Cheska leaned forward on the table. ‘Really, Noah?’
That surprised him. ‘Of course. I want her to be happy.’
Okay, this was going left and he wasn’t quite sure why. Cheska was acting strange. Sceptical. Agitated. It was so unlike her. Their time together was usually nothing but chilled-out togetherness with some laughs thrown in. What was he missing?
Their conversation from earlier came back to him again and he immediately pivoted. ‘Shit, sorry – I’ve just rambled about everything that’s been going on with me today and I haven’t even asked what you wanted to talk about. Is something wrong? Are you okay? What’s happening?’
Before she replied, she picked up a piece of bread from the basket in the middle of the table, broke a piece off. That’s when he realised she was trying to figure out what to say. Oh, shit. This wasn’t good.
‘I’ve been offered a new job.’
‘What? That’s amazing! You really should have led with that,’ he told her, a mixture of relief and genuine happiness for her. ‘You didn’t say you’d applied for anything. Keeping secrets, Dr Ayton?’ he teased her. It took him a second to spot that she wasn’t laughing. Didn’t seem thrilled about her news. Wasn’t exactly celebrating.
‘I guess I was. Noah, the job is in Seattle. It’s a research post with a non-profit that’s looking at potential correlations between the early identification of Alzheimer’s and presentations in A&E. Could have been designed for me.’
Fork down, he sat back, appetite gone. Seattle? Hang on. What was happening here? What did this actually mean? This wasn’t making sense to him. ‘Wait… Are you going to take it?’
‘I am. I’m just sorry I had to tell you about this today, but I handed my notice in at the hospital this morning and I didn’t want you to hear about it before I told you.’
Wow. All the jubilation from a few seconds ago had just been sucked out of the room.
‘And you didn’t want to talk to me about it before you took the job either? Even just as a friend?’
As she shook her head, he saw that her eyes had filled with tears. He’d never seen that before. Cheska had spent most of her career working in A&E and she’d long ago mastered the ability to hide her emotions in difficult situations. ‘No. I didn’t. Because I didn’t want you to change my mind.’
‘But what about us? You’re walking away from you and me?’
What the fuck was happening in his life? And why today? Next year he was going to stay home on February 9thand just let the world turn without him.
‘I am,’ she said, words oozing sadness. ‘Because I don’t really think we have an “us”. Noah, I love you. And when we got together, I thought maybe…’ The words caught in her throat, so she paused, before repeating herself, then going on, ‘I thought maybe this was it. The forever. All that hearts and happy ever after stuff. And I knew you’d need time, but, Noah, nothing is going to change. The way we are is the way we are always going to be.’
‘That’s not true…’ he began to object.
She reached over and put her hands over his. ‘It is. And that’s okay. I’ll always be the person after Anya, the one who came along when your life had been crushed by someone else. I’ll always be the friend that became someone more. And I’ll always be second to the other priorities in your life, to Tress, to Buddy…’
That irritated him. ‘Wait a minute, Cheska, I never said you were second to anyone…’
‘You didn’t have to. Noah, we never talk about the future. We never discuss what we are to each other. You never talk about where we go from here. And you never say that you couldn’t live without me.’
The force of that stunned him. ‘But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you, because I do.’
‘I know you do. The thing is, Noah, shallow as it sounds… I want to be the priority.’
‘But wait, you always said that your work was your priority. So doesn’t that go both ways?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. You’re right. But I think an element of that was a defence mechanism, because you weren’t ready to go all in. I would have changed that for you if you’d asked, but you didn’t.’
‘How was I supposed to know that?’ He felt blindsided. Completely confused.
Cheska shrugged. ‘I guess I wanted you to fight for me. I want to come first with the man I love. And if I can’t have that with you, then I’d rather walk away now because it hurts too much to keep waiting and hoping.’
The thing that stung the most was that he couldn’t argue with anything she was saying. Or give her guarantees.
‘Cheska, give us more time. Bear with me…’
‘No. I can’t, Noah.’ Tears were streaming down her cheeks now. ‘I want more for myself. I’m sorry.’ Lunch abandoned, she lifted the strap of her bag off the back of the chair and brought it round to her lap. ‘I’m going to go.’
‘Wait, so that’s it? There must be something we can do. Talk to me. Tell me what I can do right now to make this work.’
