And honestly, I’m not sure I can take any more myself.
“Elyse?” Jamie’s voice snaps me out of my meandering thoughts and back to the present: a back booth at Vinnie’s, with Jamie across from me, his deep, piercing brown eyes on mine.
“Hi,” I breathe.
“I lost you there for a second,” he says.
I swallow hard, holding Jamie’s gaze. “I’m sorry.” I slide out of the booth. “I just…I can’t.”
He breathes out a gentle sigh of frustration. “Okay…okay. I get it.” His eyes betray hurt, however.
I turn away from that hurt, walk away from him. Out the back door. Out into the alley behind Vinnie’s, ignoring Matty’s voice calling after me. I don’t know where I’m going, only that I’m walking fast, eyes blurring.
“ELYSE!” Cora’s voice does break through and halt me.
I stop, clinging to the chain-link fence, which rattles noisily. I turn to rest my back against the fence, and the diamonds press into my flesh.
“Where are you going?” Cora asks, catching up to me.
“I don’t know.”
“What’s wrong?”
I shake my head. “I just…I’m so confused.”
She rakes a hand through her long black hair. “Tell me.”
“Jamie. He’s persistent.”
“That’s a good thing, yes?”
I shake my head. “I can’t go there with him, Cora. I just can’t. If it didn’t work, Aiden wouldn’t ever recover. I can’t do it to him.”
“But?”
“I like him,” I whisper. “A lot.”
“Aiden is stronger than you’re giving him credit for, Elyse.” Cora twists her hair in her hands; coiling it into a knot at the back of her head and then letting it go to bounce around her shoulders.
“He’s not,” I say. “He’s fragile. Daniel abandoned him, and Aiden spent years wondering what he did wrong to make Daniel leave him. He still wonders about that, I think. He probably always will. How can I bring Jamie into his life when there’s no guarantee it would ever be anything but…” I shrug, lifting my palms up and then dropping them to slap against my thighs. “But what it was: good sex for one night.”
Cora groans. “You don’t know that’s all it was.”
“No, I don’t!” I say, a little loudly. “That’s the problem! I don’t know! If there was some way I could have a guarantee it would work out, that it would last…? I’d jump in and not look back. But there are no guarantees in life, and I can’t risk Aiden’s well-being for my own benefit.”
“So you’re just going to be alone the rest of your life because you’re afraid Aiden can’t handle a breakup you don’t even know would happen?”
“I mean, maybe when he’s older? I don’t know.” I push away from the fence. “I want to go home. You can stay—I’ll walk.”
Cora snorts. “Don’t be dumb. Stay here, let me grab my purse and we’ll go.”
“You’re having a good time, Cora. You don’t have to leave just because I’m lame.” I offer her a tiny smile.
She whacks me on the arm. “Duh, yes I do. That’s what best friends for life do.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re supposed to say I’m not lame.”
“Well, you kind of are.” She grins at me. “Love you!”
