I have to hold back the prick of tears as I think of her. I only met Marie a handful of times. The dinner was the second. The third was after she’d told Evan; she didn’t have a choice, seeing as how she had to be hospitalized. The last time I saw her was at the funeral.

I may not know when I fell in love with him, but I think I know the moment he fell in love with me. The moment a part of his heart died and he needed something, or someone, to fill it. Maybe I got lucky that it was me. Or maybe it was a curse.

I roll my eyes, hating that I’m stuck in the past because I can’t move ahead with the future.

Maybe we weren’t really meant to be. Maybe it was never the type of love that’s meant to keep people together. Just the type of love when you feel compelled to give someone compassion.

Are there types of love? I find myself leaving the question as a comment on the book and then deleting it.

If there are, then maybe Evan’s love is the stubborn kind. He’s not so stubborn that he’ll stay this weekend, though. Come Friday he’ll be gone again. Maybe it’s a different kind of love then …

It’s only when I hear the bedroom door shut that I finally look back at the manuscript and email the editor back. I need more time before I can give feedback on any of these to the author and I’m ready to fall asleep in the corner chair, or any place I can where Evan will leave me alone.

I need more time for so much more. I need time and a clear head to move forward with my own life. I need someone to tell me I’m not walking away from the only man who will ever love me, but there’s no email I can write for that unfortunate request.

Evan

If I could focus on the hate and leave her all alone,

I’d be able to move forward, if only I had known.

I can’t speak the truth, I don’t want to make it real,

I can’t stand what I’ve done or what it makes me feel.

Regret will settle in my chest and suffocate the day.

If only I could make it right, if only there was a way.

“It’s good to see New York again,” James says as I walk into his office on Greene Street in lower Manhattan.

Even as he speaks, he stares out the office window. It’s an impressive eight-by-eight-foot picture window, making the view seem like it’s not quite real.