Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 164828 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164828 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Five days later
I sit on the balcony and stare at the unopened letter in my hand. I read the words on the front of it.
My darling Nathan.
It’s those exact words that have kept me from opening it.
She’s going to try and soften the blow as to why she left—justify it in some way—and I don’t want to hear it. She needn’t waste her breath, because the cold, hard fact is that she just didn’t love me enough to stay. No pretty words can take that away.
Amanda’s, my new therapist, words come back to me with her advice: If you don’t open the letter, you won’t ever move on.
She thinks that because I don’t know all the facts, my mind is holding onto the heartache, and holding me captive along with it. She thinks there’s a reason I couldn’t have my tatoo removed.
I throw the letter onto the table in front of me, and I sip my beer as I stare at it and then place it back down.
This fucking letter has been taunting me for six months.
I twist my hands together on my lap as I brace myself.
Fuck this. I pick it up and tear open the seal.
Nathan.
Timing hasn’t been kind to us, my darling.
* * *
I walk into Majorca airport and up to the reception desk, on a mission.
“Hello.” The receptionist smiles.
“Hello, my name is Nathan Mercer, and I am booked on a flight to San Fran this morning?”
“Yes.”
“I would like to cancel it, please.” Her eyes come to me in question.
I need to see her. “I’m changing my destination. I’m going to New York.”
26
Eliza
I hit apply, and I smile with a sense of accomplishment.
I’m going home, back to San Francisco, and back to my old life.
Sans Nathan, of course, but I’m not staying in New York and hiding from heartache like a coward anymore.
I’m okay, and I’m strong enough to be in the same city as him now.
I’ve rented an apartment in my old neighborhood, and I’m looking forward to catching up with my old friends. I’m going back to my beloved hospital, and I’m starting again.
I can’t believe I let a relationship rule me for so long. Even in grief, it controlled my thought patterns.
I mean, I know why I left.
But, I had to clear the last ten years from my hard drive and it was successful. It has finally been erased. Took its time.
There’s no denying that the six weeks in Nathan’s arms were beautiful and soul changing. In the end, though, it was tragic.
But it was just six weeks, and for every week we were together, I spent a month grieving it’s loss. Six weeks in love. Six months to recover.
I go to the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. I reapply my lipstick and fluff up my hair.
Henry Morgan is in town, and tonight, we are going on a date.
I’m not nervous. I’m excited.
For the first time in a long time, I’m thinking about me and my needs. I’m wearing a fitted black dress that has a low neckline and long sleeves. The skirt is tight, and it falls to just below my knee. My sky-high, strappy stilettos seal the deal.
I smile as I turn and look at myself in the full-length mirror. I rearrange my boobs in my bra and push them up.
I look good. I look like myself. Who I really am, before all this victim of heartbreak crap. I grab my purse and my keys, and I head out.
I’m meeting Henry at the bar of his hotel.
I smile to myself as I ride down to the ground floor in the elevator. Here I go.
Bring it.
Nathan
I get into the cab. “Where to?” the driver asks.
“The Four Seasons, downtown, please.”
“Sure thing.”
He pulls out into the traffic and I look out the window. I love New York. It has a buzz that can be found nowhere else on Earth. I watch on as the cab drives through the suburbs, into the city.
I go over what I want to say tonight. It’s all I’ve thought about for a week. I have prepared a speech in my head. She might be working, but that’s okay.
I’m closer to her than I have been in six months, and I can wait till tomorrow if I have to.
I click on the Find My Phone app—my constant companion over the last six months. I used to have it as a necessity as Eliza lost her phone every second day.
But now the necessity is for a different reason. Purely indulgent. It tells me where she is, tells me when she’s working, and it calms me that she’s safe. I’ve spent more time watching Eliza’s little red dot over the last six months than I have anything else.
The dot is closer now—so much closer—and hope fills me as I wait for it to find her. I watch it blink as it searches, and then it flashes as it locks on. There she is.