I swallowed. “You were engaged, weren’t you?”

He nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yes, we were. Because somewhere along the line, we decided we’d been together long enough, we might as well get married.” He met my eyes again. “Never mind the fact that we were miserable together. Or the fact that she wanted kids and I didn’t. She was the last person in the world I had any business marrying, but she was there, I was there, and for whatever reason, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

I bit my lip. I had no idea how to respond.

He let out a breath. “Dani, I never laid awake at night staring at the ceiling and wondering what it would be like to be married to her. I never spent a solid week trying to find just the right time to ask. We were getting married because it seemed like the right thing to do. I asked you because—” He dropped his gaze again and exhaled. “It seemed like the
only
thing to do.”

I ran a hand through my hair, avoiding his eyes. “I guess I thought—” I swallowed. “I thought you asked in the heat of the moment.”

“It wasn’t the first time I’d asked you to come with me.”

“It was the first time you mentioned marriage.”

“What made you think it was the first time I’d
thought
about it?”

“You didn’t have a—” I hesitated. There was no way to say it without sounding shallow and materialistic.

“A ring?” An angry edge crept into his voice.

I exhaled, then nodded. “Look, I don’t care about a ring. I honestly don’t. I just thought, if you—” I sighed. “It just made me wonder if it was a last second thing to get me to come with you.”