Heartbroken Heights Read online

  Gradually, little things began coming back. The crying of a baby in a stroller. A dog barking. The sound of the fountain. The bite of cold air as the wind picked up.

  They lingered over their last kiss before finally breaking apart. “When did it get so cold?” David joked, wondering if Chloe’s flush was from the wind or his lips and if he looked the same.

  “Brr! It’s this wind,” she said, shivering.

  “Can I take you home?” David asked, rising and offering her his hand.

  “Yes, please.” She reached out and let him help her up.

  “And Chloe?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I had fun tonight. Let’s do this again sometime.”

  “Definitely.” She fought away the shivers long enough to give him a beaming smile, and they left the playful splashing of the fountains behind, walking hand in hand.

  Chapter Seven: Chloe

  As someone who didn’t enjoy her job very much, one might think that Chloe welcomed Saturdays. Most people saw Saturday as that breath of fresh air after a long week and Sunday as a buffer between that break and Monday’s return to reality. Saturday was the perfect day to relax, go for a hike, spend time with friends or get household chores done, and it left the entirety of Sunday to get used to the idea of waking up for work on Monday morning.

  That wasn’t how Chloe felt about Saturdays, though. Every Saturday was like a breath of false freedom. No matter what she did over the weekend, time would pass and she would have to go into the office on Monday. Hiking with Stacey and going back to the canyon to spend time with David and his friends had been fun, but it was all just temporary. Monday through Friday would always find her stuck in the same place.

  Chloe knew what Stacey would say. “Don’t focus on the work week,” Stacey would encourage her friend. “Focus on the weekends and evenings when you can do what you want.”

  Chloe frowned at the soap suds clinging to the bottom of the plate in her hands. “Why can’t I want both?” she murmured aloud. “Why can’t I want to enjoy my job and my free time?”

  Stacey would have an answer for that too—find a new job. Chloe had already tried that. She applied to one of those agencies that paid you to travel and write about the places you visited, and she got so, so close to getting the job. But when your competition is a slim-and-trim poster girl for feminine beauty and your potential employer can’t keep his eyes off her, what are you supposed to do? If Chloe knew the answer to that question, she would have that job right now.

  Stop it, Chloe ordered herself sternly. She had already made the rounds of regret several times, and she came to the same conclusion every time. If looks motivated the CEO of TravelCore, then she didn’t want to work for his company anyway.

  Besides, Chloe had other things to think about, such as her broken heart. Those words had Chloe rolling her eyes at herself, despite the sharp blade of disappointment that dug into her chest every time she thought about David. This entire time, Chloe had known that David would be leaving soon. It was something she thought she came to terms with before their Thursday date and the kiss that followed. Despite her best efforts to shake it off, though, David’s sporadic responses to her texts lately still hurt a little. She had so enjoyed talking to him, and it was like now that he had spent that evening with her, he didn’t want to talk to her anymore.

  Chloe shrugged. If David disappeared on her, it wouldn’t be the first time she had been ghosted. She couldn’t expect a free-spirited guy like him to put effort into keeping in touch with a woman he had only known for about a week and a half, especially when that woman was his opposite in so many ways. Travelling and fitness comprised most of David’s life. Chloe’s job meant she couldn’t travel often, and while she enjoyed hiking, she had no interest in spending what little free time she had on a treadmill.

  So many arguments centered around curvy women, and Chloe had experienced many in the privacy of her own mind. Eventually, she had come to realize that no matter how deliciously handsome the guy, he would never be worth changing herself and her habits. She should only do that if she wanted to, and… she didn’t. She was happy with herself, even if doubts resurfaced sometimes.

  Chloe gave up on the dishes and plopped onto the couch in the living room, demoralized despite her arguments and pep talks. Seriously, it wouldn’t kill David to just text her something like “Hey, heading home, but it was nice to meet you”.

  He still might, Chloe consoled herself. He probably just wanted to spend his last few days in Reno undistracted from his sport and his friends. The idea of texting David herself had occurred to Chloe numerous times, but she didn’t want to seem pushy, especially since she didn’t feel like she ought to expect anything from their time together. Besides, she texted him last. It was his turn to respond.

  By Sunday evening, Chloe still hadn’t received that response and she was starting to think that she never would. Then the worst day of the week arrived—Monday—and she knew David must have driven home without bothering with that goodbye.

  The more Chloe thought about David, the more miserable she became. She pushed the leaves of her salad around the tupperware, angry with David and angry with herself.

  She should have known from the beginning. Why would a guy like that ever want to date a girl like her? For her personality? Guys with muscles like David’s could have girls with any combination of looks and personality that they wanted. She would have to eat nothing but salads like this for months if she ever wanted to have a chance, and that wasn’t happening.

  Chloe had sunk a little lower into her seat with each self-deprecating thought. When her boss walked in a moment later, her chest was nearly level with the table and she had to struggle a bit to sit up straight again.

  “Are you okay?” Elijah asked, pausing in his beeline to the coffee machine.

  “Oh, you know,” Chloe said dismissively, pasting a smile that she didn’t feel on her face. “I’ve just got a case of the Mondays.”

  “I think everyone does today.” Satisfied with Chloe’s answer, Elijah continued on his quest for coffee. “It doesn’t help that it’s so cold today.”

  Elijah was right. Chloe’s apartment building sent out warnings last night to leave the faucets on to drip due to freezing conditions, and Chloe had been freezing her butt off all day because of this sudden cold snap. She wondered how the climbers were handling it… oh, wait. That trip ended yesterday. They were probably all spending a warm and cozy day in their respective homes all across the country by now.

  The breakroom door swung shut behind Elijah, and Chloe realized that she had forgotten to answer his comment about the temperature. Her whole work day had been more of the same—struggling to keep her mind on tasks at hand, missing things her coworkers said and generally being a poor employee. Chloe might not like her job, but it was in her nature to try her hardest, especially when she had people relying on her. This poor work ethic was highly unusual for her.

  I’ll make up for it over the rest of the week, Chloe silently promised her coworkers. She would pull herself together like she always did, no matter how little she felt like coming into the office.

  After finishing her salad, returning to her office and consulting her calendar, Chloe realized that she would have to pull herself together a little sooner than tomorrow morning because she had a client meeting scheduled this afternoon. She allowed herself one more loud, mournful sigh before chugging half a cup of coffee, squaring her shoulders and settling down at her desk to review the client’s information.

  By the time the client arrived, Chloe was all polite smiles and friendly remarks. Just as they got the niceties out of the way and started on business, Chloe’s phone vibrated on her desk. She broke eye contact with the client to shoot a quick glance at it, but the phone was facedown and she couldn’t see a caller ID. “Sorry about that,” she apologized, curbing the desire to do the unspeakably unprofessional and check her phone in front of a client. It was probably just her mom or Stacey anyway.


  Her phone’s impolite interruption was excused, and they concluded the meeting just as Chloe would normally leave the office for the day. As soon as the door closed behind her client, the smile slipped off her face like a bar of wet soap. Mr. Herrera was a perfectly nice person and a good client, but, well… today just wasn’t a good day.

  In the middle of getting her things together, Chloe caught a flash of blue in the corner of her eye. Oh right, the call. Focusing on the meeting had pushed the missed call from her mind. She reached for the device, awkwardly leaning her whole body toward the desk to compensate for the elbow that had to remain pressed against her side to hold her thick coat there.

  The coat dropped onto the floor in a pile of fabric so Chloe could shakily tap on the voicemail David had left her. “Hey Chloe, it’s David. Sorry I haven’t talked to you much lately, we were wrapping things up at the canyon. Give me a call back when you have the chance? Bye.”

  Short and to the point like a lot of things David said, and the voicemail didn’t unravel the knot in Chloe’s stomach. If they were “wrapping things up”, then they must have finished and David must be back home. He probably didn’t want to say goodbye in a voicemail.

  Chloe dropped the phone into her bag and retrieved her coat from the floor. She could wait until she reached the comfort of her home to call David back.

  She did wait, and then she waited a little longer because she had pressing things to attend to. The laundry needed doing, she had to rustle something up for dinner, she hadn’t made a trip to the mail room in a couple days and the carpet needed to be vacuumed. Her roommate would be back in a couple hours, so Chloe set about all these tasks immediately, convincing herself that she would rather finish them before Megan got home since she liked to avoid her judgemental roommate as much as possible.

  Finally, Chloe sat down on the couch, phone in hand as she stared at the spotless carpet. It looked ten times better than before—Megan never vacuumed—but Chloe wasn’t admiring it. She vacuumed that carpet for the same reason she didn’t want to go through with this call now. Calling David and listening to him talk, knowing it would be the last time she would hear his voice—why even put herself through that?

  Chloe shook out her hands like the climbers did in between turns on the wall, took a deep breath and unlocked her phone. She might as well get this over with and put an end to one of the worst Mondays of her life.

  “Hi Chloe.”

  Chloe leaned back against the soft cushions and closed her eyes, savoring that voice. “Hey, David. I got your message. Sorry I didn’t call you back sooner, I was at work.”

  “Don’t worry about it, I figured. How was your day?”

  A dozen possible answers zipped through Chloe’s mind and she sifted through them until she found something appropriate. “Oh, you know. Just a typical Monday.” As the words left her mouth, she realized that she had said something very similar to her boss earlier in the day. “How was your drive?”

  “Actually, I didn’t go home yet. I’m staying with Julian for a bit longer. I have a—what?” David broke off as Chloe failed to contain a bout of heady laughter.

  “Sorry,” she apologized, then muted herself for a second to hide more laughter. What had she even been worrying about all day? Unable to sit still, she leapt up to stride back and forth behind the couch. “It’s nothing.”

  “Okay. Anyways, I have a climbing competition coming up in a gym in Georgia in late March, but until then it doesn’t really matter where I live as long as there’s somewhere I can train nearby. I’m going to get a membership at a gym in Reno and hang out here for a while.”

  A membership? Wasn’t that a monthly thing? Chloe could scarcely believe it. The mournful, tired girl who had to summon all the energy in her body just to make a call was completely gone and Chloe felt like she could run a marathon on pure exhilaration alone. “That’s great!” she exclaimed, although she made an effort to curb her excitement somewhat. She didn’t want to assume that he had stayed in town for her.

  “Yeah,” David agreed. “I only got to see Reno on grocery runs and when we went ice skating, so I was hoping you could show me around some more.”

  “Of course!” Chloe assured him, almost tripping over her own words in her giddy joy.

  “Okay, cool. Um… I don’t want to intrude on your work schedule,” he told her. “But I’d also really like to see you before the weekend.”

  Chloe didn’t try to convey to him how much she shared that sentiment. She did want to appear at least a little chill about this new development. “How about Wednesday afternoon?” she suggested. “Maybe we could grab a late lunch and do something in the city? If it’s not too cold,” she added.

  David was amenable, and they agreed to work out the details on Wednesday. When she hung up the phone, Chloe just… relaxed. She relaxed like a masseuse had worked every single kink out of her body.

  The timer was gone. No longer would she have to look at the calendar and watch the days count down to David’s departure. They could spend time together and get to know each other.

  It was like darkness had been hanging over Chloe’s mind and, after learning David wouldn’t be leaving Reno just yet, the sun had risen and chased the shadows away. The sudden wave of motivation that hit her was so strong that she even did something she hadn’t done in years—she found the folder on her computer filled with blog posts in varying degrees of completion and opened one to work on for a while before bed.

  The next day went by in a flash. Before Chloe knew it, David texted her to let her know the address of the little sandwich shop he had picked for lunch. “Hey!” She blushed a little when he greeted her with a hug just long enough to take in a deep breath of that subtle note of cinnamon that always lingered about him. “I’m glad you’ll be around a while longer,” she told him truthfully.

  “Me too. I travel a lot, but I don’t usually spend any time in the city.” They lined up in front of the cash register to order sandwiches.

  “Do you like the city?” Chloe questioned. From personal experience, she knew the city could be a bit much for people accustomed to the outdoors.

  David shrugged. “I don’t mind visiting them and doing touristy things in them, but I don’t think I’d want to live in one. But I guess that I travel so much that it doesn’t really matter where my home is.”

  And I live in a city. Unsettled by the reminder of their different lifestyles, Chloe focused on unwrapping her sandwich.

  David’s comforting presence soon drove the feeling away. David was very… chill, for lack of a better word. He didn’t always laugh, but when he did, it came naturally and genuinely. Most of the people Chloe knew struggled to fill silence, but David sat back and treated silence like a normal part of conversation until some new topic broke it organically. Normally, it took Chloe a while to warm up to people—she always had this suspicion in the back of her mind that they were silently judging her. Maybe it was all their common interests, or maybe it was just his personality, but Chloe never felt like that with David.

  After they finished lunch, they talked briefly about what to do next, but they ended up not planning anything specific. Instead, they zipped up their warm coats, pulled gloves over their hands and left the warmth of the restaurant to explore the streets of Reno.

  At first, winging this date with David sent little pricks of nervousness through Chloe’s heart. Outdoorsy types didn’t usually spend much time in cities, and she worried that if she didn’t have a specific idea of something to do that might appeal to him, he wouldn’t enjoy spending the evening with her.

  David quickly dispelled that silly notion. He commented on his surroundings with interest, asking questions about different buildings and structures. If they saw a shop either of them wanted to check out, they wiped their shoes on the doormat, unbuttoned their coats and took a break from the winter chill. If a tasty treat or a steaming cup of something hot struck their fancy, they stopped to grab two, taking it in turns to pay.


  That was another thing Chloe liked about David. After he had insisted on paying for her tacos the first time they dined together, she worried that he was one of those guys that refused to let the woman pay the check at all. It might be a self-esteem thing, but Chloe always felt like guys who did that expected something in return. David always offered to pay, but if she was already getting her wallet out and clearly intended to handle it, he would let her without argument. In fact, the ease with which they alternated passing out cards to cashiers surprised Chloe.

  Gradually, thousands of streetlamps banded together to light the streets so the sun could vanish for the night with a clear conscience. Snow began to fall from the darkened heavens, a gentle dusting that laid a fresh white blanket over the tops of the tree limbs and car roofs. Traffic drifted by on the roadways, but the rush of air displaced by windshields and tires on pavement felt muted, like thousands of little snowflakes were catching the sounds before they could disturb the people braving the sidewalks. It was hauntingly beautiful; Chloe loved evenings like this. They made every second of heavy winter clothes, ice-coated windshields and ghastly heating bills worth it.

  Someone opened a door to Chloe’s left, and she stepped toward David on her right out of reflex, making room for the woman to enter the sidewalk. Then she happened to look down and noticed the strange, curvy-soled shoes the woman carried under her arm.

  “Oh, look!” Chloe called to David, stopping outside the glass windows of the rock climbing gym to follow the lines of colored plastic handholds up, up and up with her eyes. “Is this where you’re climbing while you stay with your friend?”

  “No, my gym’s a different one.” David tried to keep walking, but Chloe remained with her face nearly pressed to the glass, fascinated by the ease with which a climber handled a nearly horizontal section.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t know they have entire huge gyms for this,” she commented.