I wait for Tate to come back. For him to hit the lobby and realize this is stupid. But when five minutes turn into ten, and he’s still gone, other thoughts start to crowd into my head.

Like maybe we should reconsider what we’re doing here.

He’s right. We’re not in the same place—not geographically, or emotionally. And he doesn’t need my baggage.

I don’t need the guilt for that, either.

I call him, but there’s no answer. And really, there’s nothing else to say right now. We both need some space.

I don’t like the idea of going to a hotel to be melancholy, so I call the airline and see if I can change my flight home. I’m in luck, apparently.

It doesn’t feel lucky.

It feels like I need a stiff drink from the first flight attendant I see.

When I land in Ottawa, I’m drunk. I turn on my phone, ignore the half-dozen texts from Tate—because he can go fuck himself and his stupid opinions about what I should do with my life—and manage to book an Uber.

I’ll come back and get my car tomorrow. Right now, I need my bed and a hot shower. I’m not picky about the order, which is good, because as soon as I hit the mattress, I’m zonked out.

In the morning, I have a brutal hangover headache. I roll over and go back to sleep.

That afternoon, I finally shower, then retrieve my car from the airport and go to the university, where I pour myself into work that doesn’t require speaking to anyone.

Then I go back to bed.

The next day, I wake up with a panicked start because someone is entering my apartment. The door creaks open, and there are footsteps. I cast about my room for a weapon.

“Sasha?”

“Ellie?” I crawl out of bed and wrap my robe around my body. I poke my head out of my room. “What’s wrong?”

She frowns at me. “I think that’s my line. I called and texted a bunch of times.”

Oh. “I turned the ringer off on my phone.” Because Tate wouldn’t stop calling.

I didn’t use to take his calls. I can learn not to again, as much as it hurts right now.

“I’m sorry for the intrusion, but I have a shoe emergency.” She blushes. “My feet have gotten bigger. We have a state dinner tonight, and I really didn’t want to go to a store and be like, ‘please, tell the world that the prime minister’s wife’s feet are getting fat’. Which I know is ridiculous, but—”

“Say no more. I’m on it. Okay, so I’m a full size bigger than you. How much of a size change are we talking? Can I measure you and maybe go and buy something? Let’s start in my closet.”

She follows me into my room as I shove my hair back into a bun and try to get my brain unscrambled.

“Do you have an outfit picked out? What colour shoe are you looking for?”

She scans my room, settling her gaze on my open suitcase. I haven’t unpacked, and everything is spilling out of it. “Are you on your way out to Vancouver?”

No. We can talk about shoes. We can’t talk about Tate. I shake my head. “Outfit?”

“Sasha?” Ellie waddles around me, getting between me and the floor-to-ceiling shelf of shoes that I desperately want to save me from this conversation. No such luck. Hot tears prick my eyelids as she gives me a concerned look. “You’re a mess. Your apartment is a disaster. What’s wrong?”

I shrug helplessly.

“Are you sick?”

“Sure,” I mumble. “Maybe I need soup.”

“Are you pregnant?”

“What?” I jerk back. I can see how she would wonder that and I need to head that craziness off at the pass. “No. God, no. I protect against that like six different ways.”

Well, only one way that last time… But the water everyone else is drinking is not tasty to me. Not tasty at all, but good for her and the prime minister. They’ll have fabulously attractive and smart mini-people.

“Did you have a fight?”

I nod.

“Oh, that sucks. I’m sorry. What did he do?”

He made me fall in love with him. “It wasn’t him. We just reached a breaking point.”

“I don’t know what to say. That’s really sad. How are you feeling?”

“I’m miserable,” I hug my knees to my chest. “And I don’t know what to do about that.”

“You should call Tate.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

Because he’s right. When it came down to it, I couldn’t trust him with my secrets. With my fear. “I hurt his feelings.”

“Did you try apologizing?”

“It wouldn’t do any good.”

“Why not?”

“Because nothing has changed. I’m not going to let my life be subsumed by a man’s life.”

“Did he ask you to do that?”

I wince. “No.”

“Oh.”

“But that’s what would happen. I could see it happening. The urge to be closer to him. There’s a faculty position opening up at a university in Seattle next year. It would be perfect for me.”

“What a nefarious trap he’s laid for you.”

I ignore her sarcastic retort, because that’s not the point. Of course Tate had nothing to do with it. The problem is that I wouldn’t have been interested a year ago. “That was never in my plan. I’ve established myself here.”

“You have more frequent flier miles than Gavin. Since when do you care about where your geographical base is?”

“I live my life on my own terms.”

“And your terms are to be, in our own words, miserable?”

“I didn’t want it to get complicated.”

“That’s love.”

“I never said I loved him.” My chest squeezes tight.

“You didn’t need to.”

I never said it. I never admitted it to myself, and I never told him.

I love you so much it scares me. Hot tears prick my eyelids and I squeeze them shut, refusing to let the fat, wet drops expose me as the fraud I am.

I want to live my life on my own terms, but I’m a weeping mess over the consequences of that choice.

And I still miss him.

“You should call Tate,” Ellie says. “Right after you find me some shoes.”

I can’t call him. He has a game tomorrow. The last thing he needs is drama. “Shoes…black flats, maybe?”

She gives me a long, concerned look before nodding. “Sure.”

I step around her and take a pair of silk slides off the shelf. “These have always been a touch tight on me. Try them.”

“And then you’ll call?”

I ignore the question. I don’t have a good answer for her. Or for myself.