Chapter 16 #2
Leah wanted to feel worthy of following in her father’s footsteps.
But CEO of a multi-million-dollar business?
She didn’t need to panic—not yet. Douglas wasn’t planning to retire in the next five years, but the inevitable day would come.
She felt like a fish out of water, still only months in, her knowledge limited.
The question she had to ask herself: could she do it one day?
Yes.
“So . . .is it how you remembered?” Leah asked. “This place.”
Ariana nodded enthusiastically.
“The pizza is exactly how I remember.” The crust was thin, but not too thin––crispy, but soft enough to fold. The slice folded effortlessly in Ariana’s fingertips.
The table was cluttered with half-eaten slices and a shaker of parmesan.
“It’s weird . . .because . . .this place has always felt like a part of us. I don’t know why, but I guess I was hoping I might find something if we came back here,” Ariana exhaled through her nose, looking intently at her hands.
Leah nodded, her gaze fixed on the table. “I get that.”
The pizzeria itself was a little worn, but it was the kind of place that felt like home, where the food was always perfect, and the company wholesome. It never seemed to lose its charm.
“I never came in here with Hannah,” Ariana admitted.
Leah traced the edge of her slice with her fingers. “Why?”
“Would it be strange if I said it felt like a betrayal? This idea I had of us in my head, it was locked away in this place––our place,” there was a long pause. “When Hannah asked my recommendation for pizza, I suggested the best reviewed place on the internet, not this place.”
“The idea of us?” Leah swallowed hard. It was all she heard from what Ariana had said. She recalled the social media picture of Ariana and Hannah eating pizza, she assumed the white box was from their pizza place, but maybe she was wrong.
Ariana leaned back, nodding slowly. “Of who we used to be, of what we used to be to each other, this was a sacred space for us, filled with memories, this city was filled with memories. The first twelve months I was here, it felt like every few weeks our history caught up with me, like a ghost on every street corner, waiting and lurking, ready at any given moment to jump out and remind me of all the things I’d given up. ”
The soft light in the corner flickered. The conversation slipping into deeper waters.
Leah glanced up at Ariana with a quiet sigh. “I can’t help but feel bad for Hannah.”
Ariana set her pizza slice down, folding her hands in her lap. “Don’t––”
Leah raised an eyebrow, leaning back slightly in her chair, unsure where the conversation was going, but willing to let it unfold.
“I . . .” she stopped herself, unsure if she was ready to delve into that particular topic of conversation. “I think Hannah has always liked the idea of us, more than us, if that makes sense?”
“Are you saying you feel like it’s disingenuous on her part?”
“Maybe, a bit on mine too.”
“How so?” Leah asked.
“Is this what you want to talk about?” Ariana asked.
“I guess I want to understand.”
Ariana nodded, she pulled the collar of her coat tighter around her neck; the pressure kept her scarf firmly in its place.
The best pizza place in New York served pizza on paper plates, and sauce from a re-used bottle, not luxury fine china, the heating was intermittent. It was obviously way down on their list of priorities, but the flavour made up for her blue knuckles and red nose.
“I overheard her say to her friends once that she couldn’t imagine starting over, that the dating pool was slim, and she would rather stay in a place of comfort . . .even if it didn’t feel right anymore.”
“Oh, was she speaking hypothetically?”
“I don’t know. I never brought it up with her after the fact, but after I heard it, I started to see things a little differently.
I think Hannah loves me, and me her, but I think the idea of a stable relationship, the security of good jobs, the convenience of having someone to split the bills with, the comfort of knowing there’s always someone waiting at home to hear all about your day whether they want to or not.
I think that became the driving force, I think the idea of someone not necessarily me was what she wanted.
” Ariana stopped for a bite of mozzarella heaven.
“Her friends play a big part, they joke about how they’ll snap me up if she ever let me go, they think our relationship is so perfect, and she wants them to believe that, I know she does.
It’s easier if they believe it and life resumes normal practice.
Any attempt to derail the train and she panics. ”
“You said you’d been sleeping in separate rooms?”
“Nobody knows about that. I wanted to tell someone, I wanted to understand what it meant, but it’s been swept under the rug ever since.”
“What does this all mean for us? What are we doing here?”
Ariana reached across the scuffed wooden table, gathering Leah’s non-pizza-wielding hand.
“I ended things.” The words slipped from Ariana’s mouth as though they didn’t have the power to shake the ground beneath them.
“You ended things?” Leah repeated.
Truthfully, the marinara sauce was the most wonderful thing she’d ever tasted, but as the last bite worked its way into her body, it was tasteless, her senses shut down, the sound of the cook shouting out pizza orders was muffled, her sight blurred.
She shook her head in an attempt to claw her way back into the moment.
Three small words that she longed to hear, but now they felt so surreal.
“It was a long time coming,” Ariana said.
Leah remained silent, the sudden loss of appetite poor timing with half of their pizza left.
What was she supposed to feel?
She wasn’t sure, the guilt from being a factor in Ariana’s decision to call things off outweighed the excitement at a rekindling between the two of them.
How was Hannah feeling?
It wasn’t Leah’s responsibility to care, but she did. She was human, she was empathetic, sometimes a little too emotionally involved, and she liked Hannah, despite everything, she had no reason to dislike her.
Was she heartbroken? Was it expected? Was she relieved? She almost wanted to ask the question, hoping the answer would ease the culpability.
“Leah?”
Ariana’s face snapped back into focus.
“Are you okay? I thought you might be a bit happier,” she said, curiously.
“I don’t want to be the reason you end things with Hannah.” Leah said, honestly.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to be the only reason. Is this something you would’ve done regardless of seeing me again? Because the thought of being the reason you ended things makes me feel awful.”
“You’re not.” Ariana reassured her. “Are you a factor? Sure, but you’ve always been a factor, Leah.”
“I don’t understand––”
“The reason we never got married, the reason I never wanted to get another dog after Lola passed. The reason we have a month-to-month tenancy agreement with our landlord. The reason we have no trips booked more than two months in advance. And––”
Leah listened intently, surprised by Ariana’s declaration.
“What?” Leah asked.
“You are the reason I still have an apartment in Michigan.” Ariana looked down at the pizza box.
“You have an apartment in Michigan? Since when? Grace never told me that.”
Grace told her everything; there’s no way she wouldn’t know if her sister had an apartment.
“I asked her not to. I bought it about twelve months after I moved to New York. I tried to sell it to myself and Hannah as some sort of an investment, a little nest egg for when we grew older, and if we ever chose to move back. I think I made myself believe that for a short while, but there’s a reason I never rented the apartment out, and there’s a reason the wardrobe in the spare bedroom is filled with boxes of your things. ”
Leah’s eyes widened. “My things?”
“You told me to throw away anything that reminded me of you, but I couldn’t do that.”
“You kept everything?” Leah couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
All these years she’d been pining after a relationship she thought was dead.
She tried every which way to move on, to gain some form of clarity from the most heart-breaking time of her life, but now it made sense.
There was a reason she could never fully move forward, an unknown pull, a sign from the universe that she’d never been able to explain, but it made sense now.
Ariana had never fully moved on either. Like a decorated wall in her new apartment, the paint had simply been covered, but the remnants of the old colour would live there forever.
“Yes, I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of any of it.” Ariana admitted.
She scooted her chair further to the left so she was almost parallel with Leah.
The pizzeria wasn’t the most appropriate place for a declaration of love, but in all honesty, Leah didn’t care.
She looked into Ariana’s eyes and it didn’t matter, nothing else mattered, only that moment, the two of them, together once again, against the odds, it felt like a dream.
“I don’t know what to say,” Leah whispered.
“Say you’ll give things another go? Say you still love me . . .”
“I’ve always loved you, Ari.”
For Leah, that was the easy part. Loving Ariana came naturally. Accepting the end of their relationship and the betrayal she felt did not, that was the part she’d always struggled with.
“Why do I feel like there’s a but––” Ariana whispered.
“Do you want me to be honest?” Leah said.
She shuffled nervously in her seat. She glanced around the room, but nobody seemed to pay any attention to them; that was the beauty of New York.
At every turn, there was something more entertaining than whatever you were experiencing in that moment, so even being amongst a crowd of people, there was still an element of privacy.
Ariana gulped.
“I have thought about this moment for over five years. I have pictured you attempting to win me back. I have dreamt about you turning up on my doorstep with a heartfelt apology and a movie-worthy declaration of love.”
“I can do movie-worthy,” Ariana said, softly.
Leah rested her hand on Ariana’s arm, a small chuckle escaping her lips at the sweetness.
“I know. I guess, when I thought about that moment, I never thought about the destruction it would cause. I never thought about the scars of the past and whether they would fully be able to heal. I thought about only you . . .”
“But, isn’t that all that matters?” Ariana countered.
“Sure, in a perfect world.” Leah sighed. She had to be honest; there was no other alternative. “I worry that I might never be able to forgive you.”
There was the bombshell; the words left her mouth and hung in the void between their bodies. Ariana flinched, but the recovery was quick.
“Oh,” Ariana’s eyes glazed over. “I didn’t think about that.”
“I’m not saying I won’t be able to, but I worry that what if I can’t? What if we give this another try and I spend the whole time making you feel bad for leaving me.”
“You’re not that person.” Ariana said, confidently.
“No, but love does crazy things to a person.”
“I’d be willing to try.”
“You would risk me hating you?”
“The risk of you not forgiving me and growing to hate me isn’t scarier than the idea of never loving you again.” Ariana’s voice was fragile, but determined. Her eyes cast down at her hands.
“I never stopped loving you.” Leah whispered, she pressed her forehead to Ariana’s, the weight of her own emotions made her fatigued.
“Me neither.”
It had been five years since they last stood in front of each other like this, their hearts heavy, trying to part ways despite everything they still felt for one another. Now, they were in a different place, a different time, older, but undeniably still the same people.
Leah’s throat tightened. “I’m scared,” she whispered.
She lifted her eyes, meeting Ariana’s gaze, the vulnerability was raw.
Leah closed her eyes as a memory flickered––the night Ariana packed her things, the coldness in her eyes that felt so unlike the person she had known.
It broke her in ways she had never been able to acknowledge until now.
She felt the knot in her chest tighten, realising the weight of the pain Ariana had caused in full.
“Let me make it up to you––” Ariana whispered.
The door to the pizzeria opened. Leah didn’t notice at first; her attention was fixed entirely on Ariana. Her hand was still in hers. But then Leah felt a shift, she looked up, her eyes drawn to the door as it shut behind a familiar figure.
Her heart stopped.
Hannah.
“Well, isn’t this sweet.”