“That all sounds amazing, Archie, really, it does. But I need my phone—merger stuff—so just let me run down there real quick and then I’ll be right back to clean up.”
“Clara, you’re barely standing as it is. You threw up for two days straight and had a fever of 104. You’re not going anywhere. If you need your phone that badly, I’ll go get it. But after you take a bath and get back in bed.”
I shrugged his hands off my shoulders. “Archie, I need my phone. Now. I can’t afford to be out of pocket for even an hour, much less forty-eight. I need to check my emails, check my voice mails, put out fires. I don’t have time to still be sick.”
“That’s ridiculous. If you’re sick, you’re sick. You don’t just get to declare you’re not.”
I pushed my hair back from my forehead. “Actually, I do. And I appreciate the hell out of everything you’ve done for me, but now I have to get back to work, simple as that.”
“I think that’s a terrible idea,” he said, standing in front of the door.
My headache bloomed large and in charge, clouding my vision but changing what I could see to full-on red. “I need my phone. I’m getting my phone. Whether or not you think it’s a terrible idea is irrelevant.” I stood in front of him, hands on my hips, expectantly.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Are you mad at me for taking care of you?”
“Is that what this is? Because right now it looks a lot like you trying to make decisions for me based on what you think I should be doing, and let me tell you, that’s never a great idea.”
“Holy shit,” he muttered, running his hands through his hair. “You’re picking a fight with me. I can’t believe this.”
“I’m trying like hell not to, Archie, so here’s the part where you realize I am more than capable of taking care of myself.”
“Is that what this is about?” he asked, incredulous.
“Goddammit!” I yelled. “This isn’t anything other than me getting my stupid phone and you thinking you somehow have the right to try and stop me.”
“I will get you your fucking phone if it’s so important to you,” he yelled back.
“God, you don’t get it,” I snapped. “It’s not just the phone, it’s trying to order me soup when I said I didn’t want it, and telling me to keep the windows shut when I specifically wanted them open, and telling me I should be taking a bath instead of a shower.”
“You’re mad at me because I want to help you? To take care of you?”
“Yes!” I threw the shoe I hadn’t yet put on, shattering a lamp on the nightstand. “I don’t need anyone helping me, and I don’t need anyone taking care of me. I have always taken care of myself, I’ve never needed anyone, and I can’t afford to start needing that now. I will always make my own decisions, do what I want to do and when I want to do it because that’s just the way I was made. I know you’re used to taking care of people, I know what you went through with your wife, but let’s get this straight now, I won’t ever be that girl, okay? I will never get used to relying on other people, because do you know what that gets you? Left alone, fucking broken, fucking unwanted. So I don’t need someone’s help, in fact I prefer the opposite. It’s easier that way, when you don’t expect anything from anyone.”
He was silent. The only sound in the room was my breathing, which was labored.
“Oh man,” he breathed, finally speaking. “This was never going to work, was it?”
My labored breathing stopped altogether.
We never even had a chance.
“I’m leaving in five days,” I managed.
I made sure of it.
“My new boss gave me a week to finish up here, before I have to be back in Boston to bid on my next project.”
I’d cut this off at every single pass until there was no possible way through.
“Maybe it’s better this way, Archie.”
Maybe I made sure it was this way, Archie.
“I’ll be back up here from time to time, over the next year or so, to check on the progress you and your team have made.”
Your team. Not our team. It was never going to be our anything.
“Maybe someday, we can try and—”
“What I said, what I told you. Those words . . .” He swallowed, and I ached. “That doesn’t mean anything?”
His expression begged me to tell him that wasn’t true.
I took a breath, held it, then let it out.
“If you leave, that’s it,” he said, his eyes so icy blue. “I’m done.”
“I have to leave. It’s my job.”
I am my job.
“You’re very good at your job,” he said, nodding. “Which is why I don’t believe for a second that you have to leave. You just got finished telling me that no one makes you do anything you don’t want to do.”
“This is different.”
No, it isn’t.
“No,” he said sadly. “It isn’t.”
He turned to go.
“I’m so sorry, Archie. I really am.”
He stopped, speaking over his shoulder but refusing to look at me. “The worst part, Clara?” Oh God, don’t say my name, I can’t do this if you say my name. “I know you’re sorry.”
He left. I finished putting on my shoes and went down to find my phone. It was sitting in the passenger seat where I’d left it.
Couldn’t you have just let him get your damn phone?
If I could have, I would have.
“No way.”
“Fuck that.”
“Guys, come on.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Fuck. That.”
“Thanks, really, thanks for being understanding about this.” I tossed the fork onto my plate with a clatter, the piece of cake forgotten.
I’d met Roxie and Natalie at the diner to tell them my news, that I’d be leaving sooner than I’d thought and to keep me up-to-date on all the wedding planning so I could make sure to be in town for any bridesmaids’ responsibilities. I’d no sooner broken it to them and taken a bite of Roxie’s Lemon Dream Poundcake when I was assaulted from both sides about what an ass I was being and how dare I leave town like this.
It had been a hellacious few days. I’d spent all day Wednesday still trying to rally from being sick while simultaneously wrangling my email back under control and trying to cram literally weeks and weeks of work I’d yet to do into the five days I had left.
I hadn’t been alone with Archie since that morning. Whether by coincidence or design, the only glimpse I’d had of him was during one very quick and terse exchange with him and his father about details on the summer season.
He’d refused to look at me at first, and when he did it was with none of the warmth and comfort I’d grown far too accustomed to seeing. His slow grin, his quick humor, the way his deep-blue eyes would twinkle when I was being naughty . . . or deepen when I was being truly naughty. This was all lost to me now, hidden behind a mask of strictly business and business only.
What did I expect? I’d broken his heart. I’d broken my own heart, if I had one. And I was no longer sure that I did.