‘You don’t make promises,’ I said, gentling my voice. Finding that reasonable tone inside of me and grabbing onto it. Trying to pull it around me like a cloak. ‘I needed them. In the end, I think it was just that simple.’
‘I don’t make promises I can’t keep,’ he corrected me, his voice rougher then. Deeper. Hinting at a world of pain, of emotion, that I didn’t want to acknowledge. Temper was almost easier. ‘I never have. And you knew that.’
Whatever moved in me then was spiked and remarkably painful, and it made it hard to breathe. God, the things I didn’t want to know. Or feel. But right behind it
came a great rush of my own temper, galloping through me, sweeping everything else away. And for a moment, it felt a lot like
clean
.
‘Have you been sitting around mourning me all this time, Alec?’ I laughed as I said it. I wanted to fight, I didn’t want to feel. I didn’t even know why. ‘Rending a garment or two? Weeping all over your patients? I find that hard to believe. When I met you there was a sea of women around you, and it wasn’t like they went away when we started dating, either. Do you really want to act like you’ve spent all this time racked with agony over something that ended—’
‘Says the woman who showed up on my doorstep and then sobbed in my arms for an hour,’ he interjected, cutting me off that easily. He might as well have picked up one of his knives from the block in front of him and chopped me off at the knees. ‘I’m not going to forget reality because you poke at me, Sarah. Though you’re welcome to try, if that’s what gets you off.’
I definitely didn’t want to stand in front of Alec thinking about what
got me off
. There was nowhere that could go that wouldn’t make everything that much more complicated.
That much worse
, I corrected myself sharply.
‘I didn’t come here to fight with you,’ I said then, but it felt like a concession, and I wasn’t sure why. Or even why that mattered.
‘Okay.’ He eyed me in that infuriating way of his, all dark intent and ingrained male confidence. ‘We don’t have
to talk about ancient history.’ I didn’t trust the way he looked at me then, as if he were reading all kinds of things in me I wouldn’t want to share with him or anyone if I could help it. ‘Why exactly did you come here today, with all of your fucking breadcrumbs? What did you think I could tell you? Why don’t we start with that.’
We stared at each other.
I hated the fact that he’d read my desire to fight with him so easily. And then undercut it. I hated that a lot. I hated that it made me face that unpleasant urge inside me, rather than prodding him into some show of temper that I could use to make myself feel better.
At least I’m not so
angry
all the time
, I’d used to think smugly when I’d managed to provoke him. As if that were a badge of honour. Or even true.
The kitchen seemed darker, closer, and I realized that whenever the sun had gone down outside, I’d missed it, too busy overturning rocks I probably should have left untouched in our shared history. But now it was already night, I was trapped in this house with Alec, and there was no one to blame for any of this but me.
He watched me as I stood there across from him, resting my hands on the countertop. There was something simmering in him, something darker and thicker
than the tone of voice he’d just used suggested …
And then I understood.
‘You’re angry with me,’ I said after a moment. ‘You’re actually
pissed
at me. That’s what that look is.’
He didn’t deny that he had
that look
, whatever that was. ‘You say that like you’re surprised.’
‘Of course I am.’
‘Are you really?’ He shook his head, impatience exuding from him. ‘I don’t believe you’ve suddenly become so naïve in the past few years, Sarah. Of course I’m pissed. Not actively. It doesn’t keep me up at night these days. But you broke up with me.’ His mouth curved slightly, but it wasn’t a smile. It was too sharp for that. ‘I was in love with you. You broke my heart and it took me a long time to get over that.’
I blinked. Then again. ‘Oh.’
Of all the lame things to say. But I didn’t know how to process that. I knew he’d been unhappy when we’d broken up – we’d both been unhappy. I’d been so unhappy, according to Brooke, that I’d changed my entire life to be sure I never felt that way again. Yet even so, I wouldn’t have said he’d been
that
miserable. I wouldn’t have even said that he’d been broken-hearted by the decision I’d made. Nor would I ever have imagined that he would tell me so, all these years later.
Alec was the kind of man that women lined up to ruin themselves over. He was the ultimate unattainable,
not the marrying kind, flight already booked to far-off Africa
kind of
guy. He was difficult and sardonic and entirely too serious for his own good; he had no time for games or subtleties, and that obviously meant that the ladies prostrated themselves in front of him in the hope they could be the one to change him. That we’d been together a whole year had seemed impossible at the time. It had certainly never seemed remotely likely that someone like me, in the wake of a series of Audrey-like creatures, every one of them ethereal and as unreachable as he was, could possibly affect
him
.
‘Yeah,’ he said softly now, with that undercurrent of steel beneath that made me shift from one foot to the other. ‘Oh.’
I didn’t seem to have anything to say to that. My ears felt as if they were buzzing slightly, or maybe I was seeking distraction from the way he was looking at me. I swallowed, and looked down at my hands instead. My wedding rings were still there: the diamond solitaire Tim had given me in those snowy woods so many Christmases ago now and the platinum band that matched it. It hadn’t occurred to me to take them off in all this time. I’d assumed Tim was coming back. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I’d been so sure of it. Until today. Staring at my rings, I realized that what I’d seen in that hospital room this morning changed everything. That was why I was here, wasn’t it? That was why I’d let Alec kiss me like that. That was why I was standing here still, talking about our long-dead relationship again, as if it still mattered.
That was why I’d finally understood the truth about Tim and me in that tiny little grocery store, as little as I wanted to admit that to myself.
‘And now here you are, marriage on the rocks, showing up on my doorstep like my very own Christmas present, wanting to know what happened back then to lead you down the path you took. The path you didn’t want to take with me.’ Alec’s mouth crooked up in the corner, and once again, I was aware it was no smile.
‘That’s me,’ I said, deciding to go with bravado, because what else did I have tonight? I’d clearly left grace and dignity by the side of the highway. ‘I’m like your personal Santa Claus. Ho ho ho.’
‘But what do you
want
?’ His clever face hardened then, and his voice did too. ‘I know you don’t want me, because you already left me once and let’s face it, my life isn’t any different now. I didn’t start hungering for a wedding ring while battling AIDS, poverty and the effects of a hundred endless wars over there. I didn’t decide that what I really wanted from life was a Norman Rockwell practice in some sweet little town like this one, dispensing lollipops and tugging on pigtails. I’m the same man you walked away from eight years ago.’
‘Exactly the same?’ I asked, keeping my voice cool, telling myself I’d pick through all those landmines later, when it was safe. When he wasn’t watching me and cataloguing my reaction. ‘No change at all in almost a decade? That’s a little scary, isn’t it? Maybe you need some psychological help.’
‘The general package is the same,’ he amended, a grudging sort of amusement in his gaze. ‘Same career. Same philosophy on life that you didn’t really love. Otherwise, I guess I’ve mellowed.’
‘You? Mellow?’ I laughed. ‘That’s exactly how I’d describe you, Alec. Completely relaxed and at ease. Lazy, even.’
‘Did you drive all the way up here to avoid the question?’ His voice was like a whip and I felt the lash of it on my skin. ‘To pretend? That seems like a waste of everyone’s time. And by that I mean mine.’
I blew out a breath, not feeling entirely steady. I glared at him, mostly because I knew he was right. If I’d wanted shallow, social conversation, there were any number of people in Rivermark who could accommodate me. I had no shortage of acquaintances. Great for parties and a coffee out, but certainly not worth a long drive and all of this soul-searching.
Stop being such a coward
, I ordered myself.
‘I loved Tim because he was the antithesis of you,’ I said after a moment. If he wanted cards on the table, I could do that. God help us both. ‘He made plans. He wanted a future. He asked me to marry him on the third date.’
‘A paragon of virtue, indeed.’ Alec made a noise I couldn’t quite categorize, and those dark eyes were narrow on mine. ‘Tim? That’s his name?’
‘I get that you think that marriage is juvenile. That it’s unnecessary.’ I shrugged, a sharp sort of jerk of my shoulder, as if I were warding him off. ‘But it was necessary to
me
. I
needed it. And you knew that, and you not only refused to accept that it was perfectly reasonable to want that kind of thing, you refused to even think about any kind of compromise.’
‘What compromise was there?’ he asked, his gaze hot though his tone stayed almost smooth. Almost. ‘I couldn’t marry you. And not because it was you – I can’t marry. Or I guess I won’t. But you insisted it was that or nothing. I begged you to reconsider and come with me—’
‘I wanted to save the world myself, Alec,’ I interrupted him. ‘I didn’t want to be your sidekick while you did it.’
He made an abortive gesture with one hand. ‘Why couldn’t we have done it together?’
‘You always could have stayed,’ I said, already sick, again, of the endless cycle this conversation looped into. It was just like way back when. There was no winning it and no ending it. There was only how much it hurt, and the scars it left in its wake. No wonder I’d gone out of my way to forget all of these details. ‘For some reason, that was never a reasonable option.’
‘Because I’d already made a commitment to the clinic,’ he said impatiently, temper in his voice, gleaming like heat in his eyes. He shook his head. ‘You came out of nowhere, Sarah. I never expected to meet someone like you while I was doing my fellowship. I’d been planning to work in Africa since halfway through medical school. I applied for the job before I even met you!’
‘I know all of this,’ I said, exhausted. It was a very old
exhaustion mixed with the new, and it made me want to crawl back into my car, drive anywhere, and try to sleep it away. Hibernate until it disappeared, maybe. ‘I get it. Your commitment to a clinic was more important than your commitment to me. On some level I honestly admire that, Alec. I do. But I didn’t want to spend my entire life being an afterthought.’
He didn’t like that. His whole body tensed, though he didn’t otherwise move.
‘I keep my promises,’ he gritted out. ‘Always. I thought you understood that. If you’d just trusted me enough to come with me—’
‘Trust had nothing to do with it!’ I exclaimed.
‘It had everything to do with it.’ There was an odd, final note in his voice then, as if this were something he’d given a great deal of thought to over the years: ‘I was the one who fell in love, who owned that, who tried to figure out a solution. You were the one who threw down ultimatums and walked away.’
‘You told me from the beginning that anything that happened between us was temporary,’ I retorted, fighting to keep my voice even. Why was I getting upset now? This was a different life we were talking about. This was an academic exercise. A deposition, nothing more. There was no need to
feel
it like this. ‘You’d already walked away, before we even started. What was there to trust or not trust? I simply took you at your word.’
‘Bullshit.’ His gaze was hard on mine. ‘That’s a convenient
story to tell yourself, isn’t it? But it’s not what actually happened.’
I was considering throwing something at his head when the oven timer buzzed. I’d forgotten all about the meal we’d planned to eat. It took me a moment to remember where we were. Not in that tiny studio of his in Chelsea all those years ago, but in his lovely country kitchen, the one his parents had renovated into gleaming, cosy perfection years before. Not in those painful final days of our relationship, but all these years later, with whole other lives under our belts.
It made me feel slightly better that Alec looked as thrown out of time and place as I felt.
‘Dinner’s ready,’ he said unnecessarily. He smiled then, a bit ruefully. ‘Go sit at the table.’ His voice was gruff. ‘I’ll bring it.’
I walked over to the rough-hewn wooden table and the great window that dominated the wall of the kitchen. It looked out over the frozen pond and the rest of the valley, reduced to only a distant twinkle of lights against the dark now, with the blaze of the moon already sinking below the far swell of hills. It would be much too easy to pretend this was a life I could sink into, I thought as I heard Alec clanking around behind me, setting out the dinner he’d cooked and the utensils to go with it. Much too easy to tell myself that this pretty little country life was what we were arguing about. Or for.
But I remembered what he’d said earlier, when he’d urged me not to kill myself in a fit of humiliation after weeping all over him. That he’d be back in Africa before the spring thaw. And he’d made sure to reiterate that just now, lest there be any misconceptions: he was the same man, with the same career and the same life that entailed, and I’d already proved I couldn’t handle it once before. I already knew I didn’t want that, didn’t I? I’d wanted what Tim had given me. What he’d promised me. I’d wanted that kind of security, that kind of safety.
Alec was temporary. He was always and ever on loan. He wasn’t something anyone could keep, not for long. Lots of things might change, but never that.
I accepted the part of me that wanted to fit myself into his life, the way I’d tried to reinsert myself into Brooke’s. I was trying so hard to Goldilocks my way into a solution. I was trying to see if some external force could save me from the sad fact that whatever else had happened, whatever Tim and Carolyn had done, I’d already given up on myself in a hundred ways. I’d walked away from Alec. And then from Brooke. I’d let myself become a DWI lawyer when it was the last thing I’d ever wanted to do with my law degree. I’d thrown out all the dreams I’d had in my youth and pretended they’d meant nothing to me. I’d lost myself. Alec couldn’t find me. Only I could. All these trips through the past, and all the way to Vermont, were making that abundantly clear.