The Next Best Thing: Part II

One

"I love you, Zoe. I love you baby." I loved you too. But I had to leave you. I had to leave the love of my life. Zoe ceased to exist without her Mitchell.

"Please don't leave me." I did. I left you.

The image of my emotional breakup was on repeat in my mind. I'd close my eyes and see him asking me, begging me, to stay. I cried until shallow sounds escaped my dry mouth.

I drowned in my sleep, seeing his face and slowly falling into a pit of despair, my soul a lost spirit. I was sore. I was tired. I had lost an irreplaceable part of me. I was enough.

That night, I flew back to France and checked myself into the nearest hotel to the Parisian Charles De Gaulle airport. I was holed up in my room for two days, incapable of anything except curling into a ball and mourning my painful loss.

Eoin showed up a few days after I had called him; conveniently he had been in Ireland when I did. He managed to come to my rescue as quickly as he could. I left Europe five days after I ended things with Mitchell, Eoin whisking me away in his private plane back to New York.

"Zoe, it's okay. Wake up. You're home." He ran his fingers through my hair, his other hand on the small of my back soothing my trembling body.

"Eoin?"

My head was on his lap, his charcoal sweatpants damp with my tears. His plain white tee was stained by my smudged mascara, which he'd wipe off my tear-stricken cheeks as I slept.

"That happens to be my name, yes." He smiled down at me, his eyes alight with concern. He had bags under them due to staying up for an entire journey looking after the emotional disaster that was me.

He still looked the same, except his pale eyes, darkened by worrying after me. "I was afraid you wouldn't wake up. You started crying in your sleep and I couldn't wake you. We've been driving around in circles for the past four hours. I didn't know where you'd want to go."

We were in the city - I could feel the jungle atmosphere from inside the town car exploring with no sense of direction. "Do you know where you want to go? You do still remember where you live, right?"

I'd much rather have forgotten where I lived at that moment, my rollercoaster of emotions on a new high; I began to weep again, grabbing his pants and wiping my runny nose with them.

"Zoe, I'm sorry. I just need you to feel better." He looked at me intently. "If not for you, do it for me. I hate seeing you so miserable. You're beautiful. You shouldn't be crying because it draws a lot of attention to your face. We don't want that, do we?"

He nudged me to laugh and I offered him a shaky grin.

"I'm sorry I'm such a mess," I apologised, sitting up.

He told me not to apologise, telling me to stop beating myself up. I nodded comprehensively and laid my head on his broad shoulders, his very comfortable shoulders.

"To answer your previous question, I don't want to go home. I can't be alone."

I wouldn't have survived the night if I was alone. I knew I had reached a breaking point and I was falling fast, falling into a sinkhole of mental suffering. But he never needed to know that. I didn't want him to worry.

"Please may I go home with you?"

Silence.

"Oh, I'm sorry if I'm causing you any inconvenience. You can just leave me at a hotel then. I'll be fine, and I'm sorry if -"

"Zoe," he interrupted, "are you asking if you can be my roommate? Because my answer is yes. I'd like that."

I thanked him for being so gracious, nestling closer to him. I closed my eyes and I felt a little better, all thanks to my angel Irishman.

"Let's go home."