Page 185 of Never Let You Go

I don’t know if I’m okay. My legs are antsy, and my stomach is tied in knots. “Just keep going,” I tell her.

The next video is several days later. Christopher’s stubble has grown. He’s in the dark, holding the phone in his hand, and as it moves around, I recognize the contours of the armchair in his bedroom.

“Alexandra. I know I should have told you how I felt earlier. I’m not good at talking, and that’s something I need to work on. Also, I don’t like being in the spotlight, but here I am. So, I guess that’s a start. I hate that I have to say this in public, but I don’t have a choice. If only I knew where to find you, I’d speak to you in person. I just want to hold you and never let you go, and I shouldn’t have said I didn’t want you here. The truth is, I did want you here. I’ve wanted you right fucking here since the moment you walked in.”

I know that, by here, he means in his bedroom, except he’s not saying it because this is a public video. He knows that I’d understand. And, somehow, the fact that we’re sharing this little bit of inside knowledge makes me feel closer to him.

“You kept saying you were going to leave. What was I supposed to do? I needed to protect myself, Alexandra. I might be a grump, but I’ve discovered something since you came into my life.”

He pauses.

“I’m breakable.”

And his voice actually breaks a little. “And I didn’t know that. I wasn’t breakable when I left my family at the age of fifteen. I wasn’t breakable when I built my business from the ground up. I wasn’t even breakable when I fought for Skye. With Skye, the kind of love I had for her before she was even born is the kind that made me a thousand times stronger than I really am. But the love I have for you, Alexandra, is the kind that breaks me. I knew it all along, and I tried to fight it, and here I am. Shattered into pieces.”

Tears are streaming down my cheeks, and Sarah nudges herself against me. Christopher stops talking for a moment, and the image moves away from him. It’s blurry until it adjusts on his bed. He slowly moves it to the nightstand, where a picture of me and Skye replaces the old picture of Skye as a toddler. I recognize the selfie we took in the kitchen, the one I’d emailed to Christopher so Skye could keep it. The image pans to the other nightstand, where my phone is charging. My heart skips a beat.

He has my phone?

Next, he directs the camera toward the closets. The doors are open, and my clothes are hanging there. He must have picked up my suitcases from Grace’s and unpacked my stuff.

In his bedroom.

He says nothing. This is for me only. He doesn’t want other people to know. Only I can understand. “If this isn’t what you want,” he whispers, “I’ll bring it all back. I just… I just wanted to feel you around me.”

My heart explodes.

I shut down Sarah’s phone, ignoring her protests that there are more videos. For now, I need a moment. I’ll get back to the videos when my heartbeat is close to normal.

I take a long gulp from my water bottle and stare outside the window to the landscape blurred by my tears. I try to tame the emotions that come rushing, if only because I’m sitting in a bus that gets more crowded every stop we make. But I can’t ignore that he loves me the way I love him, and that we both want the same thing. I might be strong enough to be without Christopher, but I know I still want him and won’t feel whole without him.

“Are you okay” Sarah asks, leaning her head on my shoulder.

“I’m good,” I say, faking a brave smile.

The next video, Christopher is at Justin’s, sitting at the bar, his face filling the whole frame. “Before I get started today, I just want to post an update that I haven’t heard anything from Alexandra. So, as far as I know, she probably hasn’t seen my videos. Or, if she has, she doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. Anyway, here we are.” He looks around and then back at the camera.

“I’ve been getting a lot of questions about why she left me. What happened between us. I’m not sure where to start. It’s kind of this gradual accumulation, and then this small thing that sent everything overboard.”

He narrows his eyes again, reading the comments. “Say it as it is.”

He takes a shaky breath. “What happened is, I pushed her away. And so, she left. Simple as that.”

His gaze leaves the frame. “I made her pay for other people’s mistakes. I have this tender spot, you see, and without knowing it, she struck me right there. And it was more than I could take, at the time.” His eyes are misty, and he squeezes his eyelids tight. “It was nothing she did.”

He focuses on the bottom of the screen, again. “Lots of fish—Are you crazy? Have you been listening to anything I said here? Alexandra is the one for me. Fuck this.”

The video stops.

The last time the bakery was live is three days ago. The image opens on the ceiling of Justin’s pub, then swerves to a pint of beer.

Christopher clears his throat, and Justin’s voice comes through. “Dude, stop the videos already. That’s not what your social media is for.”

“The fuck do you know about my social media?” The image swerves all over the pub again. “Alexandra said that before I start any campaign, I need to set goals. Well, my goal is to get Alexandra back. There. Ya happy, now?”

“You had too much to drink, buddy.”

“That I have. That I have. But I still know what I want. I want my Alexandra back.”

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