***
Twenty minutes later, I took my seat at our usual table overlooking the east side of NY University campus and ordered a large latte, a chicken panini, and fries on the side. The café was almost empty at this time of day, which I attributed to lunch break being over and everyone stuck in class. Sean arrived a few minutes later. I had a few seconds to regard him before he spied me and strolled over. He was a few inches shorter than Mystery Guy, with dark-blond locks that tended to curl behind his ears, and hazel eyes to die for. If his blue shirt and black slacks didn’t scream PhD student and teaching assistant, then his rimmed glasses did. He looked a bit like a book nerd, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Coming from a family of academics, Sean was pushed into following an academic career, but his dream had always been becoming a pro racer. He had the physical strength, talent, and experience, but not the will to pull it through against his family’s wishes.
“Hey, you.” I raised on my toes to kiss him on the lips. He smiled and brushed his lips fleetly against mine. The feeling that something was amiss intensified. “Want something?” I asked. My hunger dissipating, I pointed at my still warm panini. Whatever he had to say, I decided I wouldn’t like it.
“I just ate,” Sean said, and took a seat opposite from me. I didn’t fail to notice how much distance he put between us. He folded his hands on the table and gazed up. His expression remained dead serious as he regarded me. His typically warm hazel eyes exuded none of the love I usually saw in them. Holy cow. I had never seen him this cold and calculated. It could only mean one thing. I might not have much experience with relationships, but I could see the telltale signs. My heart sank in my chest.
“You wanted to talk,” I prompted him to get it over with.
“Yeah.” He ran a hand through his locks, bidding for time.
“Just say it.” In spite of the turmoil going on inside, my voice seemed surprisingly calm and composed.
“Okay.” His eyes settled on my lips for a second, as though he was about to kiss me. And then his gaze moved down to his folded hands. He couldn’t even look me in the eyes. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what? Go to work? Study for a PhD? Live in New York? You’ll have to be more specific, Sean.” Hysteria bubbled up somewhere at the back of my throat. I swallowed hard to get rid of it.
“Us.” His eyes settled on me, and in that instant I had my answer. The last grain of warmth seeped out of his expression. Maybe he was scared that I might make a scene, shout, ask questions, beg him to want me. “We can’t do us anymore.”
He was breaking up. Call it intuition, but I had known it since the strange phone call; I just didn’t want to acknowledge it straight away. Strangely the realization didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. I didn’t want to ask, and yet I had to know. “Is there someone else?”
“No.”
My gaze searched his expression for a clue that he was lying, but found none. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“What then?” I asked.
He sighed and shook his head slightly. The passion I was used to seeing in his eyes returned, but this time it had nothing to do with me. “Do you ever get the feeling there’s more to life than what you have and what you do? I mean, I wake up, go to work, come home, do the same things over and over again. I don’t want to waste my life with this shit. I need more.”
I nodded even though his rambling made no sense whatsoever. The guy was twenty-five. How could he possibly have a midlife crisis? Black dots clouded my vision. I rubbed my eyes to get rid of the throbbing sensation gathering behind them.
“So you’re going for the racing thing,” I said.
“A while back I got a sponsoring offer from a French auto manufacturer,” Sean said, unaware of what his words did to me. “I’m flying over to sign the deal. It’s done. I can’t back off.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” I said softly.
His hand wrapped around mine, and he looked straight into my eyes. “You know you’re amazing, and under different circumstances I would have never let you go. But this is what I’m supposed to do. I can’t focus on both my career and this relationship. You deserve better than that.”
“Your calling, I get it.” You can still follow your calling while remaining in a relationship with the one you once claimed to love, I felt like shouting. And yet I remained composed, ignoring the sharp stab piercing my chest. Since Sean was breaking up anyway, now was the time to tell him about my cheating, but for some reason I remained quiet. Maybe it was selfish for me to want to part ways in good light, even if that light was nothing but a sham.
He gave my hand a light squeeze. “I want us to stay friends.”
I nodded. The pain in my chest grew stronger.