Page 94

They sat next to each other at the kitchen table. Lola felt competing urges: she wanted to climb into his lap and she also wanted to throw her water in his face.

She wondered, too, what Aly was doing. If she was watching them through the window.

Please don’t ask about Aly, she thought, eyeing Justin.Don’t ask if I’ve missed you.

“Did you sleep with anyone?” she blurted out, immediately chastising herself for asking. She’d just wrenched open the door she was trying to keep closed.

He started to answer, and she stopped him. “Actually, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

He nodded. “I quit my job,” he said.

“Youwhat?”

“I couldn’t focus. I was a wreck. I had to get out before I ruined my reputation.”

“Oh, babe,” she said. He must have really been a disaster to risk his career like that.

“I want to find something with better hours,” he said. “A family practice maybe. Something that would allow me to have more of a life. To spend more time with the people…” He trailed off. “No, with thepersonI love.”

The present tense of what he’d just said felt very loud.The person I love.So he still loved her. She didn’t know what to say.

Into the silence, he said, “Tell me about you. How was your summer?”

“It was…full of self-discovery,” she said, which of course wasn’t exactly true. She’d discovered that she loved having sex with a woman, but as far as self-discovery went? She had still come up short. Not that she could say any of that. He didn’t deserve to know.

“I saw you haven’t posted at all. That must have been a nice break.”

“It was.” She nodded. “All kinds of breaks for me this summer. And you? How was your summer?”

“It was hard,” he said. He looked pained. “I knew I made a mistake as soon as I walked out the door, but it took these months away from you to really let it sink in.”

“I’m listening,” she said.

“I freaked out,” he said. “I was hurt by what the article said. I took it to mean you didn’t want to be with me, and I lashed out to protect myself.”

“You hurt me so that I wouldn’t hurt you,” she said.

He nodded. “I left before you could leave—my stupid fucking pride.”

This made sense to Lola; in fact, she’d heard it before from the girl she let walk away. She nodded. “You could have just talked to me about it.”

“I don’t know if I could have,” he admitted. “My ego was too bruised.”

“You walked out on something really good,” Lola said. “And I don’t know if we can get it back. It changed me, your leaving. I’m different now.”

Justin frowned, the corners of his beautiful mouth tugging down. He put a warm hand on her arm, and she shivered. His touch shouldn’t have felt as good as it did.

“You didn’t even call,” she said. “Or text. Or email.”

“I know,” he said. He looked at his hands.

“You’ve had months to reach out.”

They were quiet for a few moments. The vintage wall clock ticked; a seagull shrieked outside. Finally, he looked at her. His face was open and imploring.

“Look, Lola. The truth is I don’t care if we ever get married,” he said. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It shouldn’t have ever mattered.”

He was like a bleeding wound, just so raw and vulnerable. She’d never seen him like this. He leaned toward her. “I just want to be with you, and I’ll take whatever I can get. If you want to go back to exactly how things were before, I would do it. I would do itforever. Lola, I love you. You’re the love of my life. I know we can fix it.”