Page 130 of All Too Well
Best,
Ainsley
Of course the reply from him is immediate and with one word.
No.
I mean, why would anything go my way? I climb out of bed and call Caroline.
“Hey, I hear you’re coming back soon,” she says as she picks up.
“No.”
“No? But Mr. K said ...” She’s quiet for a second. “Ohh, you’re like ... quitting?”
I sigh heavily. “No, I can’t afford to quit. I have a lease and a car payment, and it’s not like he asked me to marry him and move in, so even if I did quit, I’d be homeless and broke. So, yeah, that’s not the plan.”
“Then what is the plan?”
“I don’t have one yet.”
She laughs softly. “Oh, Ainsley, you went and fell head over heels for the man, didn’t you?”
I flop back on the bed and groan. “I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t in love with him.”
“Does he feel the same?”
“He told me he loves me.”
“And?”
The stupid tears are starting to pool. “And he told me he wouldn’t let me give up my dreams.”
“Dreams change,” she says, always pragmatic. “Maybe there’s a new dream for you both. You know, life is a ride.”
I laugh once at that. “A fucking roller coaster or a free fall is more like it. I was doing okay before having to come interview him, you know? Like, I’d learned to live without him as a part of my life, and while it wasn’t great, it wasn’t terrible. There was an ignorance to it all.”
She snorts. “Ignorance is bliss, but it’s still ignorance.”
“Well, now I don’t even have that.”
No, instead I have the knowledge of what it’s like to love him and to be loved by him.
It all sucks.
“So, tomorrow?”
“I guess ... I guess I have tonight to figure out if I’m getting in a car and heading to New York, or if I’m going to upend my life and live off my paltry savings account.”
“I look forward to either holding you as you cry and we drink red wine floatsorhelping you pack.”
Yeah, I just don’t know which one it’s going to be.
twenty-eight
Lachlan
“Ithink we should get her that one, Daddy.” Rose points to the bouquet that Janelle, the town florist, is holding up.
