Page 133 of One Night

"Think about what?"

"About whether I want to be with him."

"Amber, are you kidding me? You broke up with him?"

"I didn't break up with him. I just told him I needed some time."

"Which is the first step to breaking up. Why are you doing this? Because of your parents?"

"Because of a lot of reasons, but yes, the divorce is part of it. It's affecting me more than I thought it would."

"It'll get better. I promise. Right now it seems bad, but once your parents get everything settled, you won't feel like this."

"Maybe. Or maybe not. I just don't know. I've always had this romantic idea of love and what it should be, but I learned all that by watching movies and reading romance books. But when I think of real life, and look around at not just my parents but everyone else, all I see are couples who don't get along. People who claim to love each other but then go out of their way to hurt each other."

"Some people, not everyone."

"You hurt Austin and it almost destroyed your relationship."

She looks down. "But I didn't want to hurt him. I wanted to tell him the truth. I just couldn't. And now that we got through that, our relationship is even stronger."

It's true. She and Austin are much closer after their break-up but that isn't true for everyone.

"So what happens now?" she asks.

"He said he'll give me space but that he's not giving up on me. I'm not sure what that means in terms of us dating. I'll see him at work in the morning so we'll see how it goes."

"I know he said he's not giving up on you but he's not going to wait forever."

"I know."

She goes to her room, giving me time to think, but all my thinking just leads to more confusion. More doubts. Fear of making the wrong decision.

***

The next morning, I arrive at work and start on the new project, which is coming up with promo ideas for all the health fairs that will be taking place this spring.

Dylan shows up and sits across from me. "Hey, how's it going?"

His tone is different; friendly, but lacking the hint of flirtatiousness that he usually uses with me. And there's no flirtatious smile. It's as if we're nothing more than friends.

"Good. How are you?"

"All right." He starts up his computer. "So you're working on the health fairs today?"

"Yeah. The promo ideas. I started to make a list when I was here on Wednesday. Did you want to go over it?"

"I'm actually working on something else. Donna assigned you the promo ideas. I'm working on marketing materials for a medical conference."

"Oh. Why didn't you tell me that before?"

"Because you wouldn't talk to me all week."

"So Donna doesn't want us working on it together?"

"She assigned me a different intern to work with. I'm supposed to help train her."

I'd forgotten the other interns were starting this week. There are two others but I haven't met them yet.

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