Chapter Thirty
Gretchen
I woke up early on January 1st, after a night of fitful sleep interspersed with bouts of tears. Fortunately, I didn't have any appointments for that day, although maybe it would have been better to have appointments and to keep myself busy.
I made a pot of strong coffee and just stood there while it brewed, staring pensively into the liquid, hardly able to believe what had happened the night before. I'd been so excited to bring him to another luau. I'd been so excited to kiss him at midnight. I'd been so excited to start my year with him, surrounded by all of my friends.
I hadn't expected him to act like the Christian who everyone else seemed to know. The guy who just fucked girls and then broke their hearts. God, I was so stupid. All the signs had been there all along. I should have listened to Mina and quit the whole thing before I'd gotten my feelings tied up in it.
I brought my coffee out to the porch, and for a moment, I stared down at the romance novel that I'd been reading lately. I carefully set my coffee down on the table and picked up the book, thumbing through it for a moment. Then, I brought it out to the trashcan and dumped it inside.
Mina was right all along. There's no such thing as true love.
I'd thought I'd had it, that was the thing. I hadn't even labeled it as love inside my head, but I still had been in love. It didn't matter now.
Mina was almost hesitant as she walked up onto my porch that morning. “Hey, girl,” she said. “How are you doing?”
I shook my head. “I'm fine,” I told her, lazily swinging back and forth and trying to pretend that it was normal for me to be lying out here without a book in hand.
Mina sighed. “I brought breakfast. Come on. It's parfaits from that great place over on the other side of the island. I got up early to get them.”
I grimaced. “I'm not hungry,” I told her. “I appreciate the effort, but-”
“I'm not taking no for an answer,” Mina said, shaking her head. “Come on, get up.”
I sighed and allowed myself to be directed out toward the back porch, stopping on the way for more coffee for myself, as well as a mug for Mina.
“So, what happened last night?” she asked as we sat down at the table.
I shrugged. “You probably saw all of it.”
“Yeah, we saw you guys fighting, but we moved away from you guys, so nobody heard what you were fighting about.”
“He's going back to New York,” I said. That was all that mattered about it anyway.
“You've known for weeks that he was going to eventually go bak to New York,” Mina said, sounding confused. “What was there to argue about? Unless he was trying to get you to go to New York with him? Or you were trying to get him to stay here?”
“Oh no,” I said with a bitter laugh. “No, that is definitely not what happened.”
“What happened, then?” Mina asked gently.
I sighed. “He was just being a jerk, okay? He said that there was never anything between us, that we were just fucking. Which, of course, we were; he's Christian Wall. He's done this all over the world. If you want to say, 'I told you so,' go right ahead.”
Mina blinked over at me. “Oh, honey,” she said sympathetically. “But the thing is, he hasn't done this all over the world. There are probably a few other girls who he has taken home more than once. As far as anyone knows, though, he's never been monogamous with someone, and not for a whole month. He doesn't even really date people the way that he dated you. Besides, I've seen the two of you together. If you're trying to tell me that he didn't have any feelings for you, you're either blind or seriously deluded.”
I swallowed hard, stirring my parfait but unable to even take a bite of it. “He said, though, that-”
“Oh, fuck what he said,” Mina said, rolling her eyes. “Honestly, he's a guy. Probably he's massively commitment shy, and he's already thinking ahead to the fact that he's going to have to go back to New York. He doesn't know what that means for the two of you, so instead of trying to work through his feelings and talk things out and come up with a solution like a normal person would, he panicked and tried to get rid of the whole thing.”
I cracked a slight smile at that. “That is possible,” I admitted. I shook my head. “I thought you didn't believe in the idea of true love, though. You think we were probably just fucking, right?”
Mina paused, considering her words carefully. “Maybe if you believe in true love, then true love exists,” she said. “I'm still not saying that I believe in it, but I can tell that you care a lot about the guy, Gretchen. And like I said, I'm pretty sure he cares for you as well. I'd imagine he probably has woken up regretting all of that, but he doesn't know how to apologize to you.” She grinned crookedly. “The great Christian Wall doesn't normally have to apologize to anyone.”
“What should I do then?” I asked, biting my lower lip.
“I'd go over there,” Mina said confidently. “I'd confront him and ask him about last night. See if he meant everything that he said. And if he did, let that give you closure. You don't want to spend the rest of your life wondering about how if you'd maybe tried a little harder or given him one more chance, he might have stayed with you.”
“But even if we have that conversation and it turns out that we do have feelings for one another, what then?” I asked. “It's not like there's any future in it. We're from two different worlds. I'm not going to move to New York with him, and he's never going to move to Hawaii to be with me. Maybe it's best to leave things as they are.”
“Are you trying to tell me that if Christian was actually the love of your life, you wouldn't hop on a plane to New York in an instant?” Mina asked, raising an eyebrow at me. “I know the kind of stories you read and the movies that you watch.”
I sighed. “None of that stuff is real, though.”
“Maybe not,” Mina agreed. “But if you talked it out, maybe you'd be able to figure out a solution. Like California! He could do his real estate work from California just as easily as New York, and I'm sure you could find some bit of SoCal that was so much like Hawaii that you'd forget all about this stuff. Your parents are perfectly happy there, remember.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly, wondering why I hadn't even considered that before. I'd been stuck in such a black and white view of our relationship that I'd forgotten there could be options.
“So, go over there,” Mina urged. “Talk to him.”
I shook my head and then stood up abruptly. “I'm so sorry.” I shook my head. “And seriously, thanks for bringing the parfaits.”
“I'll put yours in the fridge for you; you can have it later,” Mina assured me.
I drove a little too fast getting over to Christian's hotel, but fortunately, no one stopped me. When I got there, I spent a moment composing myself outside Christian's door. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to say, but I was sure something would come to me. I took a deep breath, tossed my hair back over my shoulders, and knocked.
And waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally, I knocked again. There was still no reply, and I sighed. After all of this, of course, he would be out somewhere, probably having a leisurely brunch or something, trying to forget about the night before.
I went down to the hotel desk, figuring I could leave a message for him. “Hi, sorry, I was hoping I could leave a message for Christian Wall, for when he comes back to his room?”
The woman behind the counter giggled a little. “You can do that, but I'm not sure when he'll be back,” she said.
I shook my head. “Yeah, that's fine,” I said. “I don't know where he is right now; I don't know how long he'll be. But I'm sure you'll all recognize him when he comes in, right? And if you could just give him a message.”
She looked down at her watch. “Well, at this minute, I'd say he's probably flying over the Pacific Ocean,” she told me. “He checked out this morning; he's headed back to New York.”
I stared at her for a moment, not comprehending her words. “He checked out?” I asked slowly.
“Yeah,” the woman said, chipper as ever. “Said it was time for him to get back to work, that his vacation had been long enough.” She shrugged. “Anyway, if you were hoping to ask him out or whatever, you missed your chance. He didn't sleep with anyone the whole time he was here, anyway. Very strange behavior from him.”
I spun away from her, not needing to hear more of her opinions on Christian's behavior, or more speculations about what I could want to talk to him about. I walked slowly out to my car and sat there for a moment in the driver's seat, just staring off into space.
He had left, then. He was gone.
Maybe he had meant everything that he had said the night before. Maybe we had never really been doing anything more than fucking.
I bit my lower lip, trying my best not to cry. Because after all, I'd known this was coming, hadn't I? I'd known it since before we'd even started dating.
I let out a shaky breath and turned the key in the ignition. There was nothing else to do.