Page 71 of That Weekend in Paris
“I’ll go back to my room and let you book a flight.”
“Dillon, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I say. “It’s been an amazing few days. I won’t ever forget them.” I start to leave then before he can try to stop me. It wouldn’t take much.
“Dillon,” he calls out. But I keep walking. I let myself into my room, close the door, and lock it.
~
I HEAD STRAIGHT for the shower, shucking off my clothes and stepping under the cold spray, hoping it will wash away the memories of this night.
I have no right to cry, but somehow I find myself doing it anyway. Tipping my head against the shower wall, letting the water sluice across my face.
It’s not as if I hadn’t known all along that we were living a fantasy, that it would have to come to an end eventually. I had known this on some level, and maybe I had just closed it out a little too well.
I have a life to go back to. A life to finish closing up and figuring out. And with the reality of that phone call a few minutes ago, I know that Klein does as well.
I hoped this would go somewhere. I can’t deny that deep down, I had imagined what it would be like to continue what we’ve started when we got back to Nashville. But Klein has a child, a newborn baby, and a connection to his or her mother, whether I want to admit it or not.
He’s a good guy, and good guys do the right thing. I know in my heart that he will offer to be there for Riley. If he didn’t do that, he wouldn’t be the man I know him to be. It’s not as if I can even resent this or wish for it to be different.
What we’ve had here has been a lovely respite from reality. It’s the best thing for both of us that the phone call came when it did. There would only have been more to regret, and I’m not going to need that, for sure.
There’s only one choice, and that is to let him go. No strings attached. I don’t want him to feel that he owes me anything, because he doesn’t. I got from this experience as much as I gave, and that is all that matters.
He texts me a few minutes after I get out of the shower, and says he has booked a flight for seven A.M. out of the Marseille Provence Airport.
I text him back and tell him I’ll be glad to drive him, which means we’ll have to leave in thirty minutes or so, but I’m not going to sleep anyway. He says he’ll be happy to go by car service, but I tell him there’s no need, and we leave it at that. I arrange to meet him downstairs in a half-hour, and wonder even as I do if this is the last time I will ever see him again.
Klein
“The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.”
?Charles Dickens,Nicholas Nickleby
I FEEL AS if someone has inserted a knife in my back, and I’m being ripped apart down the middle.
We’re in the car, twenty minutes or so from the airport. We’ve said very little since leaving thechâteau. Everything has changed between us. I feel it like the shift in barometric pressure before a hurricane. We may not be able to see what is coming, but we both feel it, and there is no escaping it.
I want to reach out and put my hand over hers, but it’s clear that I no longer have any right to do that. I want to tell her that somehow, someway, we’ll get back to this. But again, I have no idea whether that is true or not, and I know that I cannot lead her along and make her think something might be when I have no idea whether I can give her that.
We’re almost to the airport exit when I finally find the words to say what I’m feeling. “Dillon—”
“Yeah,” she says, her voice deliberately light.
“I need you to know exactly what being here with you has meant to me.”
“Klein, you don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do have to. You’ve made me want things again that I thought I no longer wanted. With my music and my life in general, you’ve made me see it in a completely different way, and I will forever be grateful to you for that.”
“I can say the same thing about you. Maybe we were meant to spend this time together to give each other a new perspective, a new outlook.”
I consider my words carefully. “I want it to be about more than that,” I say.
“Klein, don’t. It can’t be, and we both know it.”
I start to deny it, but I respect her too much for that. She deserves better.
