One weekend. It is only one weekend. This is what I tell myself over and over as I board Holt’s private jet at the Westchester County airport.

But as I walk down the aisle, I realize I have only ever been on five planes in my life. The plane from Jamaica to Connecticut. The plane back to Jamaica when Lydia died. The plane to Mexico. The plane from Mexico to here. And now, I am on the first leg of a roundtrip flight to Little Rock, Arkansas, the state where Cal-Mart has its official headquarters. This mean by the time this weekend is over, half of my flights will have been on board a private jet.

Look at the poor Jamaican girl now, I think with a wry chuckle as I sit in one of the plane’s sumptuous leather seats. It’s the same one I sat in for the flight from Mexico to Connecticut.

“Something funny?” Holt asks.

He takes the seat across from me. Again. But this time, I don’t think he will let me stay quiet. He expects things from me this weekend. More hate-fucking, I’m sure. And what else? I don’t know.

But a frisson of fear uncurls inside my stomach as I shake my head at him. Because suddenly, there is nothing funny about this trip. Nothing at all.

I squirm under Holt’s suspicious eyes. And to think I did not believe it was possible to feel any less comfortable than I had on the flight to Connecticut back in August.

Now I know…

“Can I get you anything today, Ms. Pinnock?” the flight attendant, an older woman with a grandmotherly demeanor, asks.

“Yes, a glass of red wine please,” I answer even though I am not much of a drinker.

“Excellent!” the flight attendant says with a bright smile. “And the usual for you, Mr. Calson?”

Holt nods and leans toward me. “Did you eat lunch?”

No, I haven’t. And if I am being truthful, my stomach feels too full of fear to eat anything. But I will need something to soak up the alcohol, so I listen attentively to the list of options rattled off by the flight attendant before deciding on the mushroom risotto.

The woman nods and leaves only to return a few minutes later with our drinks. She pushes a button that extends a tabletop between us and places a carafe of deep red wine in front of me. But to my surprise, she also opens a large bottle of Veen, a high-end Finnish water I only recognize because we used to offer it to our VIP guest families at The Tourmaline Ixtapa.

“You don’t drink on flights?” I ask Holt after the flight attendant pours some water into his glass and then makes her way to the back of the plane.

“No, not on flights,” he answers with a wry twist of his lips. “Or anywhere else.”

It takes me a second to process his words. “Hold on, you mean you do not drink at all?”

He shakes his head. “Not anymore. Last August marked ten years.”

My eyes widen, but then I recall what his father told me he had planned for Holt. A rehab clinic that would turn him back into the son he had so carefully groomed.

A huge smile spreads across my face. “Good for you! You went to rehab and it stuck.”

“No,” he replies taking a sip of his expensive water. “I decided against rehab.”

My smile wobbles because I do not understand what he is saying. But then my heart nearly stops because we broke up ten years ago last August.

“I’ve changed,” he says quietly. “I hope you believe that.”

My chest hiccups. Not because I don’t believe him. But because I do.

“It…ah…” He shifts in his seat, looking even more uncomfortable than I feel. “It must have been hard for you to be with me when I was like that. Difficult. I never really gave much thought to how that must have been for you. Not until our… conversation… in the bathroom. Can you tell me what it was like for you? I want to understand.”

I carefully set down my glass of wine. As what I once heard described as a “natural empath,” I am unused to being on this side of the conversation. With him or anyone else. I’m usually the one who checks in with my staff and friends, and I seriously cannot remember the last time anyone asked me to talk about my feelings. “You really—you really want me to tell you about this?”

“Yeah, I do,” he says. “How was it for you to live with me when I was like that?”

I think about lying but decide not to for reasons I can’t quite name. “Ah… I guess… inconsistent is the best way to describe it. Sometimes, I would come home and you would be happy to see me. Like, the most romantic boyfriend ever. Sometimes you would be completely passed out. You didn’t seem to track time like most people. I can remember you pulling the blackout curtains and being surprised when it was time for me to go to work. And it was hard to sleep with you because you were always getting up in the middle of the night once the high wore off. It was as if you didn’t live your life in days, like me, but from high to high. Those playlists you were always making for me? Sometimes, they would have songs on them that you’d already given me. But you would ask about them as if we hadn’t already had a whole conversation about them before. I was never sure what you would remember. Like the day you came down to meet my bus and asked me to marry you…”

“I definitely remember that,” he quickly assures me.

I nod at him sympathetically. “Yeah, I know. But I was surprised because you had no memory of having said it to me twice before.”

Holt freezes, his expression stricken in a way I have never seen on him. “I asked you to marry me three times?”

I nod.

“And…how many times did you say yes?”

I clamp my lips, not wanting to answer. It is too embarrassing.

But he digs anyway. Forever the predator chasing me down and pulling me out of whatever hole I am trying to hide in.

“Just that once?” he demands to know.

I shake my head.

“Twice?”

Again, I shake my head.

“Every time?” he asks.

I hesitate…then nod.

“Jesus Christ.” He falls back in his seat, scraping a hand through his carefully coiffed hair. “Why didn’t you say anything to me? Why didn’t you ever complain?”

Good question. “I believe…well, I think we both had issues. I have done a lot of thinking and studying since I left you. I believe maybe there was something in me that wasn’t good for you. I nurture children. I am a natural when it comes to that. But with adults, I find it hard to say no, to set boundaries. I mean, I can do this easily at work. But it is very difficult for me to do this in my personal life. I am always trying to be perfect for others and I do not expect them to be perfect for me. You weren’t always bad, you know. Sometimes you were perfect. You often spoke of wanting to be better. And though you only spoke of it, I wanted to believe in you. I thought if I took good care of you, you would get better. But then you overdosed…”

Holt’s mouth works a few times, and I guiltily look away. It feels like I have sliced open his stomach and inserted a huge truth bomb when all he really wanted was a small dose of honesty.

“I am sorry, Sylvie. I was raised to never apologize. But I am very sorry for not being a better boyfriend to you. And now I finally understand why you left me.”

I shake my head. “Holt, please. Nobody deserves to be left like that.” I choose my words carefully, an image of Jack Calson’s hard blue eyes searing into my brain. “I am sorry, too,” I say for the thousandth time. But now I mean it more than I ever did before. “I am so sorry for the way things ended between us.”

He nods. It is a small gesture, but very big to me because this is the first time he has ever accepted an apology from me.

The flight attendant returns. “Can I offer you some fruit to enjoy while you wait for lunch?” She sets a beautifully-arranged platter of mixed berries, sliced pineapple, melon, kiwi, and mango in the middle of the table.

I take a piece of mango. It reminds me of something Wes said a few days earlier. “Holt? Do you really not like bananas?”

He pauses with a forked piece of pineapple halfway to his mouth…then grimaces and says, “Honestly? I fucking hate them.”

My eyes widen, “Do you remember the—?”

“Those banana fritters! Yeah… I do,” he assures me with an aggrieved look. “That was the last time I ate bananas. I promise you that.”

I stare at him for a shocked moment, and then I am laughing, delighted in spite of myself by this long-delayed confession. At least we are being honest with each other now. Finally.

Maybe this trip was a good idea after all, I think. A final farewell along with some healing neither of us could have achieved on our own. Or, maybe not…

As we share the fruit platter, guilt rolls my stomach. Holt is finally being honest with me, but there is still so much I am not telling him. And here it comes again, the urge to blurt out everything—even though it will end with me being sued to kingdom come, and endanger the life I’ve built with Barron.

You cannot tell him…I warn myself, my inner voice as stern and chiding as my mother’s.

But how I want to. Dear mercy, how I want to.

In the end, Holt and I stick to safe topics for the rest of the flight. His upcoming board presentation, Barron’s course work, and the chances of Mexico making it into the next World Football Cup. Anything and everything, except for the past.