Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Noah
After Eva hadn’t responded to any of my attempts to get a hold of her and make this right, my decision is simple.
I fought all I could for us and can’t fight anymore.
I poured my heart out for reasons even I don’t understand, and she has dissed me repeatedly.
Yet, like a sick glutton for punishment, I still come back for more.
When Monday rolls around, I drive to work feeling worse than I could have imagined. Having drunk myself to hell all weekend, I’m forced to face the fact that our love is gone. No one has ever treated me with such disrespect, except for one person— and I erased her from my life.
A sick feeling comes over me when I realize I’m going to have to do the same with the only woman I have never wanted to live without.
Deciding to stay and move closer to be with Eva is turning out to be the biggest mistake of my life.
Rex and Michael are in the office, and after some very awkward moments, we seem good, and silently agree to forget what happened and move on.
After lunch, I busy myself with work, and it isn’t long before I thankfully lose my train of thought, and become preoccupied with all I have to get done today.
“Excuse me, do you come here often?” comes a playful voice from behind me.
I don’t have to turn and look to know who it is. My heart already breaks hearing her voice. I pause my work for a moment but then quickly continue the task.
She walks up to my side and leans against the table I have my plans spread across—plans I was trying so hard to fix and make sense of before she walked in smelling of regret.
“What, you’re not talking to me now?” she asks.
Sadness hangs in her voice and I hate myself for putting it there.
I want to grab her and kiss her, long and hard, until we both can’t think or feel anything but the way things should be between us.
Until carnal need takes over and we have to restrain ourselves from taking it further on the workbench in front of me. Just like we used to.
In the past.
Fuck, how did she already become my past when just last week she was the only future I would ever need?
But I don’t touch her. I don’t take her in my arms like I crave.
“I don’t think we have very much to say to one another,” I tell her, still not looking up from my work.
“Come on, Noah, you know that is not true,” Eva whispers, then slides closer.
When I don’t respond, she says, “I want to talk to you about something … something I hope you’ll be happy about.”
“Oh, so now you want to talk? Seems to me like Friday night all I could get out of you was a cold shoulder.”
Moving to the other side of the table, I try to put some distance between us.
“That’s not fair and you know it,” she whispers sadly.
I push back from the table and stare into her eyes. God, she’s gorgeous, her makeup is fresh and perfect, her hair is slipped back in a low ponytail. She’s dressed in a black blouse and a pinstripe pencil skirt that hugs her waist and ass perfectly.
But no matter how good she looks, or how good she smells, or how much I know no other woman will ever compare to her— to this, I have to stand my ground. I might need to make her my past, but if there is even the smallest hope for a future, she needs to listen and hear me out.
“Really, Eva? I’m sorry. Yes, please tell me how I can help you? What is so urgent that now you find the need to want to speak to me even though my endless attempts for your attention over the last few days repeatedly were ignored,” I yell.
Eva backs up. I’ve hurt her, I know it. But she’s hurt me too, and I need her to know that. No more fucking games.
“I wasn’t trying to ignore you. I was just trying to figure some things out,” she explains, shakily.
“Well …” I laugh. “I’m glad you figured out whatever it was. Now excuse me, I’m trying to work.”
I look back down at the plans and hope she gets the hint and leaves me alone. I can’t say goodbye to her, not like this. Whatever she figured out, good. I’m happy for her. But I’m extracting myself from the situation like I should have months ago.
“I came to tell you that it looks like I might have a job offer,” Eva says harshly. “In LA. They want to meet with me on Thursday.”
Shocked, and extremely pissed, my eyes widen as I look back up at her.
She’s leaving? How long has she known about this?
Is this what her drunken night was about?
Is this why she continued giving me the cold shoulder at the party and all the days that have followed?
Is this what her lame, what if I can’t promise you forever, was all about?
“It’s with the LA Times,” she continues, “This is a really great opportunity for me. And I wanted to share it with the man I …”
“With the man you what, Eva? With the man you love? Don’t bullshit me!” I yell at her.
“I’d hoped you’d be happy for me,” she starts to cry.
When silence stretches and neither one of us says anything, she shouts, “Why are you being like this?”
“Happy for you? Happy for you, Eva?” I shout. “You have to be fucking kidding me. I changed my whole life around just to keep you in it. Just to be able to hold you, to love you, to wake up next to you every damn fucking day. And for what? So you could leave me?”
I step towards her angrily. She backs up, fearing me and my wrath. Her tears are replaced with a fiery defense. “I didn’t ask you to change your life for me!”
“Yeah, well I never guessed you’d want to leave. So the joke’s on both of us, darlin’.”
Eva’s tears turn into full-out sobs, and it takes all my strength not to break and hold her in my arms.
But she’s leaving. She didn’t choose me. She chose herself. In all we shared, as short as it was, I never imagined it ending this way. I thought we were special, that what we had was special. But, at the end of the day, she didn’t choose us. She chose her.
“I hate you,” she whispers as more tears fall. She takes a few steps backward, still not taking her eyes off mine. “I hate you!” she screams.
“Yeah, well, I’m not too happy with you or your damn choices right now, either,” I spit back. “So looks like that makes two of us.”
She glares bitterly at me, and I know if there was ever a moment where I might be able to reach out and grab her back to me, it would be right here, right now.
I have a choice: I could break and follow her wherever she’ll go just to be near her. Or I can stand my ground.
But I don’t know how to fight for us anymore.
And so I let the moment pass. I let it slip right through my fingers, and know I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.
She runs faster than I have ever seen any girl run, straight out of Gatsby’s and out of my life. She bumps into Rex on her way out the door. He tries to grab her to find out what’s going on, but Eva is running too fast to be caught, and Rex turns his attention to me instead.
The look of a protective brother glares back at me as he approaches.
It isn’t often that I feel small in Rex’s presence, being several inches taller than him, though right now, I swear if Rex wanted to, he could beat the shit out of me.
A part of me wouldn’t blame him one bit if he did.
Hell, I probably wouldn’t even put up a fight.
He slows a few feet away and looks at me like I’m the worst man to ever walk the face of the earth. Time stretches over a few awkward minutes before he speaks.
“Now what the hell was that about,” Rex asks. “You going to explain to me why Eva just ran out of here crying worse than I have ever seen? You’re lucky Michael didn’t see that shit or your ass would be thrown the hell out of here.”
“I don’t know.” I sigh, running my fingers through my hair. “Fuck, I think it’s over, Rex. I’m not going to sit around and play any stupid games. She knew how I felt about her, and she wants something else. If she wants to go, I can’t stop her. I can’t change her.”
Rex’s face hardens. “You have to be the stupidest bastard on the face of the planet to let that walk out of your life.”
“I told you, she doesn’t want me. I tried, man.”
I start to walk away, because, damn it, I just want to be left alone, and for the first time in months, I’m ready to leave. I’m ready to go home. To get out of here and put as much distance between me and the West Coast as humanly possible.
“Please. You’re so full of it you can’t see through the bullshit anymore.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I ask. “Beg. Plead. Follow her everywhere like a little damn puppy. I’m not a pussy, Rex. She wants to go, she can go. Like I said, I can’t stop her.”
Silence falls between us as Rex sizes up the situation. He dissects me and my words carefully before responding. Eyeing me up and down, his callous face softens, grows almost sad for me over what I know I’ve just lost.
“Don’t look at me that way,” I say. “Fuck your pity. This is all on her.”
Taking another minute, he finally says, “Eva is the type of girl you never stop fighting for. Most men go their whole lives just wishing they could have someone, anyone, anywhere close to the kind of woman she is. And if you think you’re above that, you’re not the kind of man I thought you were.”
I let out a sigh of defeat, wondering how I even got into this mess in the first place. Looking at my friend, I beg for his help, not knowing where to go from here.
“What am I supposed to do?” I ask.
“Well, for starters, you can let go of your fucking pride.”
I laugh. He’s right. Eva deserves better than this.
Grabbing my phone from the table where the plans are scattered all over, I feel around in my pockets for my keys.
“How long of a head start do you think she has on me,” I ask Rex, breaking out in a run for the exit.
“The way she was running, and how she drives when she’s mad, there is no telling. She could already be in Fresno by now,” Rex hollers back at me. “Be careful, though, it looks like we are getting rain for the first time in years. Watch yourself.”
I look outside and notice the rain has already begun to fall. The storm they said would finally roll in hasn’t failed. The roads will be extra slippery now with this being the first rain in months. Looking back at Rex, I nod.
“Yeah, I know, slippery roads!”
“No,” Rex laughs. “Because if you hurt her again, I’ll fucking kill you.”
I laugh knowing it’s the truth.
Reaching outside, I run quickly across the parking lot. When I get to my truck, I’m completely dripping wet. Damn, it really is coming down, and reminds me of the strong thunderstorms that come through the south.
As I try to back out of my parking spot, I get stuck waiting for another car to back out first. Then, I get stopped in a line of cars exiting the parking lot. Finally making it out onto the road, I try my best to speed around some of the cars that are driving slower than molasses.
Where would she run off to? I could try her office. Maybe her apartment.
I should have grabbed her and made her listen. I should have tried harder and not let my stupid insecurities get the better of me. If she wanted to move, then I would move too—If she would have me.
She might have dreams she needs to fulfill from before we met, but she is my dream, and I’m not going to let her go easily.
As I make my way towards her town, the cars on the road suddenly come to a complete stop. I look around the cars for a way that I might be able to forge ahead, but there’s nothing.
A few minutes pass and an ambulance drives up the side of the traffic. Well, that can’t be good. Maybe they’ll get it cleared fast, and I can be on my way.
I try calling her but there’s no answer, and it goes straight to voicemail. I try again, but I get the same. It doesn’t matter, though. I’ll find her and make her listen.
Almost twenty agonizing minutes later, traffic slowly starts to move.
The rain pounds down against my windshield and makes it hard to make out any sort of the wreck as I pass.
The ambulance is gone, not having far to go as the only hospital in town is just a little ways back down the road by Gatsby’s.
With so many people standing around, and police and construction works on the road, I can’t make out the car in the wreck, either.
But whatever happened definitely doesn’t look good.
When I finally get through, I speed up.
I stop by her office first. It’s about fifteen minutes down the road. But they haven’t seen her since lunch. Great. I thank them and get back in my truck. I pull my phone out of my pocket, unsure if I should try her again or maybe Michael or Gwen.
Damn it, darlin’, where are you?
I make it a few minutes down the road towards her apartment when the phone I’m still holding, still trying to figure out who to contact next, starts ringing in my hand.
I glanced at it and see it’s Gwen. Well, damn if this isn’t perfect timing. She has to know where she is, and even if I have to endure her screaming at me for letting her run off in tears, which she undoubtedly knows by now, then so be it.
“Gwen,” I answer quickly. “I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t blame you but …”
Her sobs cut me off. I wait for her to control herself. Did she call me by accident? Why is she crying?
“Noah?” she begins in a shaky voice.
“Yeah?” I question. She doesn’t answer me. “Gwen, what’s going on? Is everything okay?”
“Noah … it’s Eva,” she says in a whisper.
My heart skips a terrifying beat. My hands turn clammy as I clutch the steering wheel. A haunting silence flows through my brain as I put it all together, the rain, the missed calls, the accident.
Fuck, what the hell did I just do?