“Eli?”
I stared in shock—and maybe a little bit of horror, too—first at his face, then down at the bouquet of flowers held out in his hand, and then back into the chocolate hues of his eyes.
“Hi, Melly,” he said, standing tall and proud in a sleek black suit with a white button-up shirt. He looked handsome, albeit a tad overdressed for the reception area of a medical office, but just as attractive as ever.
Of course, his looks had never been the problem.
“W-what are you doing here?” I stuttered. My voice wasn’t strong, but inside, I was yelling. What the hell was he doing here? In New York? At my place of employment?
“I wanted to surprise you.” He smiled.
Why in vaginas was he smiling?
This wasn’t exactly a picture-worthy moment—me in my scrubs, Eli dressed like he was about to go to the goddamn Oscars, and an entire waiting room full of pregnant women who were seconds away from grabbing some popcorn and settling in for a show. Not to mention the fact that we’d broken up months ago.
“I’m definitely surprised,” I muttered, and his smile grew wider.
Jesus Christ. This was just like him, being too absorbed in his plan to read me. I wasn’t thrilled with his arrival, and I knew it was written all over my face.
I had never been the type of girl who could school her facial expressions into neutrality if the urge to freak the fuck out was overwhelming. No. I was the girl who freaked the fuck out. Today’s emotional meltdown just happened to be in the form of a little wooden Melody, slack-jawed, eyes wide, and spine as stiff as a board.
“I miss you,” he said, urging me to take the outrageous bouquet of flowers—that I was most likely allergic to—from his hand.
The monstrosity would’ve made a fantastic prop for Saturday Night Live, and with my excessive allergy to most bulbs, pollen, and buds, a slapstick skit wouldn’t be too far behind.
Despite all this, as a means to avoid a goddamn scene, I did the polite thing and took them from his hands. Pastel petals of tulips and daisies and roses dancing before my eyes, I couldn’t see anymore.
I attempted to look above them, then to the left of them, and then to the right, but it was useless, and once my nose started to itch and my face began to tingle, I wasn’t sure if Eli was trying to profess his love or kill me.
If the plan was murder by anaphylaxis, surely, I had to give him props for creativity.
“You came all the way to New York because you missed me?” I asked and set the flowers on the reception desk in an effort to get them away from me. Melissa gave me a catty smile, apparently gearing up for her next move.
One sneeze. Two sneezes. Three more sneezes and I’d say it was official, the death petals had permeated my nose. Fantastic.
“Uh…” Melissa sighed in annoyance from her perch behind the desk. “Those are blocking my view of the waiting room, Load-y.”
And there it is.
I understood her frustration because, yeah, Eli had officially bought the world’s largest bouquet, but I also didn’t really care. It was fucking Melissa. She only spent five percent of her workday looking out on the patients anyway. She could handle one minute of flowers blocking her view of reception.
Plus, I was still a little fucking busy.
“Are you okay? Are you sick?” Eli touched my shoulder, and his eyes assessed me with concern.
“No,” I said with a shake of my head and a most likely disgusting sniffle of my nose. “I’m not sick. I’m just allergic.”
“Allergic?”
“To the flowers.”
“You’re allergic to flowers? When did that happen?”
“Uh…it happened about twenty-nine or so years ago.” He still looked confused. Goddamn, why had I liked him again? “Around my time of birth.”
“Seriously?”
I nodded, but he still looked confused.
“But I used to buy you flowers all of the time.”
“No,” I refuted. “You actually bought me flowers once, and you stopped once you realized flowers weren’t the way to my heart unless you wanted to kill me.”
“Shit,” he muttered and watched me apologetically blow my nose into a tissue I’d snagged from the reception desk. “This isn’t going the way I wanted it to.”
“I was hoping this would be romantic,” one woman whispered behind me.
“I know,” another one added. “I don’t think it’s going as planned.”
“He’s going to need change up the game plan if there’s any hope,” a third woman chimed in.
“Does her face look a little swollen to you?”
“Yeah. I think it’s from the flowers. She said she’s allergic.”
I’d never wanted to burrow into the floor more than I did right now.
Once I’d stopped sneezing and snorting and itching my face, I focused on getting to the point of this ridiculous charade. “Seriously,” I started. “What are you doing here? In New York?”
“For you,” Eli started but paused briefly. “Well, I was kind of in the neighborhood.”
“In the neighborhood?”
“Investors’ meeting,” he explained. “The firm gained a huge potential client, and I came out here to close the deal.”
Of course he’d come to New York with the priority of a business trip. I was just an added convenience.
Let me tell you…that was the story of my life when it came to Eli.
This trip had nothing to do with me. He didn’t want an actual, committed relationship with me. He might have missed me to some degree, but I knew he didn’t miss me enough to fly across the country just for me.
That was the difference between Eli and me.
Five years ago, I did fly across the country for him. And I’d stayed there, for him.
I moved away from my home, my family, and friends—for him.
Sure, I still cared about him. I still wanted good things for him. But I didn’t want to be with him. I wasn’t in love with him.
You’re in love with Will.
Holy hell that had come out of left field. There was no way I was in love with Will…right? The idea seemed ridiculous. We had only known each other for a short time.
Like Will? Of course.
Love Will? That sounded crazy.
“Isn’t that so sweet?” another bystander from the waiting room whispered behind me, and like a runaway dog on a retractable leash, those little words yanked me right back to the present.
I felt like shouting, Listen, lady. This isn’t sweet. This man is probably one of the most self-absorbed human beings you will ever meet, and he had five years to make an effort. Now is not the fucking time. And I’d really love an antihistamine and a nap. You know, as long as I was ranting.
But luckily, I kept my cool and forced my face into something less confrontational.
“I’m really glad to hear things are going well with the firm,” I said, and honestly, I meant it. Just because I didn’t want to be with him didn’t mean I didn’t want him to be happy. “But—” I started to explain my true feelings but got interrupted before I even got started.
“Everything okay, Mel?” Will asked from somewhere close. So close, the hairs on my arms stood on end.
I turned to find him standing behind me, eyes questioning, brow furrowed.
Jesus, this was getting worse by the minute. The ex-boyfriend and the guy I’d fucked five times last night.
“Y-yeah,” I stuttered while I struggled to find an escape from this hellish situation.
“Who’s this?” Eli asked.
“Uh…this is Will…er…Dr. Cummings.” My lover, I thought. But instead, I said, “My boss.”
“Hi,” Eli greeted and shook Will’s hand. “I’m Eli, Mel’s boyfriend.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. I closed my eyes and cringed, but I realized pretty quickly I’d better open them if I was going to be able to prevent anything worse from happening.
Will looked at Eli and Eli looked at Will, and my lungs burned so much they felt like they were being sucked into a vortex. But before I could do anything to soothe the chaos—not that I had any clue what the fuck I was going to do—Melissa called Will’s attention. “Dr. Cummings, Marlene is asking for you to head into exam room six immediately.”
Will turned at the beckon, and panicked, I reached my hand out and gripped his bicep. “Will…wait…”
But he just shook his head and strode through the reception doors and down the hall toward, I presumed, exam room six.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Why did you say that?” I asked Eli through gritted teeth. “You’re not my boyfriend. You’re my ex-boyfriend.”
“I know,” he said, but it didn’t really feel like he knew it. It felt like he was just doing what he always did—capitalizing on situations when it was optimal for him. “But I don’t want to be your boyfriend or your ex-boyfriend. I want to be more than that, Mel. I want to spend my life with you.”
My jaw dropped. Literally. Dropped to the floor. “Excuse me?”
“Oh my God,” a woman whispered behind me. “Do you think he’s going to ask her to marry him?”
I fucking hope not.
Are you there, God? It’s me, Melody. And this better be a freaking joke.
“Don’t you think we should have this conversation somewhere else?” he asked and glanced around the room to several sets of riveted eyes. They practically glowed like a herd of deer in the dark forest.
We had officially become the live soap opera in the waiting room.
And, yeah, we probably should’ve had this conversation somewhere else. The whole situation felt like one giant clusterfuck of disasters. But this shit was Eli’s fault, and I’d be damned if I was going to give him anything he wanted, even if it was the thing I most wanted myself.
“Listen,” I said with determination in my voice. “I’m not sure what your motives are—”
“Motives?” He cut me off with a shake of his head. “There are no motives, Melly. I love you. I miss you. That’s why I’m here.”
I sighed. “You’re here because you had an investors’ meeting, and it was convenient.”
“Oh, come on, Mel,” he tried to argue. “Do you really think that little of me?”
Let the record show Exhibit A of Eli’s notorious ways: turning the blame on me. Eli had a talent for finding a way to use guilt against me. And a year ago, I would’ve crumpled like a piece of a paper.
But not today. Not now. I’d just started to find myself again. I’d just started to repair what I’d lost in that relationship. I’d just started to feel like me. I’d just found Will…
I met his gaze and didn’t back down. “It’s been over four months since I left Portland,” I argued. “Over four months and this is the first time I’m hearing from you in any form other than a generic text message. If you’ve been missing me so badly, why have you waited until now to tell me? Why did you wait until you were conveniently in New York for a work thing to reach out?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like?” I questioned. “Tell me, Eli. What is it like?”
“I want to marry you,” he said as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
He wanted to marry me.
I called bullshit.
“No, you don’t.”
“How can you say that?” he exclaimed with a frustrated wave of his hand. “How can you just discount what I’m feeling like that?”
“I’m not discounting anything,” I explained. “Your actions speak louder than your words ever have. And your actions, Eli? Well, they show a man who doesn’t know what the fuck he wants.”
“I want you.”
“You want me? You want to marry me?”
He nodded, resolute. “Yes.”
“Okay, Eli. Then tell me why.”
His head moved back and forth in little tiny shakes.
“Tell me why. What is it about me you can’t live without? What is it about me that makes your heart beat faster? What is it about me that makes you feel like you can’t hold back until you have me, can’t go on unless you keep me?”
“Come on, Melly. You know why.”
I shook my head. “You want the idea of me. You want the Melanie who was willing to give-give-give while you took-took-took. You want things to go back to the way they were. And guess what? They will never go back to the way they were. I don’t want to go back. I want to stay right where I am.” The second the words left my lips, relief overwhelmed me.
Maybe I didn’t know everything that I wanted, but I knew I liked where I was heading. And even though I was working a job that I didn’t necessarily feel was my purpose and I was currently waking up every morning to my father blaring Black Sabbath, I knew I’d made the right decision.
“So, that’s it?” he asked, and I immediately nodded.
“That’s it.”
“You’ll regret this, you know,” he said, and the fact that it didn’t bother me one bit said more than words.
I kissed his cheek and whispered what I figured were the last words I’d ever say to him.
“Goodbye, Eli.” Closure. That’s what that goodbye meant to me. I’d finally closed the door on that relationship for good.
And as I turned away from my ex and headed through the reception door, I had only one person on my mind. Will.