In the ten days since Theo’d brought me dinner and I’d told him I needed space we’d been giving each other a wide berth. We’d had to film together, but usually with other people, so that had thankfully minimized any potentially awkward-as-fuck conversations. The rest of my days had been consumed with the actual renovation of the library and my side hustles. Between the Bookish gigs and the proposal for Smithson-Napa I was either running around Dallas or holed up in my room until all hours of the night. And even though I’d basically hit it and quit it then dined and dashed, he’d still been leaving me plates of whatever he made for dinner. Despite me not holding up my end of our bargain to eat with him when he cooked.

Almost every night he’d make a plate for me and put it on the counter with a note saying what it was and how long I should heat it up. I texted him to say thank you, but in the last couple of days he hadn’t even responded to that. Because I was a rude ho who ate his food and didn’t even have the decency to eat with him.

“Alba, are you still there?” Julia’s voice snapped me back to my current reality, which involved a dirt road and an impending hailstorm.

“Yeah, I’m here.” Thunder cracked in the distance and the sky looked really dark. I cringed at the photo of vintage Jeannaret chairs I’d found that morning on Craigslist and were waiting for me only ten miles away. The owner was selling them for eighty bucks for the pair, a steal, but the catch was that I had to drive an hour to get them and be there before 6:30 p.m. Which I would’ve done without issue if my tires hadn’t popped on this country road.

“If you call him he’ll come, Alba,” my best friend said in that extremely annoying mind reader way of hers.

“That’s the problem, Julia,” I complained. And it was. Theo already had my feelings all over the place. I couldn’t stop missing him even though he was right there. I felt needy and clingy and I hated that. I didn’t want to rely on him because he was not mine to rely on. And what I’d told him was true. I was too selfish and absorbed in my work to be a good partner to anyone. As sad as it was, I just didn’t trust that there was a person out there that would put up with all that without eventually resenting me. So many times I’d almost knocked on the door of his bedroom, but I’d forced myself to walk away. He didn’t need my chaos, and I already knew it would destroy me to see him eventually get tired of my bullshit.