Page 127 of The Hookup
“Nothing you do or say will ever make up for the way you've behaved.”
“Then give me a chance,” he pleaded, staring at the face he hadn’t seen in ages. He missed those lips, those eyes, her softness, and her concern. He missed her. All of her.
“This is pointless. It really is.” She was shaking her head now, a sense of irritation clouding her smooth face. And those lips. She was wearing lipstick, a different shade to the one she usually wore.
“Then why are you here?” he asked. She’d agreed to see him.
“Because you sounded desperate and because you annoyed the heck out of me on the phone. Please, let’s just say our goodbyes and be done with it.”
“What if I’m not ready to? Look, Kay. I know I've been a complete idiot.”
She said nothing. She didn't agree, or disagree, and it was bad because she seemed so resigned about it. “Don’t think I haven’t appreciated anything you’ve done for me. The truth is, I’ve never had anyone who has been there for me the way you have. I’m used to people letting me down. It’s become my default expectation of others. It’s what I expected from you. Only, you never did that to me, even when I treated you like shit, you still came back.”
Her eyes flashed at him, a burst of anger behind those brown irises. “I’m known for that. I told you, I’ve never been good with me. Seems like I attract all the losers within a one mile radius. But you…” She was angry, her face twisting, her voice sharp—the way she had never been with him before. “You’ve been the worst. It’s been enough to turn me off men for a good while.”
Shame rolled over him like a tractor, bulldozing him to the ground. He was desperate to make amends, desperate to make her understand but she didn’t seem interested. She was cold, and distant, and the warmth he had often seen in her eyes when they met, had been extinguished.
He wished he could turn back time, wished he could take back the words he had said to her. The truth would have come out eventually, but he could have delivered it more softly—the suicide, the seduction, the betrayal—things which had made himhim.Instead, he’d pushed her away.
But it was all he knew because there was safety in being alone, in not having anyone else to rely on.
“I can change, and things can be different between us.”
“You sound like how I was, months ago,” she said. “I used to think things would change between us; that we would move on and have a proper relationship one day.”
“It’s not too late.”
“It is for me. I can’t do this anymore.”
The muscles in his face tightened. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. “Don’t dismiss me as easily as I dismissed you.”
“You have a nerve to ask me that,” she shot back.
“I know. I’m trying to make amends. I still want you in my life.”
“I don’t. It stopped working for me even before you got ill.”
He looked at her in shock, smarting from the verbal punch she’d delivered. He hadn’t been expecting smiles and laughter, but he’d hadn’t been prepared for this, or her level of animosity. He’d been a shortsighted fool.
“Look, you've obviously had some sort of epiphany,” she continued, “and I get that you've had lots of time to think about things, but so have I. I know you’re recovering from an illness, and there’s never going to be a right time to say it, and I haven’t said it. I just went quiet hoping you’d get the hint, but I realize it isn’t the right way to finish things. And that’s why I agreed to meet with you now.”
“Don’t do this.”
“Hear me out. At least give me that,” she said. “You’ve been able to say and do as you please, you’ve been cold, and callous, and you’ve constantly told me exactly what we have. What wehad. I know. Iknowthat now.”
He flinched when she talked of them in the past tense. “We can make this work,” he insisted.
“I don’t want to make it work.”
“Night, Kay,” two men walked past, one of whom tapped her on her shoulder. The guy next to him was the one he recognized as that shmuck Geoffrey.
She nodded her head at them, saying nothing, but he knew her well enough now that he could read her expression. She was being wary, and wasn’t at all enthused to see them.
“Is that your boss?” he asked.
“Yes. With Geoffrey.”
“Thought I recognized the shitbag. I've heard you're looking to change jobs,” he said, hoping to redirect her anger.
