“Flynn, I’ve gotta tell you something, and I’m not sure how you’re gonna feel about it,” she sniffled.
“Chelsea. I’ve got you. What in the world is going on?” I took her hand and started rubbing circles on it, but she pulled away from me and shot up from her chair.
“You remember that night in college?” she blurted out. I slowly rose from my kneeled position and felt my entire body grow rigid, and that’s when I realized why she was so afraid.
We were about to have this conversation, and I had no idea where it was about to go.
“I’ll never forget it,” I murmured lowly.
“Jesus…” she breathed. “I-I-I, uh… I have a confession to make,” she stammered.
“Alright,” I nodded. I was trying to keep my cool, but I could feel my hands balling up into fists. I never planned on having this conversation, all I wanted to do was talk with her about us moving forward. The past was the past, and I was more than willing to leave it here, but she was apparently dead set on dredging it up.
Shocker. Chelsea always seemed to be a
bit stuck in the past.
“I got a job offer. In Paris,” she began. “And, um… it was essentially my dream job, you know? They were hiring me to be an apprentice to one of the premier fashion labels that dominates that area. Flynn, I mean… they don’t pay apprentices, you know? And they loved my stuff so much they were going to pay me.”
I kept my cool and kept my mouth shut, but the tears streaming down her face told me she wasn’t done.
“They told me I was due in the office June 9th,” she said lightly.
“June what?” I asked.
“9th…” she whispered.
“The day after graduation,” I said slowly.
I watched her nod, but there were so many things that still didn’t make sense.
“How the hell did you get a place to stay that quickly?” I breathed.
She slowly panned her gaze to me, and I felt my body grow cold.
“You were researching places…” I trailed off.
“For about a month,” she admitted.
“You knew for a fucking month, Chelsea?”
But, her pause told me everything I needed to know.
“How long did you know about that job, Chelsea!?” I exclaimed.
“They contacted me in March. Flynn, I swear to God I tried to find a way to tell you. Every time I researched apartments and every time I choked on how expensive it was going to be to live in Paris. Every single time there was an opening in a conversation I tried to tell you. But I thought-”
I watched her catch herself. I watched her stop her statement, and my mind was running a million times a second.
“Don’t you dare stop your sentence with me, Chelsea. You thought what?”
“Flynn, please,” she whispered.
“You don’t get to control this anymore, Chelsea! I made lunch and was gonna talk to you about how we move forward long distance from this point on! You’re the one that brought up college! Now, talk!”
“You were gonna talk about a long-distance relationship?” she breathed.
“Chelsea August!” I roared.