“This is a delicate case. I needed certain information and I needed to verify it myself. I can’t make any mistakes with this one.”
“And so you couldn’t answer my phone calls?”
I hesitated for a second. “Look, I could have called last night, but by the time my meeting was done, it was well after midnight. I didn’t want to wake you. And then I was called in for an emergency meeting first thing this morning. There wasn’t time-“
“Well, I’m glad that I found out now where I stand.”
She turned on her heel and walked into the house. I shut the door behind me and tried to figure out how to make her see reason. “Look, I might not have handled it the best, but I never intended to just leave you at the apartment like that.”
“You think I’m mad about that?” She laughed lightly and then started laughing even harder. “Robert, you really are stupid.”
“I don’t agree, but we can agree to disagree for now.”
She shook her head slightly. “Do you know what it was like to be stuck in an apartment that only runs on machines?”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s a bit of an exaggeration.”
“Hardly. So, I went out to grab some breakfast, except when I came back, I wasn’t allowed in.”
“I know, and I’m so sorry about that. I’ll have you added in all ways. I’ll make sure you have a key and-“
“You don’t get it!” she stomped her foot. “Nothing like that would have ever happened here. If I need someone, there are tons of people I can call. I had no one to help me there. I had no way to access my purse. Your brother had to pay for me to get a cab back here.”
“I’m really sorry. I can’t apologize enough. But this was a one time thing. It will never happen again.”
“I know, because we won’t be seeing each other again.”
“Over this? Because you got locked out of my apartment one time?”
“Robert, you just don’t get it. It doesn’t have to do with me being locked out. It’s about what it all represents. Look at our weekend. Can you honestly look back and say that we had a good time together?”
I opened my mouth, but she cut me off.
“Robert, we’re so different. Can’t you see that? I can understand a busy job. I can understand you not being able to call. I can even understand getting locked out of your house. But this all happened fifty miles from my own place. You live in the city and I live in a small town. You like gadgets all over your house and I prefer to open my curtains like a normal person. I’m just a simple person. I don’t want to spend my weekends in the city. I want to live out here.”
“In this shithole?” I asked, realizing only seconds later that it was probably not a smart thing to say. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did. Robert, you’re nothing like you used to be. We had simple dreams, but somewhere along the way, you started dreaming much bigger than I ever did. And that’s not a bad thing. I’m not saying that what you do or how you live is wrong. But we’re not the same people now. We don’t want the same things.”
“But if we just had some time-“
“Time won’t change the fact that we are on totally different paths in life.”
“But if you hadn’t gotten pregnant, we would still be together. Anna, I made mistakes and maybe I have a different life now, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t still belong together.”
She nodded slightly. “You’re right, who knows what would have happened if I never got pregnant. Maybe we would have ended up together. But you have to realize there’s a good chance this still would have happened. You were going to college in the city and I was always staying down here. We would have lived different lives anyway.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t believe she was dismissing this all over one weekend. She didn’t even try. “So, that’s it?”
“I’m sorry, Robert.”
I huffed out a laugh. “You know what? I don’t think you are. I think you judged me before you got a chance to know me. So, if that’s the way this is gonna be, I’m better off without you.”
She pursed her lips, but didn’t say anything else as I stormed out of her house. I didn’t know what to do now, where