It takes every ounce of will power in my body to break our gaze and look away, to pick up my pen and pretend to be engrossed in my sketches.

After about ten minutes, I reluctantly glance up, relieved to find him gone.

Chapter 39

MIA

Four weeks later

DEAN: I’ve been calling you twice a day for damn near a month. Are you really not going to answer me once?

DEAN: Mia, please. Just let me talk to you for five minutes...I miss you and I really want to clear things up.

I stare at Dean’s text messages, hating that they still have the ability to pull emotions out of me. I also hate that even though I’ve been doing my best to avoid him since I moved out, my mind has been thinking about him more than ever.

“Is that alright with you, Mia?” Michelle asks, breaking me out of my thoughts. “Do you agree with the terms?”

I place my phone back into my purse and focus on tonight’s dinner meeting.

Yesterday was my last day as curator for the Hamilton Array, and Michelle is treating to a farewell dinner. She was saddened to hear that I was leaving, and she playfully ignored my two weeks' resignation letter by slipping it under the fish tank in her office. Even though I won't be there anymore, she's offered to feature up to two of my paintings every month, on a rotating basis. And when I told her that I was going to host my very first art show in the next few months, she offered to play lead host for the night.

“You should be very proud of all you've accomplished while you were here, Mia,” she says. “I have no idea why you wasted your time at Harvard, though. They didn't deserve you.”

“Yeah. Some days I don't understand why I wasted my time there either. I didn't learn too much.”

“I wouldn't say all of that.” She stands up and extends her hand to me. “From what I recall, all the pieces you created during your college years were your most emotional and your most heartfelt. I can't help but get the feeling that they all have a unifying theme: The theme that you were hurting, and that you were running away from something. Is that true?”

I don't answer, I just give her a look that confirms it. I stand up to shake her hand, thanking her for an amazing evening, and promise her that I’ll give her the information about my first showing as soon as it's all confirmed.

She wishes me well one last time before walking away. and I sit back down at the table. Pulling out my phone again, I scroll through all the text messages that Dean has sent me this week. I want so badly to answer one of them, but I know that’s just my heart talking and she's fucked up one too many times to be given another chance. As I'm reading through the message he sent me last Saturday, the one about how he actually does love my hair better now than in high school, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I start to turn around, to see what's causing this reaction, but Dean is suddenly across from me at the table.

“Is someone sitting here?” he asks.

“Yes, please don't sit.”

“I will.” He sits down. “I'll keep it warm for whoever it is until they get back.”

I stare at him, unable to say anything else right now.

He's dressed in a three piece suit, his hair is cut a lot shorter than the last time I saw him, and his stunning green eyes are piercing right through me.

“I don't want to fight with you, I just want to talk.”

“Funny, I don't want to do either.” I finally get my words out. “I want you to leave.”

“I'll leave after I get this out.”

“I'll leave before you start.” I stand up and head toward the exit.

Within seconds, he's grabbing my hand and gently pushing me against the wall in the hallway.

“I had a lot going on back then,” he says. “A lot that I just couldn't tell you about.”

“You once told me that you felt like you could tell me everything.”

“Everything but this.” There's a look of vulnerability in his eyes. “I couldn't tell anyone this.”

My heart is begging me to stay and listen to him, because from the way he's looking at me, I can tell that it might be serious. But the night of our last argument is still on my brain, and all the tears I’ve cried over the last few weeks are still too raw.

“So, can I just get ten minutes of your time right now to apologize and explain everything I put you through?” he asks. “Everything I put us through? Can you let me try and get you to see why I felt the way I felt. Can you please let me do that?”

“Yes,” I say. “Tomorrow. You can meet me at your favorite bar at seven. I'll show up at the same time that you showed up for me.” I look at him one last time and then I walk away.

He doesn't follow this time.

Chapter 40

MIA

I'm tossing and turning in my bed, unable to rest with the uneasy feeling that’s weighing on my chest.

There's something about me and Dean's recent encounter that isn't sitting right with me. I'm not sure if it was the fact that he was actually nice for more than five seconds, or the fact that he must've stalked the hell out of me to figure out where that dinner meeting was going to be. (The restaurant, though upscale, is considered a hole in a wall and is relatively new to the city.)

I had a lot going on back then that I just couldn't tell you about...I couldn't tell anyone this...

Sighing, I pull back the covers on my bed and go out to my living room. I empty my purse onto the counter and grab my phone, wondering if he'll answer at this hour, but I hesitate, seeing two crumpled envelopes next to my lip gloss.

One of them is the envelope that Dean gave me at my birthday dinner, and I've continued to carry it with me, never thinking about opening it because I figured it would just be a silly list of the many ways we annoyed each other since living in the condo together. I pick it up and run my fingers along the sealed flap, smiling as I read the worn ink that’s across the seal: Don’t open this until the next time we aren’t talking :- )

How appropriate...

But this other one I don’t recall, and I’m pretty sure I would’ve noticed it since I switched purses yesterday, so maybe it’s from Michelle?

I go into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of wine. And then I take the envelopes into my bedroom and slide under the covers so that I can read them.

I open the envelope from Dean first:

Mia,

I will always love you. I need you to remember that. No matter what...

Love,

Dean

I open the one from Michelle next.

Or, so I thought.

Mia,

Ten years ago you fell into my life at the perfect moment. And when I say “fell” I don’t really mean “fell,” because I had to fight like hell to get you... Anyway, when we became friends, you made me feel normal, like I was someone real beneath the “Dean Collins” that everyone in school wanted me to be. You were sarcastic as hell (I loved that about you), undeniably beautiful, and the one thing that kept me sane when I had to face my father alone at night.

I never told you this, mostly because I thought I knew you well enough that you would have made me turn him in, but whenever I spent the night at home and I wasn’t with you, he would come home drunk and take all of his insecurities out on me.

Sometimes I fought back, sometimes I didn’t. But I got hurt every time.

I remember after a game when you were placing ice packs against my back, when you found one of the bruises that he’d left, I wanted to tell you so badly that it did not happen in practice. That it was actually the result of what happened after that first time I brought you back to my place. Ironically, I thought telling you that would hurt you more than the physical pain hurt me. So I kept it inside.