just wanted …” My voice breaks, and I clear my throat. “I wanted to say thank you.”
His brow furrows. It’s the first real sign of emotion I’ve seen in him since he walked out of his bedroom and ended us. “You’re thanking me?”
“For inviting me to stay here with you. It’s been”—everything—“nice.”
“Nice,” he echoes.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I get it out and look at the screen. “So, um … my Uber is here.” It’s time to go. My insides start to rattle as the reality of the situation takes hold.
This is the last time I’ll ever see him. Ever speak to him.
I stare at him, desperately trying to soak up the last remnants of him that I’ll ever have, imprinting him into my memory. Wanting him to come over to me. Say something, anything. Even if it’s good-bye. But even more, I wish that he’d tell me he made a mistake. That he doesn’t want me to go.
He does nothing.
I take a step back as disappointment cuts through me, and I reach for the door handle to close it.
“Dillon.”
My heart pauses at the sound of my name. I look over at him. “Yes?”
He stares at me for what feels like an eternity. Then, he looks away. “Have a safe flight.”
“Have a safe flight.” Those four words crush the small fragments that remain of my heart to dust and make my eyes sting with tears that I can’t stop.
Turning from him, I shut the door. The thunk of it closing is so final.
The end.
thirty-one
Dillon
Time slows down when your heart is hurting. The days drag on. I’ve been home for three days. It’s been four days since I walked out of West’s apartment. It feels like it’s been longer.
Not seeing him is agony of the worst kind. I miss him so much. I spent nearly seven weeks with him. The first two of them solidly. I got so used to being with him that not having him around is strange. And shitty. So very fucking shitty.
When I got to the airport after the Uber driver dropped me off, I ended up wandering around and sitting in the airport all night until my flight boarded in the early morning. I was sleep-deprived and emotional. My journey back was hella long with the two stops and plane changes, and looking back now, it wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had. Being stuck on a plane with nothing but my thoughts for company for long periods of time was torturous. But I hadn’t exactly been thinking straight when I booked that flight.
I just keep thinking if I hadn’t asked him to read the book, maybe I would still be there with him right now. Maybe if I’d never written the book at all, things would be different. But I guess it was always destined to end at some point. West and I had an end date stamped on us, but it was only him who was privy to the exact date and time.
The funny—or not so funny—thing is, I don’t even have a copy of The Two-Week Stand. I wrote it on West’s laptop, and stupidly, I never emailed it to myself as a backup. I wasn’t even thinking about that when I left his apartment. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized it. And I can’t bring myself to text him and ask for him to send it to me.
I haven’t heard a thing from him. Not even a text to check that I got home okay.
Not that I expected him to. Just hoped. But I guess when West is done with someone, he really is done.
So, after all of that, I have nothing. I don’t have West, and I don’t have my book.
Maybe that book was a curse anyway. I mean, West read some of it and dumped me. Not dumped me. You can’t be dumped if you’re not in a relationship.
He just … put a stop to us.
Actually, you know what? He did break up with me. I don’t give a shit what he might think or say, but for those seven weeks, we were in a relationship. He might not be grown up enough to admit it, but I am. And when he read that ending and saw that possible future with me, he got scared—okay, those are Aunt Jenny’s words. She thinks he maybe has unresolved issues from his mum dying and finds it hard to get close to people. Maybe he’s scared of losing them