Page 15 of Fragile Kiss (Fragile 2)
“It’s short notice, I know.”
“I don’t even care. I desperately need someone to talk to. You can go ahead to my house. The spare key is above the door frame.”
Andrew coughed. “You’re a lot more enthusiastic than I had expected, and that’s saying something.”
“It’s been a long week.”
“It’s only Monday.”
“Exactly.”
Now he was starting to get the picture that something was going on. “You want to talk?”
The same waiter came over and put her food on the table. “Thank you,” Lillian said, seeing the line to order had gotten much longer. “Andrew, I’m eating lunch right now and I have a busy afternoon. I definitely need to vent to you tonight.” She sighed. “You have no idea how glad I am that you’re in town now, of all times.”
“Me...too?”
“Listen, I can’t guarantee that the house is super clean, but the sheets on the guest bed are clean. I’ll probably be home around six.”
“Good. I’ll get dinner for us. Is Cayden coming?”
Hearing his name dropped her heart to the floor. “No, he’s in Los Angeles.”
“Oh. All right, then. I’ll see you later.”
Lillian put the phone down and immediately dug into her sandwich, like it was the first food she had eaten in days. Am I stress-eating or happy-eating that Andrew is here? It didn’t matter. She wasn’t alone anymore. For the next couple of days, at least.
The afternoon suddenly didn’t seem so dreary as it had before.
“I THINK I COULDN’T take the thought of holding him down until I get better,” she finished. She had been spurting out everything she was feeling for the last ten minutes, and Andrew was somehow still listening attentively from his lounging position on the couch. The fleeting thought that maybe Andrew was glad about the breakup popped into her mind—Andrew had confessed to having some feelings for her last time he was here, but she had made it clear she didn’t reciprocate those feelings.
“I think breaking up was best,” he said simply.
The shortness of his answer confused her. “That’s it?”
“Yeah,” he said, shifting positions. “Even though you both really loved each other—and I know that because I saw it last time—you’re putting him ahead of yourself. Or so it seems to me.”
“You don’t think it was wrong?”
“Doesn’t seem wrong to me. What were his thoughts on it all?”
“I don’t know, really. I think he thought it was all nonsense. But I know he’ll realize later that this was the best thing for us.”
Andrew grunted, and scratched his chin. The way the shadows fell around his face made him look so much like Amelia right now. Lillian looked away. She couldn’t bear to miss Amelia any more than she already did.
“I texted him today,” she said. “I told him we should see other people. That it would help put things in perspective.”
“Perhaps, yeah.”
“Is it too late to be talking about this?”
“Nah.”
She frowned. “I’ve been monologuing.”
“You have, but I’m honored that you can talk about it with me.”
“Of course I can.” She stood up and stretched her arms toward the ceiling. “I don’t even know how I’m still functioning right now after no sleep last night.”
