18. Derek
“You”re what?” Derek shouted into the phone at his brother. He”d called him after the early argument with Theresa, not caring that it was barely six a.m. on a Saturday morning. Why did everything need to be so complicated? Why did Theresa have to be so stubborn, so guarded, and why did he have the compelling need to break through her walls?
But Jake dropped a bomb that he wasn”t expecting.
“You didn”t know?”
“Do I sound like I knew?”
“Jake, who”s on the phone?” Kayce”s half-awake voice sounded in the background. Jake must have put his hand over the phone, because all Derek heard for the next few moments was muffled noises.
The noises stopped and Kayce”s voice came over the line. “Derek, Mel made us promise we wouldn’t tell you that she was in town for the week. I”m so sorry. I assumed she had planned a surprise. I had no idea you didn’t know yet.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried his best not to yell anymore. “I didn”t know. She”s been ignoring my calls and texts.”
“Maybe she didn”t want to hurt your feelings by only coming for a quick visit? She said she had to do some paperwork for her visa. Maybe she thought she”d be too busy to see you?”
“Too busy to see me, but not too busy to have brunch with you and Jake?”
Kayce let out a big sigh. Jake must have taken the phone back from her or put it on speakerphone because his voice was the next one Derek heard. “You need to handle this, Derek. You can”t ignore whatever is happening between you and Mel anymore. It”s making you miserable, and no one likes to see that.”
“What do you mean, handle it? What am I supposed to do?”
“Talk to her. End things or figure out how things are going to be moving forward. But figure out what you want.”
“And what? See her parents at family dinners, listen to them complain to me about breaking up with Mel? Wait for them to compare Mel with any other woman I bring to dinner?”
Jake”s voice was quiet when he responded. “There are worse things than that.”
Derek didn”t have to ask him what he meant. He pictured himself and Mel, married, miserable, her resenting him for not wanting to spend years teaching overseas, and him . . . well, him spending every day with a woman who didn”t want what he wanted.
“We”ve grown apart.”
“I know.”
Derek cursed under his breath. Knowing that he and Mel were through was different from saying it out loud. He”d known for months, maybe even years, since she first left for Columbia three years ago, that they were growing apart. He couldn”t ignore it anymore, even if Mel didn’t want to face the truth.
They needed to talk.
A few hours later,Derek pulled up to the address Jake had given him. The crowded restaurant was a poor place for a breakup, but he didn”t have any other choice. According to Kayce and Jake, her flight back to Cambodia left that evening.
She really planned on coming back for a few days and not seeing him.
He stuck his hands in his pockets and walked into the restaurant. It took him less than a minute to find her sitting in a booth in the back corner.
She glanced up from the menu as he approached the table, her eyes widening in surprise when she realized that he was there. Then, almost as quickly, a sadness crept into her face, mirroring his own expression.
He pulled out the chair opposite hers and sat down.
He feltlike he”d lived through an entire week by the end of the day. The conversation with Mel was hard, but freeing. They both felt it.
And now they were both free to move forward with their own lives, no longer trying to change themselves out of a feeling of obligation to the other.
As much as he wanted to blame Mel for the end of their years together, they both had changed.
He couldn”t even find it in his heart to be mad at her for how she’d stopped returning his calls and texts. The look on her face told him everything. She still cared for him, and he”d probably always care for her at some level, but they couldn”t lie to themselves anymore.
She said she”d tried to stay in love with him, and that she”d tried to fight her attraction for someone else, but that she couldn”t do it anymore. And she couldn”t handle facing him, even over the phone or texts, knowing that she was drawn to someone else.
She didn’t know how to stay together, but was scared to end things permanently.
He knew how that felt.
And now, he sat alone in his apartment, watching the sun set over the city. All he could think about was going back in time and changing the way he acted over the last month.
He should have ended things with Mel long ago. He shouldn”t have spent the last month avoiding his feelings for Theresa. He shouldn”t have let his life get to the point where it felt this far out of his control.
The last rays of sunlight faded from his apartment as a new sound burst forth. Opera music, music he hadn”t heard for over a month, came from the shared wall of Theresa”s apartment.
Something inside him stirred. Hope. He lifted himself off the couch, walked out of his apartment, and stopped in front of Theresa”s door. He lifted his hand to knock, but the door was ajar.
He pressed the door lightly to open it, finding Theresa standing in the entry, arms crossed and waiting.
“Mel was back in town. I saw her today.”
She nodded, her face blank and emotionless. “I”ll turn down the music. It was stupid, I shouldn”t have blasted it like that. Sorry.”
“No, don”t.” He swallowed hard, wanting to tell her everything but not knowing how. “Your plants need the music.”
“You have your own plant. I should give your speaker back to you.”
“Mel”s gone.”
“She loves you.” It wasn”t a question but a statement.
He shook his head. “Not that way, not anymore. Not for a long time. We talked. It”s over.”
“Over?” She looked at him with big eyes filled with a vulnerability that he hadn”t seen before.
“Over. She”s on a flight back to Cambodia now.”
“So what now?”
What now? He could think of a million possibilities. The one he wanted most was to step up to her, wrap one hand in her hair and hold the other against her cheek as he pressed his lips against hers and kissed her in a way that he knew would only fuel his hunger instead of ease it.
But he couldn”t do that. Not yet. He needed to earn her trust first.
“You can keep the speaker. Your plants look beautiful. Play the music as loud as you want.”
He turned around and walked to her door, leaving the apartment. He made it halfway to his apartment when her footsteps sounded in the hall behind him. He turned to find her standing in front of her door. She studied him intently. “You hate opera music.”
He shook his head. “It just took me a while to understand it.”