Isn't It Bromantic (Bromance Book Club #4) - Lyssa Kay Adams Page 0,75

blessing.” The words cut like broken glass, but she had to say them. “You are smart and sweet and . . . you are actually what he wants and deserves. I won’t get in your way.”

Michelle pressed her hand to the cushion between them. “You misunderstand. It’s not that I’m worried about you being in the way.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

“The inconvenient fact that he is and will always be in love with you.”

If Michelle had said those words twenty-four hours ago, Elena would have insisted they weren’t true. Now, she didn’t know what to believe. Not after all the things he said to her last night. But there was something she knew with certainty still. “It’s too late.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

That set Michelle back. Her mouth opened and closed before she let out a disappointed sigh. “Why, Elena?” Her voice was at once sorrowful and recriminatory.

“Because some things became very clear last night. I’m hurting him by being here. It’s better for him if I go back to Chicago now.”

“But do you want to go?”

Elena sloshed hot coffee on her hand.

“Is that a no?”

Elena sucked on the burned portion of her thumb and realized she was too exhausted to do anything but tell the truth. “No, I don’t want to go.”

“Thank God,” Michelle breathed. “I was afraid I was going to have to beat you with a giant zucchini.”

“It’s barely been more than a week! How can I already be this confused? How can I already be reconsidering everything that I’ve been working toward? What does that mean?”

Michelle shrugged. “That you’re human. That love is complicated.”

Elena set her mug on the coffee table and stood, too agitated to remain seated. She began to pace. “I feel like I’ve been walking around my whole life with smudged glasses and have finally cleaned them or something. But instead of seeing things better, I’m just bumping into walls I never knew were there.”

“Starting over is never easy.”

“I’m not starting over.” Her words came out like a petulant child insisting she wasn’t tired.

“Look, I know a little about what you’re going through. It’s hard to redefine yourself after so long of seeing yourself as one way. I was his wife. That’s who I was. I never stopped to ask myself if I was happy in that role. If I even recognized myself in that role. I think that’s why I ignored all the warning signs for so long. It’s not that I loved him so deeply that I couldn’t imagine not being with him. It was that I had lost touch with myself so deeply that I couldn’t imagine who I was without him. Redefining yourself is scary.”

Elena understood that on such a deep level that she felt tears prick the back of her eyes.

“When my ex-husband moved out, I spent about three weeks in this fog, you know? And then one day, I got out of the shower, all wet and naked. And I realized . . . I’m clean. I was really, really clean. I’d washed away all that disappointment and broken promises. I didn’t get dressed for an hour. I just walked around my house bare naked. I’ve never felt so free.”

“But—” Elena returned on the couch and faced Michelle. She shook her head at the last second and took a drink of her coffee.

“But what? You can ask me anything.”

“When you were first together . . . you loved him, right?”

“I did. I really did.”

“So, what went wrong?”

“He went wrong. I’m not saying I was a perfect wife or that I didn’t contribute to the problems in our marriage. But in the end, he just couldn’t stop chasing something that I could never give him.”

Something sour sprouted in Elena’s stomach and began a slow crawl up her throat. “What was he chasing?”

“I don’t think he ever really thought he was good enough. It makes me sad to think about it now, because he was so talented and smart. He had so much to offer, but somewhere inside him, something was broken. Something told him he always had to be better, make more money, chase the next big thing, the next big win. He forgot to appreciate what he had. And for so long, I let him run and chase those things. I thought I was happy to run along beside him. Until I realized I wasn’t beside him. We weren’t in the race together. He was running ahead, leaving me behind, and there was nothing I could