Page 146 of The Scientist

It had been nearly three months since Lex left for Sweden.

I don't know what I expected. He made it clear he didn't want to try and continue a relationship with me, but I still never could have imagined it would play out the way that it did. For the first month, we talked almost every single day, and a glimmer of hope took root inside me—that maybe he'd changed his mind, maybe he did want to try after all. But it wasn’t long before our conversations began to grow less frequent, and each day that passed without a message felt heavier, until the hope I'd clung to eventually began to fade.

Our conversations now were few and far between, and they were mostly centered around checking in on my mom. He started blaming it on the time difference as to why he was never available to speak, and after so many unreturned calls, I eventually gave up trying… And it seemed he did as well.

“So, what is it then?” Garrett asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You look so different from the last time I saw you.”

I smiled. “Not this again.”

He chuckled lightly. “No, I just mean that the last time we saw each other you seemed so happy. It stung that I wasn’t the one making you look that way, but it actually helped me move on knowing that at least you were happy. But now…”

“Now what?”

“Now you just look miserable,” he said plainly. “Is it me? We don’t have to do this.”

Misery was my constant companion these days, though I tried to hide it. I didn’t want my mom to have to worry about me on top of everything she had going on, but if Garrett picked up on itwithin ten minutes of us being together, then I knew there was no way my mom hadn’t noticed.

I was practically living with her at this point. I would go to work, bring her to her appointments, we’d have dinner together, and I’d fall asleep on her couch. Rinse and Repeat. I couldn’t stomach being at my house. It felt like torture to be in the same bed Lex had slept in with me night after night, his scent still lingering on the sheets. The only outlier to my routine was when I’d meet up with Sarah, and we’d commiserate over how much we hated Sweden. Jace, as it turns out, was much more of a willing participant in trying to make long distance work. Sarah said he’d call every single night, which meant he was getting up early every morning just so they could talk. The time difference didn’t seem to matter so much to them.

“No.” I shook my head. “No, it’s not you.”

“Then…”

I sighed. “I’m still trying to figure things out with…” I couldn’t even say his name without feeling my chest tighten.

“Are you guys not together anymore?”

Tears filled my eyes, but I fought them back down. I wasn’t going to cry about this in front of Garrett.

“No,” I admitted in a small voice. “He took a job in Sweden and... things just didn't work out.”

I waited for Garrett to gloat or make mention of the fact that this was yet another relationship I’d failed because of distance. But he didn’t. He was looking at me with concern in his eyes.

“Listen, I’ve been wanting to apologize for the way I acted when I came to California,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done it. I knew things were over, but I didn’t want to accept it.”

I nodded and muttered, “Thanks.”

He looked at me pointedly and said, “Letting someone you love go isn’t as easy as everyone makes it seem.”

I don’t know why that struck me so hard. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. Were Garrett and I two sides of the same coin? Was I refusing to see the signs that things were over between Lex and I?

I don’t know how long I was caught up in my own reverie, but the sound of Garrett’s thumbs drumming on the table as he clutched his beer brought me back to reality. It was always his tell when he was anxious.

“Sorry,” I said, eyeing his hands. “I didn’t mean to space out.”

“No worries,” he said but his thumbs continued tapping on the table.

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No, why?”

“Because it sounds like you’re trying to recreate the drum solo toIn the Air Tonighton our table.”

His fingers immediately froze before his mouth curled into a grin.“I didn’t realize I was doing that.”