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Alexandra looks at me and she shakes her head in dismay. “It doesn’t matter, Logan, this goes above and beyond that. You have to leave this job now. I cannot keep you here.”
“But it won’t happen again, I’m not a danger to anyone. You won’t have to worry.”
“Stop.” Alexandra holds up her hands to prevent me from speaking any more. “I can’t listen to this, Logan, I just can’t. The decision has already been made. I don’t know if there’s going to be more to this. There might even have to be legal action, if that’s what Pru wants. Don’t make this worse. Just go now in a dignified manner and make this easier on everyone.”
I give her one last lingering look before I push myself into a standing position. I suppose she’s right, this could turn into something much uglier if I let it. Much as I don’t want to I need to get out now while I still can. I need to get some space, to figure out what my next move needs to be. There has to be some way I can fight this, to make it right again. I need to get this all back somehow.
As I walk towards the exit of the building, I see Hank standing in the corner. Immediately he averts his eyes away from me. Guilt, and probably disgust too, makes it impossible for him to look at me. He could have been my friend too, he certainly wanted to be, and I fucked it up. If only I had gone out with him, then there wo
uld be a big chance that none of this would have happened.
But I suppose it would’ve come out eventually. Things like this don’t stay hidden forever. If me and Pru have to be together then it would come to this in the end. Now I just need to work out how exactly I’m going to piece all of this back together. It isn’t going to be easy, that’s for sure…
***
Hours and hours of driving haven’t helped me, not one bit. I don’t want to leave my car, not until I’ve calmed down quite a bit, but it’s getting dark now and I can’t avoid the inevitable forever. Sooner or later I’m going to have to communicate with Pru about this, and I suppose I might as well get it over and done with. Like ripping a band aid off… to reveal a large, disgusting gaping wound underneath. One that keeps spilling out blood and puss and there’s no way to stop it.
Urgh, just be a man, I warn myself as I turn the car off. Face it like I should have done before.
I walk towards my apartment slowly and purposefully, wishing idly for a natural disaster to come along to destroy the world so I don’t have to face this. But Of course nothing happens. The only world being destroyed today is my own. Figures, what else should I expect?
“Hello?” Pru calls out excitedly as soon as she hears me click the door open. “Logan, is that you? Thank goodness you’re home I’ve been looking forward to seeing you all day…”
“Pru.” I stop her because I can’t stand to hear her so positive when everything is about to come crashing down around us. “Don’t… just don’t. We need to talk about things, it’s important.”
“What’s going on?” She freezes and her expression completely changes. “Are you okay?”
“I… I lost my job,” I tell her with a shrug. “They found out about us because Hank saw us together last night, kissing, and now I’m unemployed and they might even get the cops on us…”
“What?” she exclaims while jumping up. “What the hell are you talking about? How can they fire you? And what’s this about the cops? They can’t blame us for falling in love. I mean, I love you. That isn’t a crime, is it? And nothing happened while I was at the center so why does it…”
I’m aware that she just declared her love for me for the first time but I can’t focus on that part right now. Nor can I concentrate on my own feelings. I need to be smart for the first time.
“We emailed each other, which isn’t allowed, while you were still at the center, and it is still wrong. We shouldn’t be doing this, we never should have done this. It’s always been wrong.”
I tug on the ends of my hair, wishing that I’d taken even more time before I decided to face this. I don’t even know what I’m doing here, I don’t even know what my plan is. I just know that something has to change and fast. I cannot carry on as I am, and nor can Pru.
“What… what are you saying?” she asks me worriedly. She pushes herself up off the couch and moves across the room. The nearer that she gets to me, the more I can feel my emotions stirring and churning. I become even more confused than before. “What are you trying to tell me, Logan?”
I stare intently at her, wanting her to just get it already. But she doesn’t. In her naïve desperation to make this work she just bites down on her bottom lip and she waits for me to make the choice.
“Pru, you have to go,” I gush out sadly. “I can’t have you here anymore, this isn’t right.”
“You’re breaking up with me?” She demands answers that I cannot give. “Is this it? Are you done with me? This can’t really… we can’t… we can still… this doesn’t have to break us up?”
“It does.” Tears stream down her cheeks and I can feel them spilling down mine too. “It does mean that. How the hell can we keep on doing this when the world doesn’t want us to?”
Pru reaches forward and she grabs my hand. Her skin touching mine brings out all the electricity, but I can’t keep caving to that right now. I need to behave like I should have done all along.
“It doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks,” she tells me sincerely. “It only matters what we think, doesn’t it? We love each other, we know that, we know what it means…”
I know that I could easily get sucked into this again if I wanted to, I could allow Pru to rail road me into doing what I want to do rather than what’s right, but there’s too much at stake now, too much to worry about. I’ve already lost my job, I don’t have a chance of getting it back with her here.
“Pru, you have settled into your new job now, I’ve helped you out as much as I can, I’ve let you stay here for as long as we agreed. It’s time for you to go home. You need to get on with your real life now and so do I. This has been a fantasy, a momentary lapse, but now it’s time to stop.”
Pru doesn’t answer me, I don’t know if she’s accepting it at all. She just looks completely bewildered by everything. I suppose that makes sense, one moment everything was great, everything was on the up, and now it’s all fallen apart.
“We knew that this day would come,” I say morosely. “We knew that this couldn’t last, didn’t we? We went into this with our eyes wide open.”
