As far as I’m concerned, Ava and I said all the goodbyes we needed to last night. I don’t like anything about her leaving like this for a lotof reasons, the most practical of which is that she’s putting herself in harm’s way for no good fucking reason at all. It would be one thing if the world had somehow miraculously returned to normal, and she was just going back to Texas to sort through her shit so she could come back later to visit or something. Hell, I might’ve taken off some time and gone on a road trip there with her. But with half my buddies back in New York deathly ill from this shit, and three of them actuallydead, this seems like the stupidest fucking thing I can imagine.
That old man might lookharmless, but Ava doesn’t fucking know him. She doesn’t know who he’s been around. And here she is, minutes away from getting into his car to drive all the way back to Austin, and for what?
It’s not like she’s got a job she has to get back to. When she wasn’t helping Meyer and me with the virtual tour stuff, she was taking all her conference calls and shit from my courtyard. I know she lives alone, so it’s not like she’s got a family missing her. She doesn’t even have any damn pets. Not so much as a fucking goldfish, so why the fuck does she need to go now?
The longer I stand here staring out the window, the more my suffocating inclination to cry morphs into anger.
I really thought she loved me.
And, no, I’m not so naïve and juvenile that I don’t understand why she’s going. I know she just wants to go home. She doesn’t live here, and she just wants to go home. But I really thought we’d forged a connection that superseded that. I thought she loved me enough to stay with me long enough for us to figure out the problem of distance, because I believed we were together. Being togethermeans you tackle problems like that together.
I’m also not stupid, and I know Ava does love some version of me. She loves the man on the stage. She’s loved him for a long time. And when I showed her the man behind the curtain, she cared for him, but not in the way I needed her to.
After all, everyone loves the pretty flowers, but only the person tending the garden cares about the ugly roots. And I really thought she was that person.
Pearl and Piper break away from Ava, who continues to chat with Meyer a bit, and the two women head back inside. They enter the front door, and I immediately feel the distinctive weight of disapproving eyes on me.
“Lucky,” Pearl says in a voice that suddenly sounds like a grandma that you don’t mess with. “Go out there and say goodbye to her. Do not let your pride put up a wall right before she leaves.”
I don’t turn away from the window, and I don’t say anything.
There’s a moment of silence and then the sound of footsteps crossing the room.
Pearl is now standing right next to me. “This doesn’t have to be the end of anything between you two. It can be temporary. But it can only be temporary if you don’t push her away just because you’re heartbroken.”
I grit my teeth. “It won’t be temporary if she gets sick from this and dies.”
“First of all, that’s a highly unlikely worst-case scenario.” Pearl stabs her knobby index finger into my shoulder, forcing me to turn and face her. “Second...if you really believeshe’s going to get sick and die from this, you’re not even going to go say goodbye to her? If you really believethat’s what’s going to happen to her, you don’t even want to talk to her one last time?” She stabs my chest with her finger. “You are being a pussy.”
And with that, Pearl gives me a sassy lift of her brows and walks away with Piper.
Being called a pussyby a little old lady has a strange motivational quality about it, and I step away from the window to march outside. I stand on the sidewalk about an arm’s length from Ava and Meyer, hands in the pockets of my trousers while I glower at her. They both look at me, and Meyer takes a hint and steps away.
Ava stares at the sidewalk between our feet before tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear and meeting my gaze. “Lucky, I’m really—”
“I don’t wanna fucking hear it,” I clip, and I can already tell this is going to get ugly, and I should’ve stayed inside. “I don’t know what you’re trying to prove right now, but this is fucking stupid, and you know it.”
She folds her arms across her chest. “It’s not stupid, and I’m not trying to prove anything.”
“Then tell me exactly why the fuck you’re doing this.” I flip my hand in her direction. “Whatexactly do you need to get back home to right now that you couldn’t go back home to later? You’ve been working this whole time. All your clients are paying you. They’re all doing everything virtually, so it’s not like you have to show up for anything in Austin. You’re not rushing home to anyone therewho needs you. Everything you’d be doing there you could just as easily keep doing here, so why the fuck do you needto go home now? ‘Cuz from where I’m standing, this seems less like you needing to get back home to something, and more like you’re just trying to get away from something—like me.”
Her jaw hangs open wordlessly for a second. “Lucky, I just…” She waves her arm at the street. “I don’t live here. I was only supposed to be here for a week. This was never supposed to be permanent.”
“Yeah, it was never supposed to bea lot of things that it is now, Ava. If you can’t see that, I feel reallyfucking sorry for you.”
She looks at the ground for a second, and when she looks back up, the tip of her nose is pink and the rims of her eyes are red. “Please don’t patronize me when all I’m doing is—”
“Oh, I think I shouldpatronize you right now, because you are way too fuckin’ smart to do something so goddamn stupid.” I hitch one shoulder flippantly. “But that’s alright, ‘cuz your priorities are loud and clear. You’re fucking terrifiedof what this is turning into, and you want to get away from me so badly that you’re more than happy to risk catching a disease that’s killing thousands of people all over the world every day.”
“I don’twant to get away from you,” Ava insists. There’s a little hitch in her words, and now her eyes are filling with tears. The sight of that threatens to throw me back into the suffocating inclination to cry, and I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I nearly draw blood. “I just want to go back—”
“Yeah, I know you wanna fucking go back home. You’ve been telling me for four fucking months that you wanna leave, so go ahead.” I jerk my chin at the car. “Get in that car and share a tiny fuckin’ breathing space with a perfect stranger for seven fucking hours and see how that works out for you.”
Her bottom lip trembles, and a tear slips out of her eye and rolls down her cheek. “Please don’t be angry right before I leave.”
A bitter laugh bursts out of my throat. “Oh, I’m not angry at all, ‘cuz I knew this was coming, so I don’t know why you’re still standing here flapping your damn jaw.”
A shaky breath leaves her lips. “Lucky, I’m sorry,” she says, reaching for me while she takes a step closer. “I’m not trying to—”
