Unbreakable (City Lights, #2)(53)
Lilah nodded, mulling this over. “Okay,” she said finally. “What about your job? How bad does the Munro stuff hurt?”
“Not as bad as I would have thought, to be honest. I’m glad that someone else is taking it. To have to do all that work all over again…And it was…”
“Unethical?”
Like Cory, Lilah would be a juror I’d dismiss in a case where David was going to get screwed over by Goliath. Like Munro vs. Hutchinson. But Lilah waved her hand. “Never mind. I don’t want to give you a hard time. I want you to feel better.”
“I know you do. Anyway, it’s not ideal. My status at the firm has plummeted, but I’ll deal with that when I get back.”
“Or quit,” Lilah said.
I smirked. “I may have a bit of PTSD but I’m not stupid.”
Lilah shrugged. “Just throwing that out there. And speaking of PTSD, what about the robbery? You keep saying you’re okay, and then you jumped a mile over some broken dishes.”
“Can you blame me?”
“Absolutely not. But how bad is it?”
“I can’t sleep,” I admitted. “I was so used to having Cory’s shoulder as my pillow.” I froze. I hadn’t meant to say that. Or to talk about Cory ever again. “It’s nothing. Shades of Stockholm Syndrome, but it’s gone now. I said goodbye and that’s…it.”
“Stockholm Syndrome is when a hostage starts to grow attached to her kidnapper, not to her fellow hostage.”
“Okay, fine. Give it another psycho-babble label. We bonded over the shared, terrible experience. But now it’s over.”
“And you’re not going to see him again?”
“Why would I?”
Lilah crossed her arms over her blouse. “Is it because he’s broke? Or that he’s in construction and not law? That he’s not of our stock?”
“Of course not,” I said, genuinely affronted. It was my first genuine emotion all lunch. “I just think it’s healthier for me to leave the entire robbery behind. I have to move on. To let it go.” I addressed Lilah’s dubious stare head on. “I’m going to marry Drew. We’ll work out our…personal issues and then we’re going to get married. And I can’t do that with Cory in the picture. He’s too…distracting.”
Lilah’s eyes widened and she set down the coffee cup she’d been about to drink from. “Oh my God, you are blushing.”
“I don’t blush.”
“I know, but you just did. What happened?”
“Nothing happened! I told you, I said goodbye. Okay, if you want to be technical about it, I…kissed him goodbye. Happy now? You’re as bad a gossip as Antoinette.”
“I don’t gossip, I plumb the depths. You like this guy, don’t you?” Lilah held up her hand before I could protest. “Don’t split hairs with me, counselor. You know what I mean. Of course you like him; he’s a nice guy, risked his life to save yours, blah blah blah. But you like him, like him. Don’t you?”
“Wrong.”
“You just said he’s distracting. How can he be distracting if you’re never going to see him again?”
“Because…” I toyed with my pen. “My brain is stuck in the bank and he was there. Talking to the F.B.I. helped but I still think about him…about Cory. A lot. Maybe Antoinette was right. I need to see this therapist. So I can move on.”
Lilah nodded. “Come on. The waiter’s giving us dirty looks for hogging the table.”
We left the restaurant and stood together under the awning out front while the valets brought our cars around. Lilah turned and took me by the shoulders. “I love you,” she said, giving me a fierce hug. “And I want you to know that it’s okay.”
“What’s okay?”
“To let go.” Lilah released me and looked away. “It’s hard at first. When I divorced Ted, I was a pariah. I still am in some ways.”
“No, Lilah—”
“Yes, Alex. Rashida won’t even look me in the eye and if Minnie gives me that lower-lip pity pout one more time I’m going to sock her one.”
“Has it been…hard?” I asked and then muttered a curse. “Of course it has. And I’ve been a terrible friend, wrapped up in my work.”
“Yes, you were busy,” Lilah said with a dry smile. “You’re always busy. And I don’t mean you’re too busy for me. You’re too busy for you. Which is why I don’t think it’s a bad thing that you’re off work for three weeks. And while I don’t think it’s okay that you kissed another man when you’re still engaged to Drew, I think maybe you should think about how it made you feel. See? You don’t need Antoinette’s therapist, you have me.” Lilah grinned. “Tell me, how did it make you feel?”
Cherished. I felt cherished by Cory. But oh, Lilah, I didn’t just kiss him.
But I couldn’t tell her that. Telling anyone brought it into this life, made it real. Made me a disloyal cheater and that was something I never thought I could be.
The valet pulled up to the curb with Lilah’s BMW. She paused before climbing in. “When I divorced Ted, people—including my own mother—told me I was insane for letting such a catch get away. Never mind that ‘catch’ cheated on me with an intern two months after our wedding. It wasn’t Ted whom they cared so much about. It was the lifestyle they told me I was crazy to discard. The mutual friends, the social appearances, the security of our dual incomes…” She met my eye. “If you think it’s important, Alex, I can tell you right now, it’s not. Nowhere near as important as being happy. And alone and single and a pariah, I’m damn happy.”