Page 91 of Due Diligence

“Hello?” I answered the phone like I didn’t know who was calling. I answered it as though I didn’t have his number—when I would still know it by heart even if it weren’t saved in my phone.

“Hey, hot stuff, how’ve you been?”

I was quiet when I heard his voice. It had been three years since we last spoke, but I still heard his voice the same way I did when it would rumble in my ear every night for the three years of our relationship. It was tinged with vivid memories of buzzy nights in our shitty apartment, smoking weed and having sex with the lights on because I loved looking at him, examining all his tattoos like they were new.

“Cass?”

“Trevor.”

“How’ve you been?” he repeated.

“Over the last three years?” I responded. “Fine.”

When he laughed, it was ice cubes in a glass of whiskey. The sharp odor of cigarette smoke. The cold touch of the hoop he wore in his lower lip.

“You’re back in the city, right?”

“For a year now,” I told him.

“And how did business school go? Did you finish?”

The question rolled over me with spikes. Briefly, I considered telling him I had never quit anything until I dropped out of law school to be with him. Finishing business school was nothing; I could have done it as a teenager, honestly. But something aboutTrevor always left me choking on words I would never utter. Instead, I simply said, “I did.”

“That’s cool, Cass. I know it was important to you.”

We were both quiet. Faintly, the sound of a car honk in the background broke through. “I’m in town,” he commented. “And I want to see you.”

I hated my stomach for reeling at that moment. I hated my body for still wanting him—needing him—after all these years. “Really?”

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about you a lot. And I’m in town now, seeing my buddy play a gig. I couldn’t not call you.”

Brimming with confusion, I leaned back in my chair and stared straight ahead. I had a black and white picture of New York’s skyline hanging on the wall. It was hideous—completely without substance or significance at all. But I needed something to look at in those moments when my mind wandered. I always needed something to look at to keep the omnipresent memories from cropping up.

“That’s not a good idea, Trevor.”

“Why not?” he questioned, his tone accusatory even though my response had been straightforward and sensible. “Because of how much you want to see me too?”

When Marcus put words in my mouth, it was different. It was knowing and seductive—and often worked wonders to open me up to sharing what I truly longed to say. When Trevor did it, it was demeaning. Presumptuous. Harsh.

So why the fuck was I even still listening to him, hoping he had yearned for me like I had yearned for him all these years?

“I woke up one morning and you were gone,” I reminded him, ending my pregnant pause. “No goodbye. No explanation. You were just gone.”

“I had a reason.”

“I would have loved to hear it.”

He released a cross between a groan and a sigh—a sound so familiar I could have picked it out of a packed bar. “Cass, we were kids,” he said. “I was twenty-five and you were asking me to move to Boston with you so you could get yet another fancy degree. I didn’t want that. It was too damn…domestic for me. And you knew that about me.”

“But you ghosted me,” I reminded him. The words were humiliating—hard to say aloud. “We were together for three years and you literally just disappeared one morning. Why would I ever want to see you again after that?”

“Because you still think of me.”

His answer was succinct, self-assured, and correct. I fucking hated how right he was.

“This is a bad idea,” I was murmuring.

“But I’m not wrong. You think of me all the time.”

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