Chapter 6
SHORT SHIFTING: UPSHIFTING EARLY TO REDUCE WHEEL SPIN OR SAVE TIRES
One month later
The quiet is the same as it has been since Leo and I ended. What’s new is how much I hate it. A month ago, I would’ve embraced the clean, controlled quiet of my penthouse. A life with minimal distractions and maximum output.
Now it feels like an echo chamber.
Every time it’s too quiet, my thoughts loop. Every memory with Leo replays. Every word he spoke wounds me again, just like it did the first time.
I shove back from my desk, my chair rolling an inch too far across the hardwood. A backdoor hack I scripted that will easily penetrate the system I was hired to breach swiftly and without notice fills by laptop screen.
It’s something I’ve done before, with ease. But I haven’t looked at it since I stopped working hours ago. I need to since it’s my job. Scrubbing my hands down my face, I mutter, “Get it together, Christin.”
I never thought I’d fall apart, certainly not over a man. I never would have predicted Leo would be the cause. It’s like a system breach I can’t isolate. Every time I think I’ve patched it, something else triggers a complete failure of my emotions.
My phone buzzes against the desk. I ignore it.
It buzzes again.
Annoyance flares, sharp enough to cut through everything else. I reach for it, ready to silence whatever notification is demanding my attention, and freeze.
I have a new email notification, which isn’t unusual. What shocks me is the sender.
From: Leo Hawthorne.
My stomach pitches in a way I absolutely refuse to analyze. For a second, I just stare at it, unable to believe what I’m seeing after a full month of silence. Now, after all this time, he emails me?
I set the phone down on my desk before I hurl it across the room. Then I take a few slow, controlled breaths.
In.
And out.
After getting myself under control, I reach for my phone before yanking my hand away. “An email from him shouldn’t matter this much.”
It shouldn’t.
It won’t change anything. It can’t undo the way he looked at me like I hadn’t just given him my soul hours before. The way he spoke about me not belonging in his world. Minimizing me.
Just thinking about it infuriates me all over again. This time, when my hand reaches for my phone, my anger propels me forward.
I open the email.
From: Leo Hawthorne
To: Christin Gage
Subject: I’m sorry
Christin,
I’ve started and abandoned this letter more times than I care to admit, which probably says everything about how badly I’ve handled this from the very beginning.
What you overheard me say about you was wrong. Not misunderstood or taken out of context. Simply wrong.
The worst part is I knew it the moment I saw your face. I realised, in an instant, exactly what I’d done. By then, it was already too late. The words were out there, and they’d done precisely what they intended.
They hurt you.
You didn’t deserve that. Least of all from me.
I’ve spent the past few weeks replaying that conversation in my head, convincing myself that if I went over it often enough, I might somehow find the version where I kept my mouth shut. The version where I didn’t become the man capable of hurting the woman who’d come to mean so much to me.
I haven’t found it.
There isn’t an explanation that will make the words acceptable. There is, however, a reason.
I allowed something I carried for years—something that had nothing to do with you—to shape what I said. It was a failure on my part, and one you never deserved to bear. My past should never have been placed on your shoulders.
Yet, that’s exactly what I did.
When I think about us now, I hear those words before anything else.
I imagine you do as well.
I’m not writing in the hope that this will mend what I’ve broken. I don’t expect a reply, and I certainly don’t expect your forgiveness. I simply couldn’t allow you to believe that those words were an honest reflection of how I see you.
They weren’t.
They never have been.
I’m profoundly sorry, Christin.
With my deepest regrets,
Leo
I read it once. Then again. A third time, more slowly, looking at every word for hidden nuances.
There isn’t anything but Leo alluding to something from his past, but is it really a justification for how he spoke about me?
No, and he doesn’t pretend it is. He’s not asking for absolution, just offering an apology.
My fingers clench around my phone when I realize there’s no deflection in his words. No attempt to twist what happened into something easier to swallow.
And yet, it’s not enough. The ache I thought I could manage by working so many hours blooms as hotly as it did that last morning.
I don’t know what I expected.
A part of me thought that Leo would fight to win me back. That he would show up in a way that matched the intensity of what we had before he broke it.
The email is Leo self-flagellating.
My thumb hovers over the screen, wondering what I should do. Should I delete it? Reply with the biting sarcasm coursing through my veins?
Instead, I hit the forward button and drop it in my girls’ inboxes. Then I text our chat.
Me:
Forwarding without commentary because I refuse to be the first one to interpret this.
It takes approximately two minutes.
Amy:
Oh. My. God.
Me:
That was my reaction.
Amy:
Do you think he’s trying?
Me:
To what? To get his shit together? Maybe.
Maya:
That email isn’t nothing, Christin.
Emery:
He’s also not trying to place the blame anywhere else.
Me:
I don’t know what bothers me more.
That he sent it or that he waited a month to do so.
Typing bubbles appear. Disappear. Reappear.
Emery:
Okay, yes. The timing? Rubbish.
Amy:
But read what he actually wrote.
Me:
I did. Multiple times.
Amy:
I didn’t notice any excuses. That’s rare.
I lean back, staring at the ceiling. “She’s not wrong,” I murmur under my breath. That is rare, especially for a man like him. Still…
Me:
He didn’t ask to talk.
He didn’t call.
He didn’t even try to explain why.
Dots fly fast. Then there’s a collective pause before the next message comes in.
Emery:
Maybe he accepts an explanation won’t help.
I hate how I feel when I read that because an explanation doesn’t change the fact that Leo said what he did. It doesn’t change that somewhere in his mind, on some level, he believed it.
Maya:
What do you feel?
I huff out a quiet laugh. “Of course you’d ask that,” I mutter. But I’ll answer it because these women know and love me. They know my standard modus operandi is to analyze, assess, and solve problems. This? This isn’t workable.
Me:
Annoyed.
Amy:
That’s not the only thing.
I sit up, yanking a hand through my hair. No, it’s not, because underneath my frustration, beneath the sharp edge of pain that refuses to soften, there’s something I still wonder about.
What triggered this to happen?
Before I can type that into the chat, Maya jumps in.
Maya:
Don’t hack me for what I’m about to say.
But he sounds like he means it.
The chat goes still for a second. No one types anything before both Amy and Emery chime in.
Amy:
Yeah.
Emery:
I hate to say this, but he didn’t have to send it.
I reopen the email. I can tell he meant it. I truly believe that. But no one has a right to make me feel bad about myself—especially the man I had just confessed my love to.
Me:
I think this helps me move on.
Knowing he’s apologetic.
You are all right. I believe that part, but that doesn’t mean I have to forgive him.
My phone buzzes over and over again, but I don’t read the messages. The girls know I’ll get to them later. Instead, I set my phone face down on the table before what’s on it can destabilize me any further. I announce to the empty room, “I’m not doing this. Not now.”
Maybe, not ever.
I refuse to respond just because Leo finally decided to pull up his adult-size fire suit and apologize—not when I’ve spent the last month trying to build up a version of myself that won’t crumble.
I roll back toward my desk. This time, when I sit, my fingers actually move. Code fills the screen again.
This, I can control. Predict.
Unlike him.
And for now, that’s exactly what I need.