: Chapter 24

i knew that everything about this was going to hurt, but seeing the realization on Mackenzie’s face—the dissipation of her smile, the surprise in her eyes that quickly turns to pain, the way her mouth parts like she can’t comprehend what I’m saying—experiencing it all proves enough to actually me. I can almost feel the knife twisting in my belly.

And I can’t let it show.

She pulls her hands from the table to tuck them in her lap, looking away from me as her brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“I just don’t think it’s going to work,” I say flatly, everything inside me screaming to reach out and touch her, to take away the hurt forming in her eyes.

She laughs, but it’s humorless. “You don’t think it’s going to work.”

“I heard from Albuquerque, and they want me to start right away.”

“Do they,” she says hollowly, and I feel the knife twist deeper.

“It’s just that it’s going to be a lot more responsibility than I originally thought. Between the move and the workload . . . I don’t know if it’s the right time to try juggling a long-distance relationship.”

She laughs again, a brittle sound that makes my chest hurt, finally looking at me with teary eyes. “You don’t know if it’s the right time.”

“Listen, it’s not anything that you did, it’s—”

“Please don’t give me the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ speech,” she says angrily. “Don’t you dare, Noah.”

I feel my resolve wavering, the pain and anger in her face breaking me down. She’s trying to hide it from me, the way my words are cutting her, but I can see it in the rigid set of her shoulders, the way her jaw juts forward and her teeth worry at her lower lip like she’s trying to keep them from quivering. It’s something I’ve never seen before on Mackenzie, sadness, and I feel every ounce of it like it’s my own, like it’s a wound that I’m actively poking at. I know that after this it’s one that might never heal.

I have to remind myself that I’m saving her from a lot more hurt than this, knowing that she would never forgive me if I ruined her career. I can still hear Dennis’s smug voice ringing in my ears.

I take a deep, agonizing breath.

“Mackenzie . . . This was always supposed to be temporary.”

“Oh, fuck you,” she hisses. “You and I both know we moved past temporary out at that lodge. You asked me on a fucking date. Why did you ask me on a fucking date, Noah? And all the other shit lately? What was all of that, huh?”

I’m struck for a moment, seeing the exact second that I’m losing her playing out all over her face. I don’t think I could have ever anticipated it would hurt this much. Or maybe I did, and I just didn’t want to acknowledge it. I think that before this moment I had somehow convinced myself that it be something that we could both move on from; it feels like such a short time has passed since she first approached me in that tiny break room at the hospital, so how could something cultivated over such a brief amount of time have a lasting impact?

“I’m sorry,” I say. It’s all I say, really, because it’s the strongest thing I’m feeling. “I honestly am, Mackenzie. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“Yeah, well,” she huffs. “Good. Because I’m not.” Even through her tearstained eyes, I can see the way she tries to lock down her emotions. The way she’s desperately trying not to let it show how much this is wounding her. It only makes me want to soothe her more. “Like you said. This was always supposed to be temporary.”

She looks right into my eyes then, and part of me is begging her to see the truth there, begging her to me on this. Surely she has to know how I truly feel. I know I didn’t imagine these last few weeks and all the little things that have been growing between us. I didn’t imagine the way this arrangement has started to shift into anything but casual. I want her to see through the lie. I want her to me. Just a little.

She makes a frustrated sound, slapping her hands on the table. “Did you ask me here just so I wouldn’t make a scene? Really? You had to choose the first place we ever went to? What, being an asshole wasn’t enough, you had to make it fucking personal?”

God, even like this, she’s beautiful. Even when she’s hating me. My hands itch to touch her, to take away every ounce of pain I’ve caused and tell her this isn’t what I want at all, and I have to keep them clenched tight beside me just to keep from doing so. It feels impossible to imagine never touching her again, —but torture is exactly what I have to look forward to. There’s no coming back from this.

I keep reminding myself that I’m doing this for her. Even if it hurts like hell.

“I really am sorry,” I offer quietly, not knowing what else to say.

What else is there to say?

“You’re sorry,” she echoes dryly. “Perfect. That means a lot.”

“Mackenzie, I—”

She grabs her coat, gathering it up hastily as she starts to slide out of the booth. “Just save it, Noah. Seriously. I get it.” She shoves her arms through the sleeves of her coat, untrapping her hair from the collar. The motion brings about a wave of her scent, and it’s less bright, almost bitter. It’s painful, knowing I’m to blame. “You didn’t want a scene, right? So let’s just cut this short.” She chuffs out another spiteful laugh. “We had a good time, right? We enjoyed our little addendum? No harm, no foul, really.”

“No, Mackenzie, that’s not what I—”

She pulls her coat tight, casting me one last hard expression, and I know it’ll be the last of her I’ll ever see. “Congrats on the new job, Dr. Taylor.”

I watch her walk away from me, seeing the way she wipes at her eyes while everything I am fights my decision to keep still. Part of me wonders if there had been another choice, if somehow we could have figured things out—but the more rational part of me knows that Dennis wouldn’t have stopped until he ruined my life Mackenzie’s for good measure.

So I say nothing, and I do nothing, feeling all the happiness I’ve gained in the last few weeks ebb out of me slowly, leaving me empty and hollow, most likely never to be seen again. Mackenzie doesn’t look back as she storms out of the café, and for a long time after she’s gone, I remain frozen at the table, letting it sink in that she’s gone. That she’ll never come back, and that I’ll always be a bad memory for her.

It’s almost funny how badly I had wanted to avoid complications like this. How I found them, anyway. How I’d do anything to get them back.

A bitter laugh bubbles out of me.

.

Turns out there’s nothing more complicated than love.

the hospital in Albuquerque is ecstatic to hear that I’m accepting the position—and two months ago, I would have been too. Instead of celebrating, I’m hiding away in my house, trying not to think about all the places inside it that Mackenzie’s been.

My bedroom is unbearable; her scent still clings to my sheets, offering both relief and pain, and after three days, I gave up trying to sleep in there, resigned to the couch until she fades or I move. Whichever comes first. There isn’t a moment that passes that I don’t want to call her and apologize, to explain everything and beg her to forgive me, but every time I pick up the phone with that intention, I remember how easy it would be for Dennis to destroy her career. How it would be entirely my fault if he was to do so. Ultimately, being with me isn’t worth being robbed of everything she’s worked so hard for, and I know that.

Which is why I’ve spent every moment I’m not working this past week wallowing in my armchair with a drink in my hand. It helps, but only a little.

I think that what I hadn’t considered before forcing Mackenzie to walk away from me was just how much she’s left a mark on me, how much I would feel it when she was gone. I reason that there had been no time to consider it, since I spent the first few weeks of our arrangement refusing to acknowledge that I’d been fighting a losing battle from the start—because I was, I now realize. From the moment Mackenzie asked me for a stupid selfie . . . I never stood a chance. She’s just too good, too , and there was never any possibility that I wouldn’t completely fall for her.

It’s almost laughable that I would only fully realize it after there’s no chance to tell her.

Tonight is no different; I’m two drinks in while staring at the fire and feeling sorry for myself, but unlike every other night between the café and now—I can hear my cell phone trilling on the side table by my chair, the irritating ring grating my nerves. I pick it up with every intention of silencing it, since there’s no chance it will be the one person I want to talk to, but the name on the screen makes me pause, and I wrestle with the decision to ignore or pick up for at least twenty seconds before I sigh and answer the call.

“Oh, good,” Paul says. “You’re alive.”

“Barely,” I mumble pathetically.

“I’ve been trying to call you all week,” he grouses.

I take a swig from my glass, relishing the burn of the whiskey as it slides down my throat. “I hadn’t noticed. Been busy.”

“I heard that you put in your resignation.”

“Yep.”

“So you took the Albuquerque job?”

“Looks like it.”

“You don’t sound very excited about it.”

I laugh dryly. “I don’t, do I.”

“Have you ended your arrangement with Dr. Carter then?”

I wince. “Why do you ask?”

“Just guessing that might be why you sound like you’re in such a sour mood.”

“She has nothing to do with it,” I mutter bitterly.

“So that’s a yes, then,” he sighs.

“Yes, I ended it,” I answer. “A week ago.”

“Again, you don’t sound very excited about it.”

I take another drink, a longer one this time. I hiss between my teeth at the burn. “Yeah, well. It is what it is.”

“Oh, horseshit,” he scoffs. “Why end things if you were going to be this miserable about it?”

I hesitate, wondering if it’s a bad idea to tell him the truth. Now that Mackenzie is gone . . . I’m definitely short in the area of friends. I wonder if talking about it will help, or if it will make things more intolerable.

“I didn’t have a choice,” I settle for.

“There’s always a choice, Noah. In all things.”

“Not this time.”

“Tell me what happened,” he urges. “You can talk to me.”

Emotion wells in my throat, making my tongue feel too thick. I haven’t said her name out loud since I pushed her away; just thinking it is painful enough. Still, maybe it would make me feel less crazy to hear that I made the right choice. I think I to hear it, just so I can start to try and pick up the pieces.

“It’s Dennis,” I sigh. “He found out about us.”

“That little weasel,” Paul snorts. “I assume he was ecstatic to gain that kind of leverage.”

“Well, he threatened Mackenzie’s job,” I manage tightly, her name on my tongue stinging just as much as I thought it would. “Mine as well, obviously.”

“That’s ridiculous. You should report him for harassment.”

“What good will that do? He knows what I am, and he knows that we lied. I don’t know if Mackenzie’s career can survive something like this, and I’m not willing to risk it.”

“Don’t you think she deserves to make that decision for herself?”

This gives me pause. The only thing worse than the thought of jeopardizing Mackenzie’s future with my lie is the guilt of lying to her. I know without a doubt that Mackenzie would do exactly as Dennis said she would, that she’d fight tooth and nail to try and have it all—just like I know that there is a high possibility it would go the exact same way. She would lose her job, and maybe at first she wouldn’t blame me, but eventually . . . It’s inevitable. It would be only a matter of time before she realized that I am definitely not worth throwing away her future for. I don’t have anything to offer someone as bright as Mackenzie. I’m not sure I ever did.

“It’s already done,” I answer quietly, closing my eyes as I lean back into my chair. I’d really like to down another drink and pass out on my couch right now, since the bed is out of the question. “I can’t take it back now.”

“So you’re just going to pack up and move? Leave it just like that?”

“That was always the plan,” I say with increasing irritation. “It wasn’t so long ago that you that for me.”

“Well, that was before I thought there might be a shot at life for you. Not just one that involves long workdays and nights spent at home. Alone.”

“There was never any suggestion that anything would even come from any of this. Mackenzie and I agreed from the beginning that it was a temporary thing. She it that way, Paul.”

“And can you honestly say that’s what she still wants?”

“I . . .”

I stare at the flicker of orange and red behind the grate in my woodstove, frowning. The memory of Mackenzie’s face when I’d callously told her that I was ending our arrangement bleeds into my thoughts, just as gutting now as it was then. Even as desperately as she wanted to keep it from me, it had been more than clear that I was tearing her to shreds with my feigned indifference. Knowing that there’s a chance she’d begun to feel something deeper for me as I have for her makes my chest ache, because with all I know about her, that in itself feels like a miracle.

And I tore it all to shreds.

“It’s probably for the best.” I’m nodding slowly to myself, as if this might somehow convince me. “She’s too good for me, anyway.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Paul says. “The man who loves her is obviously the worst possible choice.”

I tense, gripping my phone tighter. “I never said I loved her.”

“Son,” Paul laughs. “You didn’t have to. No one feels this shitty about someone unless they love them.”

The suffocating emotions that I’ve been working so hard to suppress fill my head and my chest and everywhere else—my body feeling heavy and weary. Honestly, I’d just like to sleep for a while and forget.

“I’m going to have to let you go,” I tell Paul softly. “I have packing to do.”

Paul sighs, sounding weary himself. “For what it’s worth . . . I’m sorry, Noah. Truly.”

“Yeah,” I mumble. “So am I.”

I hang up without saying good-bye, immediately downing what’s left in my glass and shutting my eyes tight to focus only on the burn as it goes down. If I could go back—I would have never touched her. I would have never let myself know how soft she is, how warm . . . Maybe I would even go back to the beginning and tell her that it was a ridiculous idea, this plan of ours. I would face the board and take my punishment and that would be the end of it.

Except . . . I wouldn’t know what her laugh sounds like. I wouldn’t be able to recall the way her nose wrinkles when she’s thinking. The sweet softness of her scent that haunts me, even now. I wouldn’t her, and I feel like that would be an even greater tragedy than losing her, to never know her at all.

I don’t remember getting to my feet, but I feel my body carrying me down the hall toward my bedroom before I even realize where I’m going. It only takes seconds to fall into my bed, to press my nose to the sheets and breathe in deep. It’s still there, almost as strong as the day she left it, and scenting her feels almost like touching her, like she’s brushing back my hair or sighing in my ear. It makes everything better. It makes everything . It makes the reality even more crushing, because I know I will never touch her again.

I roll away from my bed as fast as I can, pushing away from the mattress like it’s burned me and cursing myself for coming in here again when I promised myself I wouldn’t. I stomp toward the bedroom door, only to pause just inside it, turning back to glance at the sheets as memories of having her there beneath me taunt me in vivid recollection, making that suffocating feeling inside almost unbearable.

I close the door behind me, making myself another promise not to come back even while knowing I’ll probably break it. Again.

Time for another drink.