Page 109 of One Life to Loathe

The sky was overcast when I emerged from the warehouse. Storms were imminent. I didn’t even know if I could make it back to the hotel before they hit. I also didn’t care.

By the time I made it to Essex Street, the rain was coming down in a torrent. I put one foot in front of the other, my head down—there was no foot traffic to avoid—and plodded toward the Hunter Hotel.

What was I going to do? I couldn’t keep putting off making my decision. I’d been doing that for days and look where it had got me. If I’d just told Sam the truth, even though she would’ve been hurt, she would’ve helped me figure things out.

There had to be a way for both of us to get everything we wanted. What was it, though?

I was so lost in thought that I didn’t recognize a car had stopped next to me until I was ready to cross to Hawthorne Boulevard. The mechanical sound of the window rolling down had me jerking up my eyes. There, I found Alexander watching me.

“What are you doing here?” I blurted out.

“Get in,” was his response. He inclined his head toward the backseat.

More therapy? That sounded painful. And yet he was all I had at this moment.

I wordlessly opened the back door and climbed inside. I didn’t bother with a seatbelt—and Alexander didn’t prod me—and stared forward as he pulled away from the curb.

“What happened?” he asked. “Did you make your choice?”

I told him about how things had played out—there was no reason to make myself look better in the narrative, so I was honest—and when I was finished, I sank into the seat and closed my eyes.

“It’s over,” I said in a hoarse voice.

“What’s over?”

“All of it.”

“Well, that’s a bit dramatic. I would expect nothing less from you, though.” Alexander didn’t take me to the hotel. He kept going into the residential area on the other side of the hotel. “What are you feeling?”

“I’m not feeling anything. I just … it’s over. I’ve lost her.”

“That’s also dramatic. You haven’t lost anything now … unless that’s what you want.”

“How can you say that?” My temper came out to play. “She’s gone. She walked away from me.”

“I thought you weren’t feeling anything,” he challenged. “That’s what you just told me. Obviously, you’re feeling something. Actually, you’re feeling a whole lot of somethings. Why not tell me what that is?”

“I … don’t know what you’re even saying!” I was at the end of my rope.

“Yes, you do.” Alexander wasn’t having it. “Stop being a baby and tell me what you’re feeling.”

“What kind of therapist are you?”

“The kind that gets results. Now tell me what you’re feeling.”

I could’ve screamed at him and hopped out of the car. I could’ve burned everything down inside his vehicle. I could’ve reverted to the old Leo. I didn’t, though. Instead, I just stared. Then I sighed, and it sounded more like a sob than anything else.

“I feel empty,” I replied. “I feel as if she built everything up inside of me, and then by walking away she hollowed everything out again.”

“That was a very good answer.” Alexander pulled to a stop in front of a huge Victorian house with a “for sale” sign on the lawn. He put the vehicle in park and then turned to face me. “Why didn’t you tell her about the job?”

“Because I was afraid.” I was laying myself bare now. I had to. If anybody could help me figure a way out of this, I knew it was Alexander. Somehow he’d magically dropped into my life at the right time, and as annoying as he was, he also had an unerring ability to read a situation.

“What were you afraid of?”

“Of hurting her. That was the last thing I wanted.”

“Why did you think it would hurt her if you guys agreed that there was an expiration date on your relationship?”

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