Hold on My Heart by Tracy Brogan Read Free Book Online Page B

in nearly a week, and he wasn’t even paying attention. “Nope. Nothing to report,” she said.
    “Hmm. That’s too bad. Listen, though. There’s something we need to talk about.”
    The clicking in the background stopped, and Libby felt an urgent need to brace for impact. Those polliwogs in her belly morphed into full-sized frogs.
    The last time someone had said, “There’s something we need to talk about,” she’d gotten fired.
    “Okay,” she said slowly, carefully, the way a bomb diffuser might say, “Now… cut the yellow wire.”
    Seth blew out a breath. “I’m pretty sure I’m being transferred to San Diego permanently.”
    She should have cut the red wire. “Permanently? As in
permanently
permanently?”
    “Yeah. Permanently.” He sounded more certain that time.
    She fell back against the pillows on her bed, clutching the phone more tightly.
    There were earthquakes in San Diego, weren’t there?
    Libby had never been in an earthquake. But she imagined there was a millisecond—just as the tectonic plates began to shift underground—when most people thought to themselves,
Holy shit. This is an earthquake!
She felt that way just now. Like everything around her was starting to wobble and there was no safe place to stand. “Wow. I was not expecting that.”
    “I know.” He sighed. “I should have told you sooner, but I didn’t want to say anything until I was more certain. It’s pretty much a done deal now.”
    “What? How long have you known about this?”
    “Awhile, but my boss told me right about the time you were getting ready to move back in with your parents. And you’ve been having so much trouble finding a new job I didn’t want to make you feel worse by telling you I’m getting a huge promotion.”
    Plates shifting. Ground splitting. Libby falling in.
    “You’ve known about this for two months and you’re just telling me now? Seth, I’ve been trying like crazy to get a job in Chicago. Why didn’t you tell me to look in San Diego?”
    There was a long pause.
    And that’s when it hit her. Dinosaur, meet meteor.
    “Oh.” The word kind of wheezed from her lungs. “You don’t want me to be in San Diego, do you.”
    It wasn’t a question. A question needed an answer, and she already had hers.
    “Now, Libby, it’s not that. It’s just that I’m working all the time. You wouldn’t have anything to do out here. You wouldn’t know anybody. And I really need to focus on my career right now. This promotion is a big leap forward, and I can’t screw it up because I’m worried about my unemployed girlfriend. Wait. That came out badly.”
    It had come out badly. But it had also come out honestly. The land
had
shifted under her feet, and suddenly everything in Libby’s line of vision looked different than it had sixty seconds earlier.
    “Seth, are you dumping me?” How calmly she said that. Inside her head it sounded much louder and more screechy.
    “No, no, I’m not. I just… I think maybe we should try seeing other people for a while.”
    Libby smacked her palm against her forehead and cursed Marti silently for seeing this before she’d seen it for herself.
    “You mean see them naked?” Her voice roughened. She felt like a sea urchin had just burst inside her gut, with the pointy parts hitting every vital organ.
    “Uh, God, Libby, that’s not what I meant. I just… look, I should have talked to you about this sooner, and I should have done it in person. I get that. There was just no good time. The point is, I’m moving to San Diego. I don’t want to break up with you, but I can’t promise you more of a commitment right now, either. I don’t think you should wait for me.”
    Breathing hurt. Not because she was shocked, but because she wasn’t. She should have figured this out sooner, but she’d thought their emotional disconnect was because she was depressed about not having a job. But the truth was, even if she’d never been fired, Seth would’ve left for San