My body tenses. I don’t want to hear this. I don’t need to know how content or miserable she is.
“Because that’s love, Finn. We work at it every day, still, even though we both understand that the other person isn’t going anywhere, even when times are tough.”
“What are you saying?”
“Happy endings don’t exist. That’s your problem. You thought you and I would ride off into the sunset and let fate take the reins.” She squints out at the park and shakes her head. “Nope. Fate doesn’t stick around for happy endings—it only gives you the opportunity to work for one.”
Sadie’s been in Halston’s shoes. She’s had to withstand the pressure of being ‘the one.’ I know I lay it on thick. I expected to save Halston, and for her to save me. So that I could have my fairytale. And that’s not exactly fair.
Sadie slips her sunglasses back on. “I have to get back to work, but I have a feeling you’ll be okay. If she’s really the one, you’ll get her back.”
Halston is my soul mate, love of my life, my future. She’s a handful and a lot of work, but I’ve made it this far. Sadie’s right. Why would I give it up to fate now, knowing that fucker’ll fumble the ball?
She stands and continues down the sidewalk.
“Sadie?”
She looks back at me. “Hmm?”
“Thank you.”
The next morning, I admit to myself I don’t really like tea. Not every day. Even though it’s painful to be there, I miss Lait Noir. It can’t be any worse than being at home, so I get my laptop and camera and head down the street to the café for the first time since Halston left.
There’s nowhere to sit. It was idiotic to think fate had reserved me a table in a coffee shop or a park in a bench.
Honestly, what the fuck.
I check to see if my secret windowsill is open, so I’ll at least have a place to wait for a table to open up.
But what’s on the ledge sucks the breath right out of my lungs.
Memories hammer my brain like little metal bullets.
Not again.
I can’t go through this a second time.
This is a sick joke.
I walk over slowly, staring at the journal wrapped up in a leather bow. My chest tightens with regret, love, sorrow, longing. I look around, but nobody’s nearby. Maybe someone ran to the bathroom and left it to save their spot. Maybe it’s an illusion. Maybe fucking aliens beamed it down from outer space. Yeah, that sounds likelier than the other possibility.
It belongs to Halston.
I should walk away.
I pick it up.
Open it.
Like the first time, the opening lines slam me in the chest, but for a different reason.
December 8th
I think I’ve met the one. Which is strange, because that was supposed to be Rich. I never had this feeling with him, though. This fluttering in my tummy. I’m glad to report (fiiiinally) that butterflies do exist.
I can’t do this. I can’t be reading this. I continue.
Okay, butterflies are a bad way to describe love. That sounds more like lust. That would be fine too. I’ve always wanted to know what true lust felt like. I can’t possibly love this man I just met one week ago. Oh—Finn. His name is Finn.
I skip ahead.
January 23rd
Rough
Sandpaper kisses as calloused as your hands, as domineering as your fuck, as excruciating as your goodbyes. When you say hello, I can’t wait to do it all over again.
February 14th
He’s the last Valentine I ever want.
With that entry, there’s a rough sketch of us at dinner. All that time, she was writing. Just not for anyone else but her, like it was in the beginning. The journal is filled to the last line of the very last page. It’s an entry she wrote a few days ago.
April 15th
I still love him. He should have this journal. He knows my heart is this, these pages, these words. And my heart belongs with him, not me.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
A woman waiting for her coffee looks at me.
“This is yours,” I tell her, hoping she’s also in love with some schmuck named Finn. “Right? This is yours.”
She shakes her head, inching away from me.
In the top corner of the last page is a drawing of two black and white coffee cups with a heart around them. They each have Lait Noir logos scribbled in. Where it all began.
She’s here, I know it. I scan the café until I spot her in line, waiting. She must’ve been here the whole time, because there are a lot of people behind her, and she’s next to order.
I don’t hesitate to walk right up behind her. “Is this for me?”
She doesn’t turn around. “If you want it.”
I don’t even try to fight my pull to her. I’ve missed this, her. It sits like a hole in my chest, missing her. “Sit down with me.”
“There aren’t any tables.”
“I know a place.”
“Back of the line, man,” the guy behind me says. “You think I’m standing here for my health?”
“Two black coffees,” I tell the barista. I reach past Halston to put a ten on the counter and get a welcome waft of her shampoo. “Keep the change if you make it fast.”
The barista makes quick work of delivering our drinks.
Halston keeps her back to me as she picks up the coffee, inhales quickly enough that nobody’d catch it but me, and heads for the windowsill.
She doesn’t look at me once, but I don’t remove my eyes from her. “What’s wrong?” I ask and let my half-smile rip. “Are you worried I’ve let myself go?”
“I don’t want to look at you until I know what you’re going to say,” she says.
“I don’t even know what I’m going to say. Are we going to sit back to back?”
“If we have to.”
“I still love you too. How’s that for a start?”
She shakes her head. “I already knew that.”
I get a sense of satisfaction from hearing that. With all the things said between us, how we hurt each other, sometimes on purpose, how I told her I couldn’t let it go that she’d walked out on me, one might think it’d dampen my love for her. Not the case. “Sit,” I tell her.
She does and finally looks up. She’s wearing blue eyeliner. Little minx. With the sun coming in through the window, the blue makes her gray eyes pop. I take the place across from her. “I thought of you the other day,” I say. “Well, I think of you most hours of every day, but, in particular, I thought of calling you.”
She looks at her coffee and flicks the edge of the lid. “I had to delete your number or I would’ve called countless times.”
“Why didn’t you?”
She lifts one shoulder. “It didn’t seem fair. Not until I was ready.”
“So this?” I show her the journal. “It means you’re ready?”