‘Hey, Mr Decker.’ Mel, my new receptionist, greets me when I walk in. ‘I tried to call you.’ She walks around her desk, approaching me, nervously fidgeting with her necklace. ‘You have a visitor. I tried to make her wait for you but she kind of just let herself in. She said she was an old friend and that you had unfinished business. I couldn’t keep her out. She’s in your office. I’m so sorry.’ She shrugs, nervously glancing down the hall towards my office with an obviously uncomfortable smile on her face.
Shit. I stand at Mel’s desk, growing more nervous by the second. This is exactly what I didn’t expect. For Ambri to hunt me down and murder me in my office only a week after I come back. I knew she’d be mad, I don’t blame her at all for that, but I didn’t think she’d still be force her way into my office mad. I was kind of depending on her still being never wants to see my face again mad until I had figured out exactly how to approach her.
‘OK, not a problem,’ I lie, playing it cooler on the outside than I’m feeling on the inside. I glance down the hall; it’s definitely a problem. A giant problem that has me more nervous than I’ve ever been. This could be like walking into a room filled with dynamite. Dynamite that I lit the fuse on two years ago.
I take a deep breath, blowing it out slowly as I stare down the hall towards my office. I can do this. It’s Ambri. I know her better than anyone. I know she’s mad, but she’d never actually kill me. I don’t think. I hesitantly walk down the hall. The door of my office is partially open but I can’t make out if it’s her through the window looking into the hallway.
Relax, Henry. You can do this. She deserves an explanation.
‘Ambri…’ I finally work up the nerve to walk in, afraid to look at her.
‘Pffft, yeah, right.’ She laughs. ‘’Cause Ambri’s gonna come here and throw herself at you after what you did.’
Claire. This is the first opportunity she’s had to tell me off to my face. I’ve heard it many times over the phone, but this time will be different. She’s Ambri’s best friend and I’m now just the guy who hurt her.
I let out a huge sigh of relief as I set my bag on my desk before turning to face her. ‘I gotta say, I know you’re mad but I’m a little relieved it’s you.’
She glares.
‘OK, you’re not mad, you’re pissed. I get it. Let me have it.’ I lean against the front of my desk, waiting for her to speak.
She starts pacing the room. Back and forth in front of my desk as the clock ticks by. Finally she stops right in front of me, jabbing her finger into my chest.
‘You. Fucking. Asshole.’ She says it with a fire I’ve never heard from Claire.
I nod, my face scrunched into an awkward frown. I can’t deny that.
‘Everything OK?’ Mel peeks in, her eyes wide.
‘Everything is good. Sorry for the interruption. She’s just letting some steam off. I’ll close the door…’ I walk over, closing the door as Mel backs away.
I turn back to Claire. ‘I agree.’
‘What are you agreeing to?’
‘That I am indeed exactly what you just said, a fucking asshole. I don’t disagree even a little bit. I fucked up. I pay for it every single day.’
She rolls her eyes and starts pacing again.
‘You haven’t paid for anything.’ She lets out an irritated groan. ‘Do you have any idea what you did to her?’ she asks, finally sitting in one of the two chairs facing my desk.
I drop my head, my heart sinking through my chest. ‘No. She never wanted to talk to me again.’ I walk over, sitting in the chair next to her. ‘But if it’s anything like what I did to myself—’
‘It’s not at all like that.’ She interrupts me. ‘You know, she had finally let herself fall for you that night after years of convincing herself that you could never look at her that way. She was having feelings for you before that night, you know? She would have never told you if she knew you didn’t feel the same way.’ She shakes her head again. ‘And when she did you went and destroyed her, Henry! She lost you, her best friend, in a single night that she thought you both wanted.’
‘I did feel the same way. She was all I wanted.’ I lean forward in my chair, fidgeting with my own hands. ‘God, Claire, there isn’t anything I wanted more than Ambri. She was all I thought about those last few weeks I was here. I was so in love with her.’
‘Then what happened?’ She finally softens a bit.
‘Depression is a hard thing to explain. I’d just lost Rory hardly even a year prior and I had feelings for her sister. I was in love with Rory’s sister!’ It comes out as painful as it still feels. ‘Do you know what that does to a guy? I felt like I’d crossed a line and I couldn’t see past the guilt of what I’d done. It’s why I never told her, and why I couldn’t stay. Everywhere I looked was a memory that I couldn’t get rid of. If I’d stayed we’d still be going through the same shit right now because of me. It was never Ambri I was running from. I was running from myself.’
‘She says she hates you.’
I nod. I kind of figured. She’d never actually said those words to me, but I didn’t doubt she did. ‘She absolutely should.’
‘Do you still love her?’
I shake my head. ‘I can’t even go there. I’ve finally pulled myself off the cliff I was dangling on and now I’m with Karmen. I haven’t allowed myself to even consider how I might still feel about her.’
She purses her lips. ‘God, Henry, you’re such an idiot.’ She stands with a groan. ‘You know, I always thought you were the smart one out of all of us. The charming guy with a heartbreaking life story. You adored her – how did you let this happen?’
‘I don’t know.’ I shrug. I really don’t. It happened so fast and at the time it was what I think we both needed to happen. I never expected feelings and guilt to bombard me the way they did after. I truthfully thought the exact opposite would happen. I was as shocked by the words coming out of my mouth as Ambri was. Once I said them, I knew I could never take back the hurt that came with them. ‘Ambri is the smartest between the two of us. She cut me out of her life. I was only hurting her by continuing to depend on her. She deserves so much more than me.’
‘She has a boyfriend now. Noah. He’s a really good guy.’
I take a deep breath through my nose, trying to force away the thought of her with anyone but me. I can’t be upset over this. It was my choice to leave the way I did. ‘She deserves a good guy and if this Noah is that, then I’m glad.’ I finally say. My voice is flat, insinuating I’m not completely honest. Saying the name of the guy now in the place I could have been doesn’t feel even a little bit good. I try to put myself in her shoes. According to Ben I broke her heart in a way they’d never seen happen with Ambri. Ben once told me it was like I had died too and it took everything they had to pull her out of the place she was in afterwards. I can’t picture her broken like I was because she was always the strongest person I knew. The fact that I did that to her, is part of what kept me away. I couldn’t face it. Sometimes I wish I could have been the guy she needed. But I wasn’t. And she deserves to be happy with someone who won’t do what I did to her. ‘I want her to be happy, Claire.’
Claire stands with a huff. ‘If you wanted her to be happy you wouldn’t have done something so pathetically stupid.’
I nod again. She’s not wrong.
‘Listen, I’ll forgive you at some point but that doesn’t let you off the hook. And you have to tell her you’re back yourself. You have forty-eight hours, Mr Decker. After that what happens is anyone’s guess. It might not be me sitting in wait in your office…’ She glares at me, smacking me in the back of the head as she exits my office. A move I definitely deserve.