Page 57 of The Best Part of Breaking Up

His features shift with amusement. “That sounds a lot like an easy excuse for letting people act like assholes.”

“Really. It’s fine.”

He wades deeper, treading water. “Why do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“That thing, where you shrug everything off. Apologies. Support. Feelings.”

I scoff, indignant. “I don’t shrug off feelings. I have feelings. I’m not just a fucking billboard, I’m an actual person, you know.”

I don’t know why I feel this needs to be said.

“Yes, I do know. I’m just wondering why you’re not more critical of the people who seemingly don’t.”

I am seized with the urge to jump into the pool and strangle him. Or seduce him. It’s a fine line, mostly because I’m generally angry about how much I want him – and how much everyone assumes that I want him. The anger wins out.

“What do you want me to say, Quentin? That I’m hurt, and pissed off, and questioning every decision I’ve made for the past ten years?”

I mean it to sound sarcastic, but once again, as too often happens with him, it lands like something I didn’t mean to admit out loud.

“That sounds closer to the truth.”

“You’re infuriating, you know that?”

“Because I’m right?”

“Because you’re calling me out as if you have any right to. You’re telling me you’ve never let anything slide? That you haven’t made excuses to justify being here? You’re playing their game, same as me.”

“I know.”

“Well, then you also know that we all have to pick our battles.”

I realize he has drifted to the very edge of the pool, with his arms propped on the concrete in front of me. He’s doing that searching stare, like he’s looking for some hidden meaning in the contours of my face. His expression darkens, and he swims until there’s a more respectable distance between us.

“You’re right. We all do it,” he says. “But don’t you ever wonder if we’re fighting for the right things?”

He sucks in a breath and dives under the surface again. His rippled image launches off the wall and glides across the length of the pool, towards the deeper end. By the time he makes the turn and resurfaces in the shallows, I’ve already gathered myself up and made it halfway to the exit door. I catch the dancing reflection of the blue glow behind me in the glass. Quentin props himself against the edge and drags a shadowy hand down his face, surrounded by glowing blue.

“Heidi. Come back,” he calls after me quietly. “I didn’t mean to–”

“Your five minutes is up.”

I catch an unreadable expression clouding his features, and he doesn’t offer to explain it. He just watches me go.

15.

Despite my continued distaste for the billboard, my calendar is packed with consultations for new clients. In all my years with Freeman, Maxwell, and Lewis, I’ve never been this busy, not even when I was an overworked intern volunteering for everything I could to make a good impression, which meant practically living at my desk. I’ve been enlisting the interns to do most of the legwork on this current caseload, but I have to admit it’s a lot.

Of course, I’ll never actually admit that to anyone but myself. And why should I? I always manage to get by, and I comfort myself with the knowledge that I’m in control here. If I reach the point where ‘a lot’ becomes ‘too much’, I can always pump the brakes. The fact that I’ve never actually done anything resembling that seems irrelevant, really.

Bernadette gives me a look when I say goodbye to my fifth client of the morning shortly after one o'clock, passing me another folder on my way past.

“I hope you weren’t planning to eat lunch today,” she says. “Your next appointment is already waiting for you in the conference room.”

I glance at my smartwatch with a furrowed brow. Forget lunch, I’m wondering if I’ve even got time to pee at any point in the foreseeable future.

“Would you mind ordering me something?” I say. “I think I can squeeze it in after this, while I return a few calls.”

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