41. Mia
Chapter forty-one
Mia
My flight home is a blur. Despite agreeing with Will that we’d talk about it in the morning, last night I booked a commercial flight and left this morning, before Will. I couldn’t stand the idea of seeing him at the airport.
I dump my bags downstairs before heading to my bedroom, discarding shoes and clothes on my way. The tears are already falling. This is what I get for putting myself out there. To think, just twenty-four hours ago, I was fantasizing about coming home with Will, having dinner in bed. Doing other things in bed. Even thinking about it makes my sobs grow stronger and turn into wails.
An hour later, things have not improved. Every time I calm down, my mind wanders to what Will is doing, whether Will is also curled up in bed wracked with sobs. Is he relieved he finally said no to me, while I’m here, nursing a shattered heart?
I can’t even lay on my bed without remembering all the times I’ve laid here next to Will, watching a movie or chatting. I decide to indulge myself for a few more minutes, then I’ll get up and pack to leave for New Zealand tomorrow morning.
Hopefully, after some food, a hot shower, and a sleep, I’ll be feeling better about tackling the next few days. God, I’m grateful for Abigail. When I had messaged explaining some personal things have come up and I needed to move the trip, she arranged everything. She didn’t ask questions, only offering help and support if I need it. Absolutely the angel I need right now.
Twenty minutes later, and I’m sitting on my bedroom floor, list in hand. I’m almost packed, just waiting on a load of washing so I can pack my last few things. My phone dings, and my heart leaps to my throat. Will has messaged me about fifteen times, and after the last few, I haven’t even been able to bring myself to open them. Is this him again?
Chloe’s message appears after my seven messages to her, which she hasn't responded to.
Chloe:
Hey Mia, are you home?
Mia
I’m home, yeah.
I don’t know what else to say. This is the first time I’ve heard from Chloe in an entire week, despite me messaging every day to check in on her.
Three minutes later, there’s a sharp knock at my door. Is he here? I run downstairs to answer, remembering at the last second to glance in the mirror to try to tidy myself up so I look slightly less like I’ve been crying for the last eighteen hours.
Chloe is standing there, holding a box. She has a bottle of wine pinned under each armpit.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” I say. I’m too devastated to hide the lingering remnants of my heartbreak from her. Chloe is here? Unannounced? And Will’s not? I try not to make a show of peering around her.
“Can I come in?” Chloe gestures toward the open door with her head.
“Yes. Sorry, of course.” I take the bottles of wine, then stand to the side, letting her come in, and close the door behind her, taking one last peek to see whether Will is hiding around the corner. My heart nearly breaks all over again when I realize it’s only Chloe. She slips off her sneakers, and leads the way upstairs to the kitchen. Chloe grabs forks before she sits down, then, collapsing into her chair, she opens the cake box, and hands me a fork. Her mouth is full of cake before she even sits down.
Only after she has swallowed the rich chocolate cake does she meet my eye. I’m still holding my fork, and one of the bottles of wine.
“Jesus, Mia, you look like shit. Are you alright?” I laugh. I’m sure she can see I’m broken, but hell, she got a laugh out of me.
“Um. Not really, but I’m not ready to talk about it yet,” I say, putting down the other wine bottle and reaching my fork toward the cake. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Chloe’s laugh is brittle too. “Believe me, I get that.”
A tiny bit of relief tinged with hope lodges in my chest. Maybe things will be okay with Chloe after all. Maybe at least something will be okay. We sit, eating cake together for a few minutes. Despite feeling like I’m breaking apart over Will, having Chloe here and having things feel almost normal between us repairs one of the tiny cracks in my heart. Chloe takes a large mouthful of cake, then gets up, and grabs two wine glasses and pours two very full glasses. She slides one over to me.
A few sips later, Chloe starts to talk.
“I’ve been a shit friend, Mia. And I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve me just ignoring you—” She holds up her glass, eyebrows lifted high, and I stop my interruption. “—no, don’t excuse it. I know I’ve been shitty to you since before our Christmas thing.” She takes a large, fortifying sip.
“Look, I’ll get right to it. When you told us about the inheritance, I freaked out. That wasn’t the right thing to do, but I did. I just shut down. And to try to protect myself from what I was worried about happening, I pulled away.”
“What were you worried about?” I pick my fork up. It’s good to focus on something other than Will for a few minutes. Well, not good, but I feel more human, at least.
Chloe focuses her gaze over the top of my head, eyes shiny, and cradles her glass in two hands. “I was worried if you’re suddenly rich that you’ll leave us all behind.”
“I’d never do that, Clo. Ever.” I speak forcefully, willing her to look at me, and to see the truth in my face. She doesn’t meet my eye. She’s looking down at her glass now.
“It happens. I know it happens. I know, because it happened to me.” She takes a sip of her wine, finally making eye contact. “When I grew up, my parents were wealthy. Very, very wealthy—probably not as well off as you are now, I’d guess, but more than just comfortable. They lost everything in the 2008 stock market crash.”
I do some quick math in my head. In 2008, I was in my second year of university. I met Chloe at the end of 2009, not long after her parents would have lost their fortune. She pauses, obviously watching me work it out.
“Yeah. So, after that; they couldn’t pay for university anymore; I took loans. I had to start working, obviously, which—not a bad thing at all, but it was a shock to my very sheltered system, I can tell you that.” Her laugh is rough, and tears have formed in her eyes. I look around for tissues and end up grabbing a roll of paper towels off the kitchen bench.
“Thanks.” Chloe catches the roll, and crumples the used paper towel in her fist.
“The worst thing was my friends abandoned me. They abandoned me. It was like I had fucking died . These were people I thought had been my friends my whole fucking life, and they were gone in a heartbeat.” She sniffs. “You know that show Schitt’s Creek, what Alexis’ friends did to her? That was me, except I was living in a flat with strangers for the first time ever, not in a crappy hotel with my parents.” Chloe angrily wipes away tears.
“God, Chloe, that’s awful. I’m so sorry.” I put my wine glass down next to my fork. It must have been such a massive change for her.
“I’m not telling you this so you feel sorry for me; you shouldn’t feel sorry for little rich kids. I’m telling you because you deserve to know why I acted like a brat. I was scared you’d ditch us. I’m still scared. You guys were my first friends after I started trying to put my life back together. I can’t lose you.”
I shuffle in the chair to face her completely and put both my hands on her knees, looking her dead in the eye.
“You know, I’ve been scared of the same thing, Chloe,” I confess. “That when I told you guys about the inheritance, you’d think I’m different now, and that you wouldn’t want to be friends anymore.” I sniff. Now, I’m apparently ready to pour my heart out, and maybe it’s what I need, because I feel lighter already. “I was so worried when you were acting so weird that you’d decided you didn’t want to be friends anymore.”
Chloe looks so heartbroken—almost as heartbroken as I feel. I drop my fork with a clatter and grab her.
“I’m not going anywhere, Chloe Nguyen.” I pull back and shake my hands on her knees, forcing her to listen to me. “I promise. I’m still me, and you guys are important to me. That hasn’t changed.” She lets out an undignified snort, halfway between a laugh and a cry, and we both end up in a fit of giggles.
“Thank god, because the idea of finding new friends at thirty-three is a bit much for me.”
We lounge around, finishing off the wine and cake until Chloe finally asks, “so are you going to tell me why you looked so awful when I arrived? And why your house is serial-killer tidy?”
I sigh. We’ve confessed all our fears to each other already today, and dammit, we’re both still here. I run my hand through my hair. “I told Will I wanted to try—properly try—a relationship with him. And that we worked so well together, and if I was going to be working at the resorts, I thought we could work together. I’d built it all up in my head, this big, amazing thing that would have been perfect. He said no. And now I have to go to New Zealand all by myself—god, I need to pack.”
Chloe blinks. “He said…no?”
Pulling myself unsteadily from the dining room chair. I head into my bedroom to resume throwing things in a suitcase.
She follows, frowning. “Back up a second. That doesn’t sound right. You said you wanted to be in a relationship, and he said no?”
I nod again, grabbing my laminated packing list from the top of my dresser. “He said he needed time to think about it. He wanted to talk in the morning—this morning. I couldn’t face it and I left.”
Chloe hugs me. “It’s going to be okay, Mia.” She takes the list from me. “You’ve already ticked off everything on your list.”