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I looked over the email one last time before I sent it, and then, finally, I pressed the button to get it out of my to-send list.
There. I had done it. Accepted the position they’d offered me. I was going to Chicago. I had let them know I wanted to be up there as soon as possible and had offered to start packing my stuff up tonight so I could get out there sooner rather than later.
I still couldn’t believe this had happened. Couldn’t believe it had all gone to shit so quickly. Ellie had left without a word to me, just like that. I didn’t know what to think, but it made me wonder how true any of her feelings had been for me in the first place, if it had been so simple for her to just toss her hands in the air and get out.
I would do the same. I knew it would take them a little time to get everything rolling at the clinic again, but they would muddle through until my full-time replacement came in. I would leave a note for them, let them know something big had come up I couldn’t turn down. Hell, maybe some of them would even believe me. I prayed none of them had seen me at the fair with her, with Ellie, and had put the pieces together about her leaving so close to me. I needed for people to believe I was making these calls in my own right, not because of her or anything she had done.
I didn’t want to be tied to her in such a way. I didn’t want to be known as the guy who got his heart broken by a woman he’d fallen for way too fast. I should have known better. I should have been smarter. I should have been able to hold myself together instead of falling so hard for a woman I had only just met.
But now, she was gone, and I had to find a way to move forward without losing what remained of my mind. I could handle this, right? I could handle this. I had to just...I had to just stay focused on the amazing opportunity in front of me. Working as the head of a department in Chicago was a dream, a huge boon for my career. If you’d told me a couple of months ago I was going to get an offer as incredible as this, I wouldn’t have been able to contain my excitement.
The next morning, though, as I got up and started to stuff my things into boxes and bags, I couldn’t muster up any of it. I wanted to be excited, I wanted to be thrilled I had managed to get this opportunity, but my mind felt dulled, distant, somehow. It was on something else entirely, on the woman I couldn’t get out of my head, and I needed to leave her behind. When I left here, would she finally vanish? Would I be able to accept that she was gone?
I had checked my phone that morning to see if she had contacted me, but I couldn’t see anything. If she had reached out, she had done a good job of ignoring me and pretending she hadn’t seen it. For the best, probably. Wherever she was now—Paris, already, perhaps—she was far from me, and she had made it about as clear as she possibly could that she didn’t want to hear from me or see me again.
Okay, fine. The hospital had reached out to let me know they would be sending a moving van down around midday, which gave me some time to tie up loose ends in Maple Valley. I wrote out a quick letter to Rita and the rest of the people at the clinic, as well as a few notes for my patients to let them know where they would be able to reach me if they needed to. I was sure there was more I was forgetting, but in the fog of her absence, I couldn’t see through any of it to the other side.
I drove down to the clinic and dropped off my notes, hovering for a moment at the reception desk and wondering if I should say some formal goodbyes. They had been good to me here, and it felt more than a little cruel to just brush them off as though they didn’t mean a thing to me. They had worked hard to make sure I had been able to do everything I needed to, and I would miss them, to some extent, even if I was moving on to bigger and better things now. They were good people here, and I had appreciated how kind they had been to me, even if I had always had one eye on the door.
Same as Ellie, apparently. She had always been ready to get out. I thought she had been changing her mind, the way she had been talking lately, but clearly, I’d gotten her wrong. She had always planned a way out of there, always planned an escape. Now she had made it. I hoped she was happy. Hoped she felt as though she had made the right decision, even though she had rushed off in such a hurry.
The moving van arrived ten minutes early, and I helped the guys carry my stuff inside—a couple of them seemed surprised I had so little, another reminder, again, of how little I had really settled here. This house had always felt like a stopover to me, and now I was finally getting out to move on to something more solid. I should have been happy about it. And yet...
I climbed into my car to follow them on the long drive to Chicago. It would be hours before I got to my hotel, and I knew I should have probably hired a taxi, but I felt like it would do me good to get out on the road for a while and just focus on my thoughts.
I turned the music up loud, but all it made me think of was how much I had wanted to dance with her in her living room—how much I’d liked the thought of pulling down the record player from the attic and putting on some of my favorite music. It might not have been much, but it was a fantasy I had really liked, and now, knowing I would never get a chance to see it through, my heart stung a little.
Fine. I could handle it. It wasn’t a big deal. She was—she had made her choice, and if she was gone, I wouldn’t stick around waiting for her to make her grand return. I was sure of it.
I focused on the road ahead of me and managed to fall into something of a meditative state as I drove, feeling my hands on the wheel and the constant turn of the tires beneath me. I would be staying at a hotel that night as they unloaded everything at the new apartment the hospital had ready for me, and I was looking forward to crawling into bed and getting some sleep. The night before, I had been tossing and turning, thinking of her, unable to focus on anything but how much I longed to see her again. Away from Maple Valley, away from her, I figured I would be okay.
Better, anyway.
When I arrived at the hotel, my body felt like it had been thrown through a washing machine or something. Every muscle ached, and every part of me was crying out for some kind of rest. I said thank you to the guys who had been driving my stuff, and then headed up to the room that they had set aside for me. I could hardly take in how far I was from Maple Valley, how different the city was going to be to the town I had been in before. I wanted to fall asleep, but I knew I would be up all night, thinking, my mind running around everything that I’d done.
Before I could so much as sit on the edge on the bed, my phone rang. I picked it up at once. I wanted to see Ellie’s name on the screen. I wanted her to tell me she was waiting for me back in Maple Valley, waiting for me right now, so we could turn around and just go back to what we had known before.
But, instead, it was a number I didn’t recognize.
“Hello, Nate?”
“Celeste,” I replied, and I felt a smile spread out over my face as I heard her voice. There was something familiar about her which softened me. I almost wanted to just turn around and go back.
“Sorry to bother you, I hope I’m not disturbing you on the road,” she replied.
“No, it’s okay, I just got here,” I told her, stifling a yawn. “Are you okay?”
“I just wanted to know where you were staying,” she explained. “To make sure I have your address if I need to reach out. I might be going to the rehab facility soon, and they mentioned I would need to have access to my previous medical records. “
“Of course,” I replied. “I’m staying at the Marriott in Chicago. Room 908. You get in touch whenever you need to, okay?”
“Thank you, Nate,” she told me, and it sounded like there was something else she wanted to say. But before she could get it out, she quickly gathered herself and said her goodbyes.
“Well, sorry to disturb you after you must have been on the road so long,” she told me. “I hope you get a good night’s sleep.”
“Thanks, Celeste.”
We hung up, and I felt a twinge of sadness I wouldn’t be able to treat her anymore. Celeste was a lovely woman, and I wouldn’t be working with her anymore. She was one of the people I would miss the most.
Ellie, too. But I wasn’t allowing myself to think about that part. It was too much for me to take, for her to have gone from telling me she thought she was in love with me to turning around and running off to another part of the world. I wished I could call her again and talk to her, just ask her what the hell she had been thinking, but she wouldn’t have had any of it. When she made up her mind, she didn’t go back on what she decided.
Just like she had left Maple Valley the first time, she had left it again, and she wasn’t going to come back. She had a life of her own, and I wanted her to get back to it. I knew it was where she was happiest. The pain of what had happened with her sister was too much for her to take.
I fell back into bed and lay down, staring up at the ceiling as I tried to relax. I was here. I had arrived, and I had made my decision to come to Chicago and do what I needed to do. A whole new life was waiting for me. I just needed to take it.
I tossed and turned for hours that night before I was finally able to get to sleep, but when I eventually passed out, I was plagued with dreams of Maple Valley—of the quiet of my house, the peace I’d woken up to every morning. It was going to be strange, but I would get used to it.
I woke the next morning to the sound of someone banging on my door, and I leapt out of bed with a start. Shit! What time was it? And who was there? I wouldn’t be surprised if there was someone from the hospital there, ready to give me my introduction to this new city and show me around.
I peeled myself off the bed, rubbing my hand over my face and reaching for my shirt so I would at least be decent by the time I reached the door. Whoever it was, they were seriously intent on getting me out of bed.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I mumbled as I staggered across the room. Who the hell was here? What the hell did they want...?
I ran my hand through my hair, yawned, and straightened my shoulders to focus myself. I pulled open the door, and when I saw who was standing on the other side, my jaw dropped.
It was Ellie.
THE END
