True believer - Nicholas Sparks [112]
He stared out the window, his lips pressed together. No, he thought, he wasn’t going to play her game anymore. If she wanted to talk to him, fine. But if not . . . well, then, that was the way it was going to be, and honestly, he couldn’t really do anything about it. He wasn’t about to go crawling back to beg and plead with her, so whatever happened next was in her hands. She knew where he was. He decided that he’d leave the library as soon as he was finished and head back to Greenleaf. Maybe it would give her the chance to figure out what she really wanted while letting her know he wasn’t prepared to stick around and be mistreated.
As soon as he left, Lexie cursed herself, wishing she had handled things better. She’d thought that spending time with Doris would have clarified things, but all it had done was to postpone the inevitable. The next thing she knew, Jeremy came waltzing in, acting as if nothing had changed. As if nothing were changing tomorrow. As if he wouldn’t be gone.
Yes, she had known he would be going back, that he would leave her behind just like Mr. Renaissance, but the fairy tale he’d started the night before nonetheless continued to linger, fueling fantasies in which people lived happily ever after. If he could find her at the beach, if he had enough courage to say the things he’d said to her, couldn’t he also find a reason to stay?
Deep down, she knew he was nurturing the hope that she would come with him to New York, but she couldn’t figure out why. Didn’t he understand that she cared nothing about money or fame? Or about shopping or going to shows or being able to buy Thai food in the middle of the night? Life wasn’t about those things. Life was about spending time together, about having the time to walk together holding hands, talking quietly as they watched the sun go down. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was, in many ways, the best that life had to offer. Wasn’t that how the old saying went? Who, on their deathbed, ever said they wished they had worked harder? Or spent less time enjoying a quiet afternoon? Or spent less time with their family?
She wasn’t naive enough to deny that modern culture had its own seductions. Be famous and rich and beautiful and go to exclusive parties: only then will you be happy. It was, in her opinion, a bunch of hogwash, the song of the desperate. If it wasn’t, why were so many rich, famous, and beautiful people taking drugs? Why couldn’t they seem to hold a marriage together? Why were they always getting arrested? Why did they seem so unhappy when removed from the spotlight?
Jeremy, she suspected, was seduced by this particular world, as much as he didn’t want to admit it. She had guessed this about him from the moment they’d met and had warned herself not to get emotionally involved. Nonetheless, she regretted the way she’d behaved just now. She hadn’t been ready to deal with him when he showed up at her office, but she supposed she should have simply said as much, instead of keeping the desk between them and denying that anything was wrong.
Yes, she should have handled it better. Whatever their differences, Jeremy deserved at least that much.
Friends, he thought again. Because we’re friends.
The way she said it still galled him, and absently tapping his pen against his notebook, Jeremy shook his head. He had to finish up here. Rolling his shoulders to ease the tension, he reached for the final diary and scooted his seat forward. After opening it, it took only a few seconds for him to realize that this one was different from all of the others.
Instead of short, personal passages, the diary was a collection of dated and titled