by Holly Rayner
“Thai food?” Lucy asked, grabbing the menu down from the fridge.
Alyssa dug through her tote bag, located the purse she’d shoved in there, and freed her phone. “Sounds good. Chicken green curry, please.”
Lucy already had her phone out and was walking into her bedroom with it propped between her ear and shoulder.
Alyssa stared at her cell’s screen, her body gone numb. “Lu…”
“I’d like to place a to-go order,” Lucy said from in her bedroom.
Alyssa’s heart rate doubled. “Lucy.”
“Let’s see…one order of summer rolls, green curry with chicken…aaaand…”
“Lucy,” Alyssa whispered, her voice cracked and barely audible.
It was him. Ali was calling. Over a month had gone by and she hadn’t heard a peep, and now, just when Alyssa’s new life was starting, here he was.
Did she answer? Ignore him?
Alyssa was stronger than she used to be, but she still missed Ali. She still had growing to do.
And it wasn’t even really a matter of strength. Ali was calling, and she needed to know why.
“Hello?” Alyssa answered.
“Alyssa.” He paused. “It’s Ali.”
“Yeah, I… I saw your name.”
Alyssa closed her eyes. All it took was hearing his voice to be thrown back to that evening outside the restaurant. In the blink of an eye, Alyssa was reliving it all again. The fear. The pain. The hope that he might feel the way she did.
But mostly, it was the pain taking up residence in her heart.
“How are you?” Ali said slowly, like he was uncertain whether or not he should be asking.
“I’m…good.” Alyssa squeezed her eyes shut. Good until you called.
“I called because I want to apologize.”
She let that hang in the air, waiting for him to go on…except he didn’t.
Lucy appeared in her bedroom doorway. “What’s up?” She noticed Alyssa on the phone and mouthed, Who is that?
Ali, she mouthed back.
Lucy’s eyes went wide as saucers. “No,” she gasped. “Speaker!”
Shaking her head, Alyssa turned toward the wall. “Apologize for what, exactly?” she said into the phone.
“Alyssa…can we speak in person?”
She sucked in a breath. “I don’t know, Ali…”
Another long silence passed. “Please, Alyssa. Give me one chance. After today, if you never want to see me again, I understand. I’ll leave you alone.”
Lucy stepped up next to her, her eyes still giant, as Alyssa chewed on her thumbnail, her mind racing. What should she do?
Of course she wanted to see Ali, but it wasn’t that simple. What had happened between them had broken her in two, and she was using all of her energy gluing herself back together. If a meeting didn’t go well and Alyssa ended up being hurt again, she’d be emotionally set back weeks.
But if she didn’t meet up with him, she would spend the rest of her life wondering what could have been. After spending most of her life sitting on the sidelines and watching her dreams pass her by, that last choice didn’t feel like a viable option.
“Okay,” Alyssa said. “One chance.”
And it needs to be quick. Any nonsense at all—any games or lies—and Alyssa would be out of there.
“Thank you,” Ali said, and Alyssa thought he sounded relieved, but she also didn’t want to get her hopes up. She wasn’t sure yet what she wanted from him. Even if he really was sorry, that wouldn’t be enough.
“I’d like you to meet me in the lobby of my building,” Ali said.
Alyssa hesitated. That didn’t sound like neutral ground at all.
“Please, Alyssa,” he said. There was a hint of pain there, and it was enough to bend her.
“Okay,” she answered. “I can do that.”
“Thank you. I’ll text you the address. Can you come now?”
Alyssa looked down at her jeans and high school track T-shirt. She wasn’t exactly in her prime state.
It’s just Ali. Screw him.
Alyssa rolled her eyes at the thought. If only it were that simple. The truth was, Ali had taken a piece of her heart. There was no bargaining there, no way of getting back what he’d stolen.
But even though she couldn’t un-break her heart, at least Alyssa could make sure not to put any extra effort into time spent with Ali. So, unwashed hair and a sports T-shirt with holes it was.
“Sure,” Alyssa said. “Text me the address.”
Before he could answer, she hung up.
“He wants me to meet him at his building,” she told Lucy.
“And you’re going?”
“Yeah,” Alyssa said. “But he said in the lobby, not his apartment.”
“Why?”
“Beats me.” Alyssa shrugged.
“Maybe he wants to take you out somewhere.”
“I’ll say no,” Alyssa immediately said. She eyed her friend. “You agree with my mom still, huh? You think I should give him a chance?”
“Mm, a little, yeah. I mean, she wasn’t born yesterday. She has to have some experience with guys.” Lucy inspected Alyssa’s face. “What do you want? From Ali?”
Alyssa sighed. “I can’t even think about that right now. I’m just gonna go there and see what he has to say. Save me some food?”
Lucy opened the front door for her. “Don’t worry. I ordered enough for, like, three days. We’re set.”
It was strange that, after everything that had gone down between them, Alyssa had still never been to his place. Hopping on the train, she took the ride over the East River and to Ali’s Manhattan neighborhood. By the time she emerged from the subway, it was dusk. Cars and shops were turning on their lights, and people walked briskly in every direction, either leaving work or headed out to meet their friends.
As she walked, Alyssa nervously twisted her purse’s strap. What would he say to her? And was she ready for it?
She wanted more than what Ali had given her. She needed more. After years of dating, relationships that went nowhere, and a hefty amount of time alone, she needed a person in her life she could count on. If Ali couldn’t give her that, then not only did she need to walk, she needed to make sure she was actually strong enough to put one foot in front of the other.
At the address Ali had sent her, a doorman hurried to open the door.
“Thanks,” Alyssa said, her gaze already sweeping the lobby in front of her. Shiny marble floors. Plants in pots that were probably twice her weight. A set of elevators.
No Ali.
Needing to calm her nerves some, Alyssa pulled her phone out and sent Lucy a text. Just got here. I’d rather be home with some shrimp satay skewers, though.
“Alyssa.”
At the sound of Ali’s voice, Alyssa jumped. He stood in front of one the elevators, his gaze on her. Instead of one of the suits she’d become so accustomed to seeing him in, he had on jeans and a dark T-shirt. As he took a few steps towards her, her hands shook.
“Hi,” Alyssa croaked.
Ali stopped an arm’s length away from her, but he felt closer. So close, Alyssa swore she could feel his body heat.
“Thank you for coming,” he said.
Alyssa tried to answer, but the words got all jumbled up in her throat, and so she settled with nodding instead.
“Will you come somewhere with me?” he asked.
“Where?”
“Not far. The roof.”
“The roof?” Alyssa scrunched her brow.
“There’s something up there I want to show you.”
Ali offered his hand, but Alyssa made no move to take it. After a moment, he dropped it and cleared his throat.
“Are you going to make me beg?” he asked quietly.
“I’m coming,” she said resolutely, closing her fingers around her purse’s strap.
On the elevator ride up, Alyssa kept her lips pursed and her eyes downcast. In the weeks that had passed since that nigh
t outside of the restaurant, she’d mentally run over the conversation perhaps a hundred times. Each time, she thought of something she wished she had added.
You say you want more from life now, Ali, but you don’t act like it. How long are you going to live for pleasing your parents, anyway? Maybe you’re used to other women going along with whatever you want, but that’s not me.
Now that they were together again, though, all of those complaints seemed moot. Alyssa’s tongue was heavy in her mouth, and her stomach had twisted, then turned to steel. Whatever today was about, she needed to make sure she stayed strong.
The elevator took them up to a small room that had two glass walls. Ali opened a door to the right, leading them to the part of the roof that had been blocked from view. There, illuminated by lights set along the roof’s perimeter, a blue helicopter sat. Through its windshield, a pilot nodded at them.
Alyssa nearly tripped over her feet.
Ali just stood there, looking between Alyssa and the helicopter.
“This is what you brought me up here for?” Alyssa asked with a shake of her head. What was going on?
“Yes. I want to take you away. Right now. Forget packing. I have everything you’ll need already ordered, and I can send someone to take care of Ralph.”
Alyssa’s jaw fell. “Uh…”
“Don’t worry. I’ll have you back in time to get to the firm on Monday.”
Alyssa blinked rapidly. Were those stars appearing in the burgeoning night sky, or were they spots in her eyes?
When she finally found her voice, the answer wasn’t what she’d expected. “I don’t work at the law firm anymore.”
“You don’t?” Ali asked.
“No. I quit and got a job managing files at a non-profit.”
“Alyssa, that’s great,” Ali breathed.
Alyssa shook her head and didn’t look at him. She didn’t know why she’d told him that. Her work wasn’t what they’d come there to discuss.
“Costa Rica,” Ali revealed, the timbers of his voice sweet and smooth. Honey. That’s what it was when he spoke. “How about it?”
Alyssa gaped at him in the rooftop’s lighting. “What? Why Costa Rica?”
“You said you wanted to go there.”
Biting into her lip, Alyssa turned away from Ali. She’d mentioned that desire once—and in passing. She didn’t want to be impressed that he’d remembered.
“Alyssa.” Ali’s footsteps came closer to her, and though Alyssa didn’t turn around, she could feel Ali standing only inches away. “I’m sorry. You were right. I took everything too far. Please…accept my apology and spend the weekend with me.”
Tears clung to Alyssa’s eyelashes. Wasn’t all of this precisely what he’d said last month? Had he brought her up here just to reiterate?
Alyssa guffawed, a bitterness unlike any she’d ever felt filling her. She’d opened her heart up to him—and been honest about it. When push came to shove, she didn’t hide her feelings. She’d faced them like people were supposed to do. And now Ali had latched onto her again, made a mockery of what she’d given him.
Everything, as it turned out, was still the same.
Everything except for Alyssa.
Whirling around, she faced Ali with her chin raised. “I’m not as dumb as you think I am.”
Ali balked. “Alyssa, I never said—”
“I was honest with you, Ali. I cared about you. I…loved you.”
The last statement made Alyssa feel like she was being cracked in two, but she forced herself to spit it out. After all these years of living for other people, she had finally found her truth, and she’d wasn’t going to cower behind lies anymore.
“I’m done being your fake fiancée,” she said. “I’m done being anything to you.”
She started to walk away, but Ali grabbed her arm. Alyssa paused—part of her wanting to pull free from his grasp and run away, and the other part of her, despite all her anger, hungry to hear whatever he had to say.
“Alyssa, no,” Ali said on a thick exhale. “You misunderstand. I don’t want you to be my fake fiancée. I want you to be my girlfriend. I love you, Alyssa.”
Her ears rang in the silence following his statement.
“You…want…what?”
Ali dropped her arm and took a small step closer to her. “This last month has been a difficult one, Alyssa. When you told me you loved me, I was in shock. No one…” Ali dipped his face. A long moment went by, and then he looked back up at her, his face open to a degree she’d never seen on him. “No one had ever said that to me,” he finished.
“No one?” Alyssa asked.
“Not since I became an adult.” Ali’s throat rolled as he swallowed. “I did not know how to take it. It came as quite a shock.”
Alyssa folded her arms, not sure how she felt anymore. All she knew was that she wanted Ali to keep talking.
“And then what happened?” she asked.
Ali’s gaze on hers was unwavering. “I took some time to myself. Time to think about all of this. I stopped going out. I stopped distracting myself…and I realized that all I want is you, Alyssa. I have been empty for a long time, but with you, everything is right. This—you and me…” He took Alyssa’s hand, and she let him press it to his chest. “I feel this is the beginning of a wonderful journey. You and me, together, we have this untapped potential.”
Alyssa couldn’t help but smile. She understood perfectly what he was talking about.
“I love you, Alyssa,” Ali said. “Tell me what to do to show you that, and I will do it.”
Alyssa’s chest swelled, and fresh tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t expect this.”
Ali’s mouth turned down. “You were moving on?”
“I had to.” Alyssa brushed tears away with the back of her hand.
Ali kissed the hand he held onto, and Alyssa’s knees trembled. Ali loved her.
He loved her!
“And you?” Ali asked. “How do you feel about me, now?”
Alyssa laughed through her tears. “I love you too, Ali. Even though I was mad about what happened, it didn’t change how I felt about you. Nothing could ever change how I feel about you.”
“So, you forgive me?” Ali asked with a grin.
“Most definitely.”
Grinning wide, Ali pulled her flush to him and kissed her deeply. A joy Alyssa had never imagined her body could contain filled her, and her feet seemed to leave the rooftop.
Breaking the kiss, Ali pushed hair from her forehead and cupped her face. “Let me take you to Costa Rica.”
“Actually…” Alyssa ran her bottom lip between her teeth, concocting the idea on the fly. “You said you would do anything to show me you love me, right?”
“Anything,” Ali agreed instantly.
“If that’s the case, I do have one idea.”
Chapter 20
Alyssa
“I don’t think I’ll be able to keep the food warm for that long,” Lucy said over the phone.
Alyssa glanced around Ali’s massive living room. On one wall, floor-to-ceiling windows showed off a dazzling view of the city. On another, a corner bar sat next to a fireplace Alyssa could probably stand straight up in. Though Ali had said he’d already packed bags for them both, they had run down to his apartment to grab a couple books for the journey—Baqar, as Alyssa already knew, was quite a distance away from New York.
“Well, put it in the fridge,” Alyssa said with a smile. “I’ll be back Sunday night.”
“That’s a lot of traveling. You’ll hardly get any time on land.”
“It’ll be worth it.” Alyssa glanced at the hallway leading to Ali’s library. He’d gone in there a minute before and Alyssa had taken the opportunity to call Lucy. “I really want to see his parents,” she said in a low voice. “To apologize to them and to get their blessing.”
“Wow.” Lucy paused. “You really think they’re going to go along with this?”
“I don’t know.” Alyssa w
alked to the tall windows and ran her finger down the cool glass. “But I have to try.”
“They don’t matter, you know. Ali wants you, and you want him. They sound really, uh…burdensome.”
Alyssa could tell Lucy had picked the kinder version of whatever word was really on her mind.
“But they do matter,” Alyssa whispered. “They might be hard on him, but they’re his parents. I don’t want to be responsible for driving the wedge even deeper between them.”
“Yeah,” Lucy mumbled, “that makes sense.”
Over the last week, ever since that conversation in her mother’s kitchen, Alyssa had been looking at parents in a new way. They might have had their ups and downs over the years, for sure, but she now saw that her mother was another parent just trying to do her best for their kid. She pushed Alyssa because she wanted her daughter to be happy.
And it was probably the same with Ali’s parents.
Most people who had kids also had hearts. Ali’s parents loved him and wanted the best in the world for him. Maybe Alyssa couldn’t be the person to bring the three of them back together, but she sure wouldn’t be the one to destroy that possibility.
Footsteps sounded down the hallway.
“I need to go,” Alyssa told Lucy. “See you soon.”
“Okay. Good luck!”
Hanging up, Alyssa pocketed the phone just as Ali came in with a stack of books in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That took me longer than I thought it would.”
When Alyssa said nothing, he stopped walking and stared at her. “What is it?”
“Just admiring you,” Alyssa honestly answered.
Setting the books on the couch, Ali closed the space between them and pulled Alyssa into his arms. She sank against his chest, his comforting warmth surrounding her and causing immeasurable peace.
Ali nuzzled her forehead, and Alyssa sighed in pleasure.
“We should go,” she whispered.
