Let Me Go

by Lily Foster

  I nodded and swallowed the lump in my throat. “I do want to go tonight, Jakub. Is that ok with you? Will you take me to the airport?”

  “If that’s what you want, Kasia, but I’d like to come with you.” When I looked at him, eyes wide, he smiled. “No, I mean I just don’t want you roaming the city, late at night, alone. I need to know you’re safe.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll take a cab straight to his place and then I’ll head right back to the airport to get the earliest flight out tomorrow morning.” His brows were furrowed. “Jakub, I don’t know what else to do. I feel awful telling him this while he’s in the middle of such a big mess at work but what’s the alternative? Wait for two weeks? Break it to him over the phone? I can’t do it.”

  “Your parents—”

  “I’ll call them from the airport.”

  Jake

  Leaving her at the ticket counter at LaGuardia was right up there with my all-time most awful moments. I hated the idea of her flying at night—putting loved ones on planes had become nearly impossible for me to do—and I was nervous about her safety navigating Chicago at night alone. I would never feel as if I had the right to tell her no, though. She made her own decisions and her strong, determined nature made her even more desirable to me.

  I’d wanted to break into a fit of fist pumps when she told me she was mine.

  I had been feeling on edge, no longer able to wait, after she’d returned from her trip. I’d decided that she was obviously with Dylan and that I had to get a hold of myself and move on. Anger and pain coursed through my veins that week she was away. The only positive was that I got a shitload of work done on the project. I needed to be occupied, beating myself up physically and falling into bed exhausted every night while she was gone.

  That first day I saw her at the shop when she returned, though, I knew it; I knew that I still had a chance. I could see that she was unhappy when Caitlin seemed interested in me and I could feel that Kasia was drawn towards me, no matter how hard she tried to resist it.

  God, I had wanted her to choose me.

  Kasia texted me when she landed at eleven o’clock and texted me when she was in a cab on her way to his apartment. I was on edge the entire night and after I took Kara home, I sat on the couch watching late-night television and infomercials; there was no way I could sleep. Kasia never indicated that Dylan was hot-tempered but I worried, envisioning every possible negative scenario. Kasia texted me at four in the morning:

  I’m at airport. Coming home on first flight.

  I was overcome with relief. I answered:

  U alright?

  She answered:

  I’m good. Thx for understanding last night.

  Letting her leave me last night was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. I couldn’t wait to get her back. I wrote:

  I’ll be there to get u—send me flight info

  Now I just had to hope that she was really ok and that after spending time with him…she was still mine.

  Dylan

  I never returned her text. I couldn’t even think about how I was going to handle this, what strategy I would use, which tactics might be most convincing—I knew it was over. The only question was who was going to be the one to drop the axe, Tomasz or me.

  He obviously hadn’t rushed home to tell her. If he really was sticking to the forty-eight hour deadline, I had until Wednesday night, maybe Thursday morning? The whole ordeal was just passing in and out of my consciousness, as I was fully engaged at work.

  We called it a night at nearly one-thirty with plans to resume talks at nine the next morning. I had a room at the hotel where we were working and had no intention of venturing home until I got Kasia’s text at midnight.

  She was here.

  She was in Chicago.

  I couldn’t do this tonight.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here earlier, Kasia. It’s been so crazy today. I’m just so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

  “It’s ok, Dylan. I know you’ve been tied up today and I know you have a lot of pressure on you. I’ve been sitting here for the past two hours thinking that I probably shouldn’t have come.”

  I sat on the couch and dropped my head into my hands. Why was she being so nice, so calm? It made my chest ache, as the thought of how caring and good she was washed over me. I’d fucked her over, royally, and she was still more concerned about my well-being than her own. “Kasia, don’t. I…I can’t think of what to say to make any of this better.”

  “Dylan,” she said as she dropped to her knees in front of me. “I’m sorry. I’ve tried. It’s been so hard being apart and I’ve tried to keep it so that we stayed close but I couldn’t. I don’t want to lie to you ever—that’s why I’m here.”

  “You’ve never lied to me, Kasia.”

  “I feel like I’m changing, Dylan. I care about you, so much…but I can’t help what I’m feeling.”

  I know I was tired but that couldn’t explain the confusion, the utter haze I was in. What the hell was she talking about? Why was she pleading with me instead of slapping me? “I don’t understand, Kasia. Spell it out for me.”

  She took a deep breath, like she was steeling herself. “I can’t see you anymore, Dylan. I didn’t intend for anything to happen and nothing has…but my feelings for—”

  “Jake. Holy fucking shit. It’s Jake, right?”

  She said nothing, just lowered her head, resting it on my knees. It was instinctive, the urge to comfort her. I stroked her hair. “I’m sorry too, Kasia.” Tears were escaping, sliding down my cheeks. “I love you, you know. We can get through this. Both of us, right?”

  Maybe, just, maybe, I thought, that she could forgive my cheating now that she admitted her own infidelity—even if hers was just merely the sin of thinking of someone else.

  “No, Dylan. I can’t be with you. It wouldn’t be fair to you. I—”

  “You want him.”

  “I want to get my head together. I don’t want to hurt anyone, Dylan. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were always so good to me, Dylan.”

  “Fuck, stop it. No, Kasia, I’m a shit. I haven’t been nearly good enough for you.”

  “Dylan, look at me.” When I did, I saw the kindest, most beautiful face I would ever see. “I know you’ve always tried for me, Dylan. You’ve wanted things.” When I went to speak, she raised her hand, silencing me. “You have. You’ve needed things that I can’t give you and you’ve always been a good person where I’m concerned. You’ve taken care of me, loved me, and always tried to help me. I love you for that. What I’m doing hurts now but in the end it will be better for you too.”

  “No one will ever be better for me, Kasia. There’s no one but you.”

  We must have sat there for a half an hour saying nothing, her head resting in my lap. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell her everything beginning with that first time in Palm Beach. I wanted her to comfort me, as she was right now. Tell me that it was ok, that she understood me, and that she knew that I didn’t mean to hurt her. But I didn’t tell her. Just maybe—she wouldn’t have to know what a dishonest prick I was. Maybe if she didn’t know, I wouldn’t have to let her go. I knew this was fatigue and desperation at work; there was no way dear old Tomasz wasn’t going to nail me to the cross. This was it. “Is there anything I can say to change your mind, Kasia?”

  She shook her head as she stood herself back up, kissed my cheek, said she was sorry again as she fought back tears, and then left the apartment.

  Kasia left me feeling shittier and sadder than I ever had in my entire life.

  Kasia

  Is there anything worse than breaking up with someone?

  I felt like the blood had been drained from my body. I slumped into the cab and stared out the window absently as I made my way back to O’Hare. It was three when I got to the airport. The only other people there were the porters and a few other stragglers who looked as aimless as I did. I didn’t feel entirely safe. I h
ad to pee but decided against it; I could hold it a while longer. I texted Jake after an hour and was so relieved that I cried when he texted me back immediately.

  He was waiting up for me.

  I loved him.

  I couldn’t wait to get back to him.

  It was eight when I walked out of the terminal to see Jake leaning against his truck, worry etched into his forehead as he looked off into the distance, seemingly lost in thought. He was beautiful, beyond the actual good-looking part; it was the true kindness and goodness that he exuded—that’s what made him irresistible.

  I knew that if I was lucky enough to capture Jakub’s heart that he would never make me regret the decision to love him. I was as sure of that as I was sure that one day Dylan—meaning to or not—would have most certainly destroyed me.

  “Thank you, Jakub.”

  He reached out to touch my cheek. “For what, Kasia?”

  “For worrying about me, for staying up all night…you look as tired as I do.” He smiled at me. “Thank you, Jakub.”

  He took my bag and opened my door. When he got in, he turned to me and took my hand. “I was thinking,” he smiled, “all night. There’s no pressure, Kasia. I’m not expecting you to be my girlfriend.” He shook his head. “Wait. That sounded wrong, like I’m in eighth grade or something.”

  “Is it ok if I want to be your girlfriend?”

  He kissed my hand then. “Yes. I think I could be ok with that.”

  “But I just need to take things slowly, if that’s alright with you.”

  “I told you, Kasia, I’ll wait for you.”

  Instead of going straight to the store, we sat at a nearby diner and I basically told Jakub my life story. I told him about growing up in Greenpoint, about Patryk, my adventures at Prep and at UV. I told him about Dylan, not every detail—I could never—but he understood that there were experiences that I’d regretted. He held my hands across the table whenever I faltered. I also told him the good things about Patryk and Dylan. There were many happy memories and good parts of both relationships. They were both very good men—not perfect but no one was. I felt this need to tell him; I wanted him to really know everything about me.

  And then I wanted to know him.

  “Now it’s your turn, Jakub.”

  Jake

  I knew what made Kasia different from other girls. When she told me about her life, about her past, she never once lingered on what was negative. I gathered from listening to her talk about Patryk that he’d tried to control her, keep her down. She skated over that. She wasn’t blind to his faults, it ended their relationship, but she chose to describe him according to his best qualities. With Dylan it was the same. I was willing to bet my entire life savings that he had been screwing around behind her back at some point in their relationship—he just seemed like the type. Kasia, though, chose to see how hard he had tried to be someone he really wasn’t in an effort to please her.

  I told Kasia my story then. About my childhood; the happiness I’d experienced as a kid growing up in Wallington, New Jersey, another Polish-heavy enclave close to New York City. The excitement of Kara’s birth, which I’m sure was an oops! moment for my parents. The sense of well-being I had of growing up with some degree of financial security; the big house, vacations, private schools. That feeling being replaced with the devastation of not only losing my parents, but of finding out that my father had spent beyond his means and hadn’t secured the basics to protect us, such as life insurance.

  “It doesn’t seem like you thought twice about what to do, Jake.”

  “I didn’t but it was all because of Karolina. I still sometimes don’t know, though, if what I did was selfish or if it was the best for her.”

  “Selfish? How could you say that? Look at her today. You couldn’t be anything but proud of her and if you listen to her tell it, that’s all thanks to you.”

  “But, Kasia, those first two years…,” I pinched my eyes closed just thinking about it. “She went from living in a big, four-bedroom house to a studio apartment in a neighborhood that wasn’t exactly safe. Had to leave her friends behind and switch from a small, all-girls private school to a noisy, overcrowded public school. I had to work any job I could, which meant working for shitty contractors that cut corners. Those first two years I questioned my decision every day. But Kara was always smiling, she made friends at that new school, didn’t complain about our crappy apartment…”

  “She does seem like a little piece of sunshine, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s my nickname for her—”

  “Sloneczko.” She smiled at me. “That’s my brothers’ name for me.”

  “Yeah, it fits.” I couldn’t get enough of this girl. I never realized how good it felt to talk about what had happened to me. I was always busy working, planning, saving…looking ahead. I didn’t have anyone, I realized sadly, to really talk to.

  “Jake, you sacrificed so much. God, just thinking about you as a twenty-year old, having to leave school, leaving that life behind and then having to throw yourself into working full-time…”

  “It was like I was on autopilot, you know? You just do what you have to do. I couldn’t have afforded the room, board, and tuition, even though I had a partial scholarship. Maybe I could have worked and stayed in school but then I wouldn’t have been able to keep Kara and,” he looked at me smiling then, “like I said, I’m selfish. I couldn’t let her go live on the other side of the country. I couldn’t…”

  She was rubbing my hands. “What?”

  “I just couldn’t stand the thought of being all alone.”

  I felt like I’d bared my worst self when I admitted that but Kasia, she just raised my hands to her lips and kissed them tenderly.

  After a moment she asked, “How serious were you with Hannah?”

  My surprised expression led her to confess, “Kara told me.”

  I shook my head. “Figures. Hannah and I…I guess we were serious. Who knows if we would have gone the distance, you know…if nothing had changed. She was a good girl, funny, kind. She literally did cut ties within a month of my parents dying, though, and that was harsh.”

  “Um, yeah, I’d say that’s harsh.”

  “But you know what? She was twenty. She didn’t sign up to help me raise a teenager. We had nothing in common anymore. My life had totally changed. I had no interest or patience when she was yammering on about the latest party or some silly disagreement between her and her friends. And I couldn’t…or wouldn’t talk about my parents, so I can’t really blame her for not comforting me.”

  “Are you still in touch?”

  “No.” I smiled ruefully. “She started banging my roommate a month after we broke up—at least that’s when I found out about it. I lost touch with most of my friends too. I was too busy and I didn’t fit in with them anymore. I’m just close with Henry and Kyle. They both wound up in New York after Georgetown so we reconnected.”

  “Did Hannah wind up with your roommate?”

  “No, I don’t know who she wound up with. She’s living somewhere in New York, though. Kyle saw her at some alumni function recently.”

  “Crap, I have competition?”

  “She’s probably been here for a few years now, Kasia. I haven’t looked her up and she hasn’t tried to find me. She wouldn’t be interested in the person I am now.”

  Kasia looked offended on my behalf; it was cute. “What’s that supposed to mean? What’s wrong with who you are now?”

  “Nothing. I’m good with who I am. But she wouldn’t see beyond the scuffed boots or the clothes I wear to work. She’s more for the Huntsman suit, Testoni shoes—for the Wall Street guy that I was on my way to becoming. Hannah liked money. Once she understood I was going to be struggling financially, she was out.”

  “Nice.”

  “No, Kasia, she was more honest than most people are. I mean, she didn’t say it flat-out but she also didn’t string me along, make me think that she still loved me. I don’t harbor any b
ad feelings towards her. And I don’t regret anything. Everything I’ve been through has brought me to this day, right? And I’m pretty damn happy today.”

  “I’m pretty damn happy too.”

  I swallowed and looked away for a second. I hadn’t worn my heart on my sleeve like this in a long time. Hearing her say that had me choking up for a second. “So how do we do this then? I’ve already told you that I love you and I haven’t even taken you out on a first date.”

  She threw a sugar packet at me, pretending to be annoyed as she grinned from ear to ear. “Yeah, that’s messed up!”

  “I know. Can I take you out Friday night?”

  Her smile was softer then. “Yes. I’d like that.”

  Kasia

  I heard nothing from Dylan. I wasn’t surprised by that, I guess. I always knew Dylan was capable of turning off his emotions like a faucet.

  When my phone rang Thursday morning and I saw Anna’s name flash on my screen, dread washed over me. When you end a relationship it’s never just the one person you end it with. Anna was one of the people whose loss would really hurt me. But would there be others? Would I remain close with Darcy, since Tom was one of Dylan’s closest friends? Would I lose Trish and Brian too?

  “Hey, Anna,” I said, weakly.

  “Ohmigod, Kasia. Whatever Dylan did to fuck this up, please give him another chance. I know what he’s like, Kasia, but he loves you.”

  “Anna, he didn’t do anything wrong. It just wasn’t working. It’s my fault, really.”

  “I just spoke to Aunt Margo and she’s beside herself.”

  I couldn’t believe that. “Really?”

  “She said Uncle Vince told her Dylan was trying to fly home to you Monday night but he wouldn’t let Dylan go. Dylan was trying to tell you himself, Kasia.”

  “Tell me what? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Anna. I went to see him in Chicago Tuesday. It’s…it’s over, Anna. I haven’t spoken to him since then.”

  “Oh, Kasia, I wish things were different. I wish he was different.”