it take personally, like Courteney advised. I wanted to believe what she told me, that I was helping Cary.
I wanted, needed, to believe that I was good for him.
That I was helping, not harming.
But then I walked into the bedroom to collect my laptop, and I saw the envelope sitting on the bed. A white, letter-sized envelope.
And the gift bag I’d left for Cary, sitting on the floor by the bed. The gift bag I’d left outside the studio door for him before I went over to Danica’s place on Saturday.
I’d forgotten about it. But there it was.
Cary had been in here. He’d left both the gift bag and the envelope for me.
My stomach sank with dread as I approached the bed. I picked up the envelope, ripping into it as my heart slammed in my chest, and I noticed that the tissue paper poking out of the gift bag looked untouched, like he hadn’t even opened it.
It was a brief, handwritten letter on plain white paper.
Dear Taylor,
You’ve done a really great job and I’m sorry that it has to come to this, but hiring you to work with me while I produce this album was a mistake. I’m just not ready to have someone like you in my life.
I don’t know how to write a formal termination letter. It feels too cold, and you deserve better. But I can’t have you working here anymore.
You can keep the money I already paid you, as we agreed, of course.
You’re welcome to live in the poolhouse until the end of the six month term.
It might be best for both of us, though, if you move out now.
Cary
The paper shook and the words swam in my blurring vision. I had to wipe my eyes to make out the rest of it. At the bottom of the page, he’d written:
I never should’ve started something with you that I couldn’t finish. I’m sorry.
I dropped the letter on the bed. I was moving before I could even process everything he’d written.
a mistake
I pulled the single rolling suitcase I’d brought with me out of the bedroom closet and started packing it with clothes, toiletries, my laptop, everything essential. I’d just have to send Courteney or someone back for the rest.
someone like you
I left the garage opener and his car keys and his house keys all on the kitchen counter in the poolhouse, with his letter.
can’t have you working here
I locked the poolhouse behind me and I rolled my suitcase up the driveway, opening the gate with my remote opener. I’d give it back to Courteney the next time I saw her.
move out now
I walked up the street, then up the next street, and just kept walking until I felt like I could calm down enough to stop walking. Then I pulled out my phone and called a cab. I sat down on the curb in front of some beautiful house, and I waited.
I’m sorry
It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, walking out of there. My whole body vibrated with adrenalin and pain. My bones felt achy. I had a headache. I was trying so hard not to break down in racking sobs that my teeth hurt. But I’d promised myself. I’d promised myself that I would know when to walk away, before he hurt me.
So now I had to walk away.
Too late. I was always too damn late.
But I couldn’t even be angry with him for pushing me away. I wouldn’t blame him.
It was my fault.
I knew he was too damaged, too hurt, too broken, too lost when it came to love and his entire fucking life… and I still got involved. I let my heart get involved.
I let myself fall in love with Cary Clarke.
And he didn’t love me back.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Taylor
Fool for Waiting
August
The love I had for Cary was so big… I didn’t even know how big it was until I lost him. Until I was nowhere around him. Until he was nowhere to be seen, heard or touched.
Until I’d been kicked out of his world.
Denied access.
My VIP, all-access backstage pass revoked.
It’s just for a few months.
That was what I kept telling myself, so I could carry on.
It wasn’t so easy to do.
It came out of nowhere and hit me like a bullet to the spine, this love. Or the loss of it. I wasn’t sure which. I felt oddly paralyzed, even as the world kept spinning around me.
Eventually, he’d responded to my texts. Many days after he locked me out and then fired me,