After You (Because of You 2)

Chapter Twenty Seven

It’s easier to go home after last night.

It’s easier to sit down at my office chair, fire up my computer, and get lost in my work.

I comb through the proofreader applications with disinterest. Derek had me all fired up to reorganize my life, to get a little more help and free myself up to have a life, but right now I don’t want free time. My work started to feel like an albatross around my neck, keeping me from the great, full life I could be living, but today I have clarity. Today my work looks like exactly what I built it to be—my safe place, something I enjoy that occupies my time and energy, and keeps my ass out of trouble.

I don’t hire a proofreader, and I don’t delegate to Louise this week. I work my ass off from the time my eyes open until the time I go to bed. When I finish catching up and actually have an hour of downtime before bed, I sink it into working on edits for Dreamcatcher. I’m glad I finished the meat of that story before now. I’m sure the desire to work on it would come back to me, but for now, it’s gone. I don’t want to write about people in love, and I don’t know when or if I will again. Maybe my muse will always come and go, or maybe my fourth book is the last one I will ever write. I’m fine with either outcome, really.

Once Derek fades back out of my life, I know there will be a stretch of time where I’m emotionally vacant, where the heart I’ve fought so desperately to keep him out of will ache every time it beats. I’ll need to keep busy, otherwise I’ll just be sad. I’ll get through it, and I’ll start over again. At least I’ll still have my life. I’ll only have to pick up the pieces of my heart. I’ll be okay.

Like a storm that’s already brewing, I know it’s coming, I just don’t know when.

He texts me casually Monday and Tuesday, but the interactions are lackluster. We both know we’re fucked; he’s trying to ignore it harder, but I don’t put much effort into it.

Wednesday evening he sends me a video of Cassidy ripping into her box of new books.

Thursday night he sends me a video of Cassidy informing him she wants me to read the bedtime story tonight, not him. Nice try, Derek.

Once Cassidy is in bed, he texts me some more, asking if I’m still coming out tomorrow. The thing is, I really don’t want to. When I left on Sunday, I wanted to leave. There’s a big difference between last week and this week. Last week, I was afraid he might break my heart again if things got too hard.

This week, I know he would.

I don’t even resent him for it this time. I’m no longer angry. I completely understand. Cassidy isn’t even mine, I’ve only been in her life a very short time, and already it makes me tear up to think of never seeing her again. She’s Derek’s daughter. He’s absolutely right to put her first, but that it’s justified doesn’t make it any less agonizing for me.

Instead of saying any of that, I tell him I’m too busy. I can’t get away this weekend. I have edits to work on, my own stuff to deal with.

“One night?” he asks. “You can’t spare just one night?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

He goes quiet for a while. I know this is the end, I just don’t know how long “the end” will take to run its course this time.

Instead of accepting my excuse, he texts me a few minutes later. “How about this? Cassie and I will come pick you up, that way you can work the whole drive here, and the whole drive back.”

I’m sure he knows the drive isn’t the issue, so I’m sure he’s not surprised when I tell him no again.

“Please? My friends are having a cook-out this weekend. Cassie’s excited about going, otherwise I’d say we could just come to you this weekend. It’ll be fun. Come with us.”

“I don’t have time, and no offense, but I don’t want to hang out with your friends.”

“You need to come this weekend, Nikki. It’s important.”

“Why is it so important?” I ask him.

“Because I’m afraid if you don’t come back this weekend, you never will,” he replies, more honestly than I expected.

I stare at that text message for a long time, not knowing what to send back.

I take long enough that Derek continues, “It’s not fair that you waited until right before you left to have that conversation. That’s not the note I wanted to leave things on.”

I sigh, my fingers hovering over the rows of letters, but I can’t make any words. I don’t have anything more to say. It sucks, it’s going to hurt like hell, but this isn’t a maybe anymore. It’s a no. There is no part of me that can see a future with him anymore. It doesn’t matter how much I wanted it, it doesn’t matter how hard I fought for it. It doesn’t matter that my heart waited for him, it doesn’t matter that I never stopped loving him, it doesn’t even matter that I never will. Derek and I were not cut out for forever. Maybe we could have been in another lifetime, but not this one. Not the one where he knocked up Kayla. That is our dealbreaker, he just doesn’t want to admit it.

I don’t want to live in denial, imagining that will never matter. I did all that before, and I’m done. I don’t know how to leave him. I wish he would just quietly accept that I’m already gone, and let it fizzle out instead of going out in a painful explosion this time. I don’t want another goodbye. I barely survived the first one.

I just want to exit this situation with as little pain as possible, and he isn’t going to let me.

“I can’t, Derek.”