Lauren Weisberger - Chasing Harry Winston

“Leigh, what’s going on with you? You’ve been an absolute wreck for weeks on end, and I have absolutely no idea why.”

“You didn’t get fired?”

“What? What on earth are you talking about?”

“I thought you were going to tell me you got fired.”

“Of course I didn’t get fired. And I know we were supposed to go over all the wedding stuff tonight, but I think it’s more important that we talk about you. What is it, Leigh?”

Well, it wasn’t going to get any easier than that. He had literally gifted her with the most perfect opening imaginable. She took a deep breath, dug her fingernails into her palms again, and started talking.

“Russell, I know this is hard-it kills me even to say it-but I want to be straight with you.” She stared at the floor, could feel him watching her. “I think we should take a break.”

Well, okay, so that wasn’t entirely truthful-a break implied a desire to work things out eventually-but at least she’d managed to get something out.

“A what?” Russell asked. Leigh looked up to see the unflappable Russell appearing completely confused, which unnerved her even more.

“I, um, I think we need to take some time. To think things over.”

At this, Russell jumped off the couch and enveloped her in his arms. “Leigh, what are you talking about, ‘take some time’? We’re engaged to be married , sweetheart. We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us. Do you really want to wait to start all of that?”

Russell’s hug was very much like what Leigh imagined it would feel like to get run over by a bus. Her lungs refused to fill with oxygen, and it was getting hard to ignore the pressure and flashes of light behind her eyes. But she knew she must persevere.

“Russell, I’m not sure I want us to get married,” she said softly, as softly as she could say such cruel words.

Russell’s silence was so complete that she would have wondered if he’d even heard her had he not pulled away and sat back down.

She sat next to him, close enough for intimacy but not so close that they were touching. “Russ, do you love me? Like, really, really love me? Love me so much you want to spend the rest of your life with me and me alone?”

He remained stoically silent.

“Do you?” she pressed, thinking-knowing-that the answer was surely no. If she’d suspected for so long that something wasn’t right, he must have, too. She just needed to give him the chance to say it.

He took a deep breath and reached for her hand. He smiled. “Of course I love you that much, Leigh. That’s why I asked you to marry me. You’re my partner, my fiancée, my love. And I’m yours. I know it can be frightening sometimes when you realize you’ve found something this good, but Leigh, sweetheart, that’s normal. I can’t believe this is what’s been worrying you all this time. Just a little case of cold feet. Poor baby, I’m sorry you kept that inside for so long.”

He stopped long enough to hug her again, but this time Leigh pushed him away. His refusal to hear-to really listen-to what she was saying angered her: Was it really so impossible to fathom that she might not want to marry him?

“Russell, you’re not listening to me. You know I love you, but I can’t stop wondering if things didn’t move so quickly with us because of circumstances, you know? You start dating someone at this age and they fit all the criteria of being smart and successful and attractive and everyone else is getting married and they’re all asking you when you’re going to settle down. And it just chugs right along. What might have been a great, fun, yearlong relationship when you’re twenty-five all of a sudden starts to take on a whole new meaning at thirty, thirty-two. Then, before you know it, you’re getting engaged and committing your life to someone you don’t necessarily know all that well. Because ‘it’s time,’ whatever that means. Christ, I’m not explaining this well…”

Russell’s gaze, just minutes before oozing empathy and kindness, grew steely. “Actually, I think you’re explaining yourself quite clearly.”

“So you sort of understand what I’m saying?”

“You’re saying that you think this is all wrong and has been for some time but you never had the nerve to tell me.”

Now she wanted to tell Russell the whole truth, tell him all about Jesse and how happy and relaxed she felt when she was with him, how that single night of sex stayed more firmly planted in her mind than eighteen months’ worth with Russell.

She was seconds away from blurting out the entire story when, thankfully, she stopped herself. What would be the point of telling him about Jesse? Was it really the charitable thing to do? Russell wouldn’t have to take the rejection quite so personally if he could channel his energy into hating Leigh for her indiscretion. That didn’t feel right, either. Why hurt him unnecessarily? But was it wrong to keep it from him, considering the conventional wisdom that it’s noble to be completely honest and up-front? Confused and exhausted, she decided not to say anything. From the coldness of his last statement and the look in his eye, Russell didn’t appear interested in much more talking. Why make everything harder than it had to be?

Suddenly he surprised her by grabbing her face and staring into her eyes.

“Look, Leigh, I know what you are feeling is nothing more than normal, natural cold feet. Why don’t you take some time for yourself, you know, alone, like you suggested, and think about everything? Think it through.”

Leigh sighed to herself. His pleading look was almost more unbearable than his anger. “Russ, I’m, uh…I’m-” Say it , she willed herself, just pull the Band-Aid off quickly. “I’m worried that will just prolong the inevitable. I think we should end things now.”

Obviously this was true. She knew there was no point-no point whatsoever-in dragging this out, no matter how much less terrifying it might be to delay the unpleasantness. She knew beyond any doubt that things were permanently over, but hearing her own words was still downright shocking.

Russell stood up and walked toward the door. “Well,” he said quietly, in that controlled voice of his that worked so well on-air. “I suppose there’s nothing more to say. I love you, Leigh, and I always will, but I’d like you to leave.”

These were the words that Leigh repeated to herself as she rode home in the backseat of the first cab she’d ever hailed for herself when leaving his apartment. Almost as quickly as it had begun, her relationship with Russell was over, and gone with it was the anxiety she’d been harboring for months. She took a long, deep breath, and as the taxi flew up Sixth Avenue toward her building, she finally admitted to herself that, yes, she felt deeply sad about what had just transpired, but mostly she felt relief.

may her huge, perky boobs give her back pain by thirty

“Emmy, I’ve been telling you this since the very first time you walked into my office. You have plenty of time.”

“That’s not what all the magazines out there say!” Emmy said and pointed toward the door. “Isn’t it a mixed message to tell me that I’ve got all the time in the world and then stock your waiting room with a thousand articles that all tell me my ovaries are shriveling up?”

Dr. Kim sighed. She was a pretty Asian woman who looked at least fifteen years younger than her forty-two years, but this wasn’t what bothered Emmy. The good doctor-who reassured Emmy at every single visit (and sometimes in between) that Emmy’s childbearing years were still upon her-had herself birthed three perfect children, two boys and a girl, all before her thirty-first birthday. When Emmy repeatedly asked Dr. Kim how she’d juggled a husband, med school, residency, and three children under the age of five, all while working four days a week and being on call every third night and every other weekend, the doctor just smiled, shrugged, and said, “You just do it. It seems impossible sometimes, but it always works out one way or another.”