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Five minutes ago.
And Ace. Ace just sat and stared at the screen in front of the boardroom. Max paused, waving toward him.
And Ace looked ready to burn the entire building down.
It was a means to an end, I guessed?
I could get all of my student loans paid off on top of making money at this internship and gaining experience, plus, again, it was my only hope—Ace was suddenly my only hope. Wow, and back to square one when we met in that elevator when I was ready to truly end it all.
It wasn’t just my headspace, it was my sense of self-worth, it was looking up into the sky after my last rejection and going what is the actual point of all of this?
“Hi.” I finally found the courage and blurted out.
“Your hair’s longer.” His response wasn’t typical, he looked gorgeous but tired.
I touched my dark hair self-consciously, then immediately dropped my hand to my side. My body was itchy all over, my nerves a live wire as I tried to fake confidence I didn’t feel finally standing in front of the one that got away. No, the one I pushed away. “I needed a change.”
“Wow.” He laughed and covered his face with his hands. “Wow.”
“What?” I snapped.
He ran a hand through his long hair and clenched his sharp jaw until I swear his cheek twitched. “Nothing. Good to see you after a year, good to know you’re alive, maybe in order to survive this game show, you don’t block my number, abandon me, or just walk out of my life, might be smart if you want to pay off the student loans.”
Tears burned the back of my eyes. So he was going for the jugular right away, and he had every reason to. “If you knew—“
“—if? If?” He slammed his hands onto the boardroom table, sending papers scattering. In another life, this would have been a great fantasy if he didn’t hate me as much as he did. He was beautiful when he was angry, his black wavy hair fell over his eyebrows, his shirt had come unbuttoned near his sharp collarbone and his jaw was still so rigid I was afraid I’d hear his molars crack in a few seconds. He finally made true eye contact and rasped out. “If?”
“You said that three times.”
“You left.”
“I had reasons.” I shifted nervously from one foot to the other. Reasons I didn’t want to go over on day one of my first really good job.
His green eyes narrowed in disgust. “You. Left. I had no way to contact you, no way to know if you were okay, could you have at least written me a note?”
I’d panicked. People who didn’t have anxiety with a heavy dose of self-loathing didn’t get it, how could they? I’d been stuck in my own head, fight or flight, and stupidly I thought he’d found something better and that I was the failure, it was better off this way—he was better off, I was doing him a favor, I could make a list longer than Santa’s, check it twice, and still add more reasons for why I did what I did—yet none of them were actual reasons, they were excuses.
“Don’t you want kids someday, though?” He tossed me onto my back, but he didn’t understand the trauma of my upbringing, of what that would mean, of how afraid I was, so I lied.
“Yes.” I licked my lips and leaned up to kiss him. “Of course.”
And then just months later.
I was pregnant.
At nineteen.
With twins.
After nearly having a nervous breakdown, moving in with him, and being six figures in debt while both of us worked two jobs.
“Good.” His grin was easy, like life was easy, but I knew how hard it was and I could barely take care of myself, let alone two children. I’d shook through the entire appointment, all I’d wanted was to be with him, stay with him.
Afterward, I grabbed some counseling pamphlets, I was like okay, I can do this, I could tell him, right? He’d wanted kids, we could figure things out.
I’d thought all of those things until I started cramping, until they became so intense I knew something was wrong.
After accepting, I’d failed yet again at something that in my mind would have been a gift to him despite the stress I had laid in the bathroom all night while he thought I was sick with the flu.
