?The hospital in Albuquerque is ecstatic to hear that I’m accepting the position—and two months ago, I would have been too. Instead of celebrating, I’m hiding away in my house, trying not to think about all the places inside it that Mackenzie’s been.
My bedroom is unbearable; her scent still clings to my sheets, offering both relief and pain, and after three days, I gave up trying to sleep in there, resigned to the couch until she fades or I move. Whichever comes first. There isn’t a moment that passes that I don’t want to call her and apologize, to explain everything and beg her to forgive me, but every time I pick up the phone with that intention, I remember how easy it would be for Dennis to destroy her career. How it would be entirely my fault if he was to do so. Ultimately, being with me isn’t worth being robbed of everything she’s worked so hard for, and I know that.
Which is why I’ve spent every moment I’m not working this past week wallowing in my armchair with a drink in my hand. It helps, but only a little.
I think that what I hadn’t considered before forcing Mackenzie to walk away from me was just how much she’s left a mark on me, how much I would feel it when she was gone. I reason that there had been no time to consider it, since I spent the first few weeks of our arrangement refusing to acknowledge that I’d been fighting a losing battle from the start—because I was, I now realize. From the moment Mackenzie asked me for a stupid selfie . . . I never stood a chance. She’s just too good, too perfect, and there was never any possibility that I wouldn’t completely fall for her.
It’s almost laughable that I would only fully realize it after there’s no chance to tell her.
Tonight is no different; I’m two drinks in while staring at the fire and feeling sorry for myself, but unlike every other night between the café and now—I can hear my cell phone trilling on the side table by my chair, the irritating ring grating my nerves. I pick it up with every intention of silencing it, since there’s no chance it will be the one person I want to talk to, but the name on the screen makes me pause, and I wrestle with the decision to ignore or pick up for at least twenty seconds before I sigh and answer the call.
“Oh, good,” Paul says. “You’re alive.”
“Barely,” I mumble pathetically.
“I’ve been trying to call you all week,” he grouses.
I take a swig from my glass, relishing the burn of the whiskey as it slides down my throat. “I hadn’t noticed. Been busy.”
“I heard that you put in your resignation.”
“Yep.”
“So you took the Albuquerque job?”
“Looks like it.”
“You don’t sound very excited about it.”
I laugh dryly. “I don’t, do I.”
“Have you ended your arrangement with Dr. Carter then?”
I wince. “Why do you ask?”
“Just guessing that might be why you sound like you’re in such a sour mood.”
“She has nothing to do with it,” I mutter bitterly.
“So that’s a yes, then,” he sighs.
“Yes, I ended it,” I answer. “A week ago.”
“Again, you don’t sound very excited about it.”
I take another drink, a longer one this time. I hiss between my teeth at the burn. “Yeah, well. It is what it is.”
“Oh, horseshit,” he scoffs. “Why end things if you were going to be this miserable about it?”
I hesitate, wondering if it’s a bad idea to tell him the truth. Now that Mackenzie is gone . . . I’m definitely short in the area of friends. I wonder if talking about it will help, or if it will make things more intolerable.
“I didn’t have a choice,” I settle for.
“There’s always a choice, Noah. In all things.”
“Not this time.”
“Tell me what happened,” he urges. “You can talk to me.”
Emotion wells in my throat, making my tongue feel too thick. I haven’t said her name out loud since I pushed her away; just thinking it is painful enough. Still, maybe it would make me feel less crazy to hear that I made the right choice. I think I need to hear it, just so I can start to try and pick up the pieces.
“It’s Dennis,” I sigh. “He found out about us.”
“That little weasel,” Paul snorts. “I assume he was ecstatic to gain that kind of leverage.”
“Well, he threatened Mackenzie’s job,” I manage tightly, her name on my tongue stinging just as much as I thought it would. “Mine as well, obviously.”
“That’s ridiculous. You should report him for harassment.”
“What good will that do? He knows what I am, and he knows that we lied. I don’t know if Mackenzie’s career can survive something like this, and I’m not willing to risk it.”
“Don’t you think she deserves to make that decision for herself?”
This gives me pause. The only thing worse than the thought of jeopardizing Mackenzie’s future with my lie is the guilt of lying to her. I know without a doubt that Mackenzie would do exactly as Dennis said she would, that she’d fight tooth and nail to try and have it all—just like I know that there is a high possibility it would go the exact same way. She would lose her job, and maybe at first she wouldn’t blame me, but eventually . . . It’s inevitable. It would be only a matter of time before she realized that I am definitely not worth throwing away her future for. I don’t have anything to offer someone as bright as Mackenzie. I’m not sure I ever did.
“It’s already done,” I answer quietly, closing my eyes as I lean back into my chair. I’d really like to down another drink and pass out on my couch right now, since the bed is out of the question. “I can’t take it back now.”
“So you’re just going to pack up and move? Leave it just like that?”
“That was always the plan,” I say with increasing irritation. “It wasn’t so long ago that you wanted that for me.”
“Well, that was before I thought there might be a shot at real life for you. Not just one that involves long workdays and nights spent at home. Alone.”
“There was never any suggestion that anything would even come from any of this. Mackenzie and I agreed from the beginning that it was a temporary thing. She wanted it that way, Paul.”
“And can you honestly say that’s what she still wants?”
“I . . .”
I stare at the flicker of orange and red behind the grate in my woodstove, frowning. The memory of Mackenzie’s face when I’d callously told her that I was ending our arrangement bleeds into my thoughts, just as gutting now as it was then. Even as desperately as she wanted to keep it from me, it had been more than clear that I was tearing her to shreds with my feigned indifference. Knowing that there’s a chance she’d begun to feel something deeper for me as I have for her makes my chest ache, because with all I know about her, that in itself feels like a miracle.
And I tore it all to shreds.
“It’s probably for the best.” I’m nodding slowly to myself, as if this might somehow convince me. “She’s too good for me, anyway.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Paul says. “The man who loves her is obviously the worst possible choice.”
I tense, gripping my phone tighter. “I never said I loved her.”