If I Let You Go

“I thought you needed to talk to both of us.”

“I do. But I think the news might go down better if it comes after I’ve spent insane amounts of money on her.”

Buying her affection. Bad move, Dom. It irritated me when he showered Tilly with things she didn’t need to make up for his absence. It made her bratty for a while after he left, and I had to re-train her to be grateful for what she had, and remind her one of life’s most important lessons.

You can’t always have what you want.

“Dominic,” I said, with a sigh. “I know what you’re going to say. I know you’re going to tell me there’ll be more long business trips, and apologise because this isn’t what I signed up for but I really need to take some time for myself tonight. I’m cool with it, we’ll discuss the details when I get back.”

“I’m taking Tilly to New York.”

I tilted my head to one side, waiting for the punch line. It didn’t come. Dominic’s face remained serious, and I said, “What are you talking about?”

He took a deep breath, stepping into my room. “I got offered a job. Well, more like a promotion, really, and it’s a lot more money. But … it’s in New York.”

“New York,” I repeated, unable to gather a single coherent thought. “New York.”

“Yeah. You know, the city that never sleeps.”

“But you … I … Well, congratulations, but-”

I was dangerously close to slapping myself across the face to snap me out of my stupor and stop me stammering like a scratched CD.

“I know this is big,” Dominic said, “I didn’t want to drop it on you like this, but I planned to tell you this weekend, and I didn’t want to keep it from you any longer.”

“Any longer? How long have you known?”

“I got the offer in March.”

“March,” I choked. “It’s the end of sodding July now!”

“The job starts at the beginning of October, and we’ll be leaving mid-September. I wanted to give you some time to start searching for a new job, and my boss is happy to let me lay off the business trips to stay with Tilly if you find somewhere that needs you to start right away.”

So, I was losing my job and my home in less than two months, and he’d known since March – March. And I was supposed to be grateful for the “advance” warning?

I flicked the strap of my bag upwards, and threw it over my shoulder. “Is that all?”

“Yeah but don’t you want to talk about it some more?”

He glanced at my foot twitching in my shoe, eager to get away and I said, “No. I don’t.”

Without another word, I breezed past him, made a quick stop into Tilly’s room to give her a goodbye hug, then sped out of the apartment to begin my walk to Erica’s.

Chapter 2

Erica spotted the stress on my face as soon as I walked into her flat. Obviously, the plan was for me to console her about her latest relationship failure, but she quickly pushed the tissues she’d left lying around for dramatic effect to one side when she saw the steam billowing out of my ears.

“What the hell happened to you?” she asked as I dropped my bag down and launched myself onto her sofa. “You don’t usually look like this when you know there’s partying to be done.”

Erica was already ready to go. She’d slipped into her favourite LBD and full make-up, and her blonde hair was straightened to perfection.

“Dom,” I said. “Dom happened. He just waltzed back into the flat to tell me that he and Tilly are moving to New York in September.”

Erica’s green eyes widened in an almost comical way. “Like … forever?”

“Yeah.”

“So, where does that leave you?”