“Okay, it didn’t take me an hour to load up.” His tone was dry. “As you established earlier, I can finish faster.”
I ignored the humorless joke. “Yeah, I figured it out when I went to your place and you were already gone.”
The glass was chilled in my hand, but it did nothing to subdue the fire that flared wildly until it was all I could feel. Maybe I didn’t need closure from him in the form of an apology. Perhaps all I needed was to tell him about the colossal pain he’d inflicted.
“God, Kyle. Do you have any idea what that was like? How much it hurt? I sat outside on the front step of your place, bawling my stupid eyes out.” I didn’t want to relive the memory, but it was unavoidable with him standing there, staring at me. I’d been too upset that day to drive, and my car had been far down the street, anyway. The shock and grief was physically debilitating, making it impossible to get to.
“On top of everything, it was so embarrassing! All your neighbors saw me, and I couldn’t stop crying like a fool. Fuck, it hurt just to breathe.” It’d felt like part of me was dying. Maybe it was. Kyle had damaged a section of my heart that still hadn’t recovered.
His expression was bizarre, as if torn between confusion and concern. So much time had passed, yet I shook violently just as I’d done then.
“Why?” I demanded, my voice breaking with emotion. “Why’d you do that to me? Didn’t I mean anything to you?”
There was no sound in the room. Light bounced off the water’s surface, casting ripples of blue beams on him while he stood motionless, holding his glass of unsipped champagne.
Then, he blinked slowly. “You meant a lot to me, Ruby. A lot.”
Why didn’t he just stab me with a knife? It would have been less painful than his words. “Then, fucking why?”
He was calm, my total opposite, as I was coming unglued. Kyle took a tiny step forward, but it felt enormous, like he was right up against me. “The plan was to meet at your place,” he said quietly. “When I told you I’d be done loading my car in an hour, I think you misunderstood.”
Confusion coiled in my mind. “What are you talking about? We were going to meet at your apartment.”
His shoulders rose as he drew in a deep breath, and his expression turned sad. “Do you actually remember discussing it, though? Because, honestly, I don’t. I assumed you knew I was heading your way.”
I stared at him, trying to process. In a professional setting, we excelled at communication, but personally? It was never our strongest suit. Had we said specifically where we were meeting? I’d been so twisted up about saying goodbye . . .
Wait a minute.
Wait one fucking minute.
Had I spent the last five years hating him for a misunderstanding that might be my fault, at least partly? My tone verged on horror. “What are you telling me?”
“I drove over to your place,” he said. “I waited hours for you to show up so we could say goodbye.”
Shock cemented me into stone, and Kyle destroyed me all over again, but he didn’t seem to notice. He leaned over and clinked our glasses together.
“Cheers.”