Page 32 of Promises We Meant to Keep (Love in Massachusetts #1)

thirty-two

“I promised I’d call her.” Elia handed Abagail a glass of wine as she slid down onto her couch.

“And have you?”

Elia frowned. She hadn’t. She hadn’t been sure what to say, and she figured that if Kamryn really wanted to know that she would have called her already. “No.”

“Why not?” Abagail sipped her wine and crossed her legs. She was still in her outfit from work, the heels showing that she hadn’t even taken the time to head back to her condo before driving all the way out here. She’d been so worried since Elia’s last call with her, but Elia had needed time, and she couldn’t fathom doing that with a sounding board. Not yet anyway.

And it wasn’t actions that she had to figure out.

She needed to know what she was feeling.

“I love her,” Elia said simply. She’d said those words out loud already, but she hadn’t actually said them to anyone else. And she really shouldn’t be talking to Abagail now.

Abagail’s entire body tightened, frozen in place. “What?”

“I love her,” Elia repeated. “And I can’t be objective when I make decisions about what happens next and how to deal with this situation. I can’t.”

“Well, you’re picking a hell of a time to figure that out.” Abagail put her glass onto the coffee table, hard enough that Elia worried it might break. Abagail stood up sharply, and she paced in front of the large windows in Elia’s living room. “Are you serious?”

“Am I ever not?” Elia asked. She’d never seen Abagail like this before. She’d never witnessed this type of agitation from her, especially not over something as benign as this. “I don’t know what to do about it though.”

“About love?” Abagail’s voice cracked on the last word. “I’m sorry.” She ran her fingers through her hair and then rubbed circles into her temples. “I’m not… I wasn’t expecting this.”

“Neither was I,” Elia responded, setting her own wine glass onto the table. She couldn’t drink. Not at a time like this.

“What do you want me to do with this?” Abagail whirled around, her hands flying out around her.

“I want you to help me figure out what I’m supposed to do.” Elia couldn’t understand why this was so difficult. She always called Abagail for advice, and this was no different. “Not about my relationship with Kamryn. About my job, and hers.”

“You want me to save her job.”

“Yes.” Elia was pleading now. She needed Abagail to understand why this was so important. She needed Abagail to tell her exactly what to do because she couldn’t figure it out. “I’ve spent days and weeks and months trying to answer this and find a way where I can have everything and Kamryn can too, and I just can’t.”

“Because there isn’t a solution, El.” Abagail gave her a hard look, her chin dimpling in anger. “There isn’t a way where you both can come out of this the winner and be in a relationship and keep your jobs. It’s impossible.”

“Then what do I do?” Elia wasn’t sure she could force herself to ask that question again. She knew that having everything was going to be next to impossible, but up until this point, she wasn’t sure what the best solution would be for everyone, especially Kamryn. “I can’t take her down with me, and if I have to sacrifice myself for her, then I will.”

“Sacrifice? God, Elia. Do you hear yourself?” Abagail fumed.

Elia was so taken aback. She stayed rooted to the spot, her toes pushing into the ground as she refused to budge. “Do you hear yourself?”

Abagail stilled. “Yes. Sorry.” Abagail ran her fingers through her hair again, tugging on the strands before she seemed to settle right before Elia’s eyes. “This was unexpected.”

“Like I said, it was unexpected for me as well.”

“I thought you two were just…having some fun.”

“We were.” Elia shrugged slightly. “We did.” And then it had turned into something so much more along the way, but Elia wasn’t really sure when that had happened. She’d been trying to pinpoint the moment, but she couldn’t quite figure it out. Aside from that first time when Kamryn had come into her house so mad—raging on Elia’s behalf.

“All right.” Abagail sighed heavily before moving back to the chair and plopping down in it. “Fine.”

“Fine?” Elia asked, sliding onto the couch next to her. “You’ll help me?”

“I can’t not help you. No matter how hard I try.” Abagail groaned and covered her face again. “All right, there’s only one way for her to keep her job if that’s what you really want.”

“I can find another job.” Elia had no clue where, but she could find something that would support her financially until she could start drawing from her pension. That would give Kamryn the time she needed here to apply to be the permanent Head of School.

“Are you prepared for all that involves though? And I’m not just talking about applying for new jobs and interviews.”

Elia pursed her lips. What was Abagail talking about?

“You need to end it with her, completely. And you need to stay as far away from her as possible. No more dates, no more fake dates, no more individual meetings in her office or yours. None of that, Elia. You need to be done.”

The news rocked through Elia. She’d heard it all before, but this time it felt so much more real, and so much harder. With the confession of love still ringing through the air and still filling her soul, she hated that this was what she was going to have to do in order to save Kamryn from Elia’s mistakes.

“And then what?”

“Then you quit.” Abagail pointed at her. “And you move out of this house, and you go jobless for a while until you find something new.”

Elia nodded slowly. “All right.” She blew out a slow breath as it sunk in. “All right.”

“So how are you going to do this?” Abagail asked, her voice softening back into the compassionate friend that Elia had longed to have with her tonight.

Elia did need to figure that one out. Sipping her wine, she crossed her legs and sank into the couch. It was going to be a long night. Even if she planned everything out, she wasn’t going to be able to sleep. She was going to spend hours writing up her resignation and editing it and then staring at it while she pretended she wasn’t going to hand it in hours from when she finished scribbling her name across it in black ink.

“Tomorrow,” Elia said firmly. There was no other way. She couldn’t wait. It had to be now or never. And if she left, them Kamryn could stay. She could still run the Speech team and keep the kids learning and debating exactly as they should. Elia picked at invisible lint on her slacks. “I’ll do it tomorrow after the staff meeting.”

“Effective immediately?” Abagail asked.

Elia knew that should be the answer that she should give even if it wasn’t the one she wanted to hear. Nodding as her only answer, Elia kept her lips closed firmly.

“The end of the semester?”

“Effective immediately,” Abagail repeated. “You said you couldn’t make any decisions about this, that you would listen to everything I said.”

“I did.” Elia finished her glass of wine and set it on her knee, spinning the stem between her two fingers. Abagail was right, and Elia had been right. She couldn’t look at this objectively. Maybe if she got all of these negotiations and avoidant tactics out with Abagail then she wouldn’t do them tomorrow with Kamryn.

“So, effective immediately. Your contract says you have what…sixty days to move out?”

“Thirty,” Elia replied. She’d read it over that morning in preparation for this conversation. It still didn’t help her. She was going to lose in any scenario that she’d come up with so far.

“All right, so let’s start looking at apartments tomorrow.”

Elia frowned. She hated thinking about this. It was devastating to leave her home after this long. It wasn’t just the house, it was the people, it was Windermere. She didn’t want to leave, and the more she and Abagail talked about it, the more that sentiment solidified in the center of her chest. This was going to be the hardest thing she had ever done.

“I’m not sure I’ll be ready for that.”

“You have thirty days, Elia. You can’t hold off on this. You have to plan.”

“I can take a day or two.” Elia settled in, looking around her house at all of the things that she was going to have to pack up and put away. She’d been planning to help Maria and Miller move out next month, but now she’d be moving out first.

What a cruel twist of fate!

“What do I do if the board finds out about Kam and me?” Elia changed the topic. She needed the slight distraction.

“There’s nothing you can do.” Abagail shook her head. “That’s why I told you not to do it.”

Well, that hadn’t worked very well. Love was fickle in that sense, and Elia had ridden the lust train for as long as she felt she could. She and Kamryn needed to talk, seriously. Except that would also go against Abagail’s rules of never being alone in a room together again.

Maybe she could just drop off her resignation on Kamryn’s desk, leave and not come back. That might be the easiest way, but Kamryn would probably come after her then—in anger, in accusation, in frustration. Kamryn wouldn’t let Elia off easily. And that thought brought a smile to her lips.

“I can’t believe you,” Abagail said.

“I can’t either,” Elia agreed. “I never thought this would happen.”

Elia relaxed into her couch. “I’ll give her my resignation after the staff meeting tomorrow, and I promise you that I’ll leave the door open when she confronts me about it. Because she will confront me.”

Abagail clenched her jaw and shook her head. “You’re going to screw this up somehow. I know you are.”

“I won’t. I promise.” Elia gave her a wry smile. She took Abagail’s glass of wine. “More?”

“We’re going to need it, aren’t we?”

“Probably.” Elia made her way into the kitchen. “We should probably order some food to go with the wine. Especially if you’re going to help me write this letter of resignation that I’m turning in tomorrow.”

Abagail laughed. “Now I’m writing it for you?”

“Well, I imagine you’ve seen far more of them than I have.” Elia grinned at her. “Besides, isn’t that what best friends are for?”

“Best friends?” Abagail gave her a hard look. “Aren’t best friends supposed to know when their friend is in love?”

Elia shrugged and headed back toward the couch. “I didn’t admit it to myself until this morning, so it’s not like I’ve withheld information from you.”

“Admit it?” Abagail took the offered glass of wine and pointed it toward Elia. “You mean you truly didn’t know before now?”

“I didn’t.” Elia sat back down. “I might have if I’d taken the time, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to.”

“Because of everything that happened eighteen years ago?” Abagail sipped her wine, but she kept her gaze locked on Elia.

“Yes, because of that,” Elia agreed. “But also because I wasn’t ready to admit that perhaps love isn’t as bad as I had become to believe it was. Maybe Kam was right.”

“Right about what?”

“Loving someone is hard. Kam meant loving someone else, but I think loving ourselves is one of the hardest things we can possibly do.” Elia settled into that thought, to the realization that for the last eighteen ears, she’d done anything but love herself. She’d tried to be someone she wasn’t, and she’d tried to hide away from the world she had once thought would support her no matter what.

“Damn, that’s deep.” Abagail pointed her glass toward Elia. “You get deep when you drink wine.”

Elia smiled sweetly. “Sometimes.”