Page 88 of Imperfect Match (Imperfect Match 1)
I’m miserable and a bear to work with. I hate myself. I hate you for making me love you. I hate people, the sun, food, breathing. “Great. Things are good. Work is going well and I’m just staying busy.”
“That’s great,” she says and then looks back down. After another few seconds, she looks back up. “How’s Leo?”
“He’s Leo.”
“Well, tell him I said hello.”
I look up and we have two more floors to go. Suddenly, it doesn’t feel like time is moving too slow, it’s going at rapid speed. She’s going to walk out and go to her apartment and I’ll be in mine—alone. I want to rush forward and hit the stop button. Tell her I love her and I need her. Beg her to understand and give me time, but it won’t be fair.
We’ll never see eye to eye and I won’t be the man that breaks her.
“I will.”
The elevator dings and the doors open. And my heart is pounding. I don’t know when I’ll see her again, hear her voice, get even a glimpse into her life. This is what our relationship has been reduced to … me praying I can be near her in the elevator.
We both stand there and I step forward. “Go ahead.”
“Thanks.”
This isn’t us. We’re not indifferent strangers. Before, she would’ve just walked out or her arm would’ve been hooked in mine. We would’ve kissed the entire ride up just a few days ago. If I went back further, we would’ve been laughing and smiling as we made fun of our siblings or griped about our jobs.
I guess this is the new us. The people we once were are gone because we never should’ve tried when we were doomed from the start.
We get to the doors of our apartments, and feeling shittier than ever, I can’t hold back. This can’t be the way it is because that would be the saddest thing. Not only that, I need her. I don’t care that we have differences, we’re fucking Reid and Willow, the unbreakable friends that everyone else was jealous of. There has to be a way. “Hey, Wills …” I call her name as she stands in front of her door.
She turns. “Yes?” Her eyes are so trusting, hopeful, and I see everything I want right here.
The hope is what does me in. She still thinks there’s a man worth more inside of me. Someone who is capable of loving her and giving her more than what I can. It’s false and it brings me to my knees. “Have a good night.”
Her eyes close as she nods. “Yeah, you too.”
There’s not a chance in hell that will happen. There’s nothing good without her.
I can’t stop thinking it.
As I rummage through the pitifully empty refrigerator—there’s nothing good without her.
As I sit staring at a stupid, sappy movie on TV—there’s nothing good without her.
As I lie awake in bed, contemplating thousands of lonely nights like this—there’s nothing good without her.
Is this really what my life is going to be like from now on? Day after day, night after night of missing her? Of hating myself for letting
her go? Of wishing I could be someone else?
Why does it have to be so fucking hard for me to imagine myself as a husband and father? Deep in my heart, I want to be those things for her … but I’m scared. I have no idea how to be the man that she deserves.
And yet I love her enough to do anything for her, don’t I? Even face off against my own monsters under the bed? Look them in the eye and tell them to fuck right off? Banish them from my life forever so I can not only make Willow happy, but be happy with myself?
But how?
I lie awake for hours until it hits me out of nowhere—I know what I have to do.
Early the following morning, I go straight to my father’s office. It isn’t even eight yet, but I know he’ll be here already.
I hardly slept last night but feel oddly energized as the elevator rises to the twenty-second floor of the downtown Chicago skyscraper where The Fortino Group’s executive suites are housed. My pulse is racing, and my stomach muscles are tight. My hands clench repeatedly at my sides.
The administrative staff isn’t in yet, so I’m able to walk right past reception and his assistant’s desk, and barge into his swanky corner office with a view of the lake. My father sits reading a newspaper at his desk, cup of coffee in one thick-fingered hand. He’s wearing a dark suit, red tie tightly knotted, salt-and-pepper hair neatly combed back. He has a broad chest, a prominent brow, and a granite slab of a chin. If not for the expensive clothing and cufflinks, he might look more like a mob boss than a CEO.
