"Hey," I greeted him when he came up to the room, fiddling with my fingers.

"Hello," he sighed, taking a seat on the edge of the bed, tugging his suit jacket off.

"Long day?"

"Extremely; we need to talk, Ana."

"We do," I spoke with confidence, the opposite of how I felt.

I dragged the gray ottoman from the corner of the room to where Ezra was and sat down in front of him. His emerald eyes watched me looking almost apologetic. I was confident that whatever was getting ready to come out of his mouth was nowhere near good news.

"I respect you a lot, Ana; way too much to beat around the bush, so I'm going to be honest and upfront with you."

"Okay."

"I'm moving back to London," he said quietly.

I thought I was prepared for anything, but him moving was not something that had crossed my mind. It felt like someone had knocked the air out of my body, but I nodded slowly, trying to keep my emotions in check.

"My company has been in the process of moving before we even met, and after the first night we spent together, I delayed the process wanting to get to know you better, and I did. You were everything I was looking for, Ana, from your personality to your incredible resilience. In the little time we were together, you took care of me in ways I'll never forget, even when I didn't deserve it, and no amount of thank you's would be able to portray how truly grateful I am to have had someone as amazing as you in my life. The memories we created together will be something I'll cherish for the rest of my life."

"But?" I managed to croak out, tears pooling in my eyes, knowing exactly what was coming next. I wanted to fucking scream at the top of my lungs. Just when I thought I found someone to not only share my pain with but someone that made every horrible thing that happened to me hurt less, life had to destroy it, like it destroyed everything else.

"But," Ezra sighed miserably. "As much as I want to be the person you wake up to every day, the person who can take most of your pain away, the person to love you and go through life with, that lunch we had this afternoon made it obvious that I'm not the person for the job and that it belongs to someone else."

"What?" I sniffled, not understanding. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fact that you're still in love with Nathaniel, and his love for you is so immeasurable it's almost suffocating."

A humorless laugh bubbled out of me. "I am not still in love with Nathaniel," I assured him. "Do I still have love for him? Yes, I do because no matter how much I hate it, he will always be a part of me even if what we created together didn't survive, just like you will always have some ounce of love for Grace, not because of the person she is but because she gave you the most beautiful gift you ever had."

Ezra nodded in agreement, his eyes turning glassy. "You're right; I always will have love for Grace, but what Grace and I have is very different to what you and Nathaniel have, Ana; I just think you're in too much pain to see it."

I shook my head, ready to argue him down, but he wasn't done speaking yet.

"I've been paying close attention to the two of you for a while now, and I was in denial for a long time about you still having feelings for him, which is why I invited him to lunch, and I apologize for lying to you and making it seem like I had good intentions, but I was really trying to gauge your relationship with him and whatever information I gathered during the lunch determined how I was going to proceed with our relationship," Ezra confessed, looking me straight in the eyes. "This morning before the lunch, I was planning on asking you to move to London with me, but after the lunch, it was clear that you wouldn't have said yes anyway because no matter what I said or did, your heart beats for Nathaniel as much as I want it to beat for me."

"You're wrong," was all I could get out.

"I wish I was," Ezra smiled sadly. "Explain to me what happened at lunch today; why did Nathaniel swap cakes with you?"

I balled up my fists, he was more perceptive than I thought. "I saw the way he was making you feel when he kept informing you of what I didn't like, and I didn't want you to feel bad about anything else, so when you asked about the carrot cake, I just agreed in hopes it'd make you feel better even though carrot cake usually makes me very nauseous and most of the time it makes me throw up a few hours after eating it." Ezra looked completely appalled by my confession. "Nathaniel knew what eating the carrot cake would do to me, which was why he ordered the chocolate cake and then pretended to want the carrot cake instead so I wouldn't get sick."

"Ana," Ezra whispered. "You should've told me. I would have never let you pick that cake if I knew what it did to you."

"I know, but I could tell he was starting to piss you off with his comments, and I just wanted to shut him up."

Ezra nodded. "That just proves another one of my points. He will always know you better than I ever will. You're giving me pieces of yourself when I want all of you. If we stay together, I will always be competing with him no matter where we are, and I'm more than positive he would drop everything and move to London if you went with me. Whatever the two of you had four years ago hasn't ended, and it would be wrong of me to get in between you and him when it's clear the both of you still have so much unfinished business to take care of. You haven't healed from what happened. I knew that, and yet I still pushed you into having a relationship with me that you weren't ready for, and I apologize for that. You keep thinking that you need to heal from Nathaniel and what he put you through when in reality, you need to heal with him, and until you do that, you will never truly be ready to move on, which is why I will never be enough for you Ana, and deep down inside, you know that; you just don't want to believe it." Ezra leaned forward and took my hands in his. "Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed every moment of our time together, and I wish we could continue this thing that we had, but I was merely just a plug, a temporary fix, and you deserve so much more than that, Ana, I just wish I was the person that could give you that."

"And Nathaniel is?" I asked, almost angrily. He was giving up on us because of my past with Nathaniel, and that wasn't fair.

Ezra chuckled. "I have never seen a man love someone as fiercely as he loves you, Ana, so yes, when you're ready to move on one day after the dust has settled, whether it's in weeks, months, or years from now, I do believe the person that's meant for you, in the end, is Nathaniel."

I snatched my hands from his, tears streaming down my face. "What if that's not what I want? When do I get to have a say in my life and choose how I get to heal and who I get to heal with?" I practically shouted. "Without even talking to me, you already decided that I wasn't going to move away with you; how is that fair to me?"

Ezra looked pained. "Do you want to move to London with me?" He asked in a whisper.

Silence.

Then finally.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and whispered, "I can't."

Ezra opened his mouth, but I held my finger up, silencing him. "I can't, but not because of Nathaniel, but because my foundation is here, the work I carried over from my time abroad is here, and I can't leave it, not now. I have so much planned, so many lives I want to change, so many kids depending on me and the work I do, leaving now isn't even an option."

"And if it was just you?"

I sucked in a deep breath. "I think I'd go with you."

"But you're not sure."

I nodded.

"Why?"

"I don't know."

Ezra touched my thigh. "Yes, you do, Ana. We both know it's because of him, and that's okay; I've already come to terms with it."

"No," I shook my head angrily. "You've come to terms with the fact that I'm still in love with him, which is false; all I want are answers from him—answers to what happened that night."

"And what if the answers aren't what you were expecting? What if they change everything about how you viewed him? Have you ever thought that there was possibly a valid reason behind his actions, that maybe he had to choose between two impossible options?"

I scoffed. "I can't think of a single good reason for what he did to me."

"Maybe you can't, but that doesn't mean there isn't one because, from the way I've seen how protective he is over you, I'd say there's more to the story than you could ever imagine. Now, I'm not saying I'm on his side or anything, but I'm going based off of what I've observed these last few months, and what I observed tells me that you shouldn't completely write him off as the bad guy just yet."

I felt so numb I don't even know how I still had tears left inside my body to cry.

"But it's not just you," Ezra said softly. "I admit I've been using this relationship to hide my pain as well but in all honesty, I don't think I've truly healed either from the death of my son yet, and that's something I need to do on my own."

My heart broke for him.

"Tell me something," Ezra spoke when he saw that no words were leaving me anytime soon. "For your personal life, what do you want in the future?"

That was an easy but odd question. "One day, I want to get married and travel the world with my partner before settling down and starting a family."

Ezra let out a breath, and if I wasn't mistaken, he sounded relieved. "Then we would have never worked in the end anyway."

I didn't understand. "What do you mean?"

"I don't ever want to have another child," he confessed, shocking the hell out of me. "Not after Eli. I just can't, and no one could ever get me to change my mind on that, and I'm assuming that's how you feel about having children, isn't it?"

"Yes," I whispered. After the loss of my baby, there was nothing more I wanted in this world than to get a second chance at being a mother, and it was important to me that whoever I ended up with wanted to be a father just as badly. Ezra was right. We wouldn't have worked out either way, but that didn't make this breakup hurt any less.

"Well," I wiped away the tears on my face with the back of my hand. "When are you leaving?"

"Now that it's just me going, my flight is scheduled for tomorrow morning."

I sucked in a deep breath; that was way sooner than I thought. "So tonight, is it?"

"I'm afraid so," he said softly.

"I'll miss you," I whispered, blinking back stupid tears all over again.

"I'll miss you too, Ana, more than you'll know," he murmured, standing up and pulling me into a hug. I wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my face in his chest.

"Thank you for everything," I choked out.

"No, thank you, sweetheart."

"Do you need help packing or anything?" I asked, looking up at him. I needed to do something to take my mind off what was happening.

"No, I can handle it."

"Let me help," I demanded instead of asking again.

Ezra smiled and kissed my forehead. "Fine, we have a long night ahead of us then."

We spent the first two hours in his closet packing up all of his clothes and shoes into the giant moving boxes he kept in the garage. After that, we moved from room to room, packing up all the small items that could fit into the boxes leaving all the heavy furniture and large paintings that were around the house for the moving company that would be arriving later this week to pack the rest of the house up. The only things he really needed for tomorrow's move were clothes and toiletries, which is why he planned on packing everything up at the very last minute. But I was glad we were doing it together, giving us more time to spend with each other before he left. By the time we finished packing up, it was two a.m., almost three, and there was no way I was going to make it to work at the foundation or Phoenix Tech with the limited amount of sleep I was going to get, so I emailed Marsha informing her of my absence for today then texted Rachel before climbing into bed with Ezra.

"Goodnight, Ana," he whispered from his side of the bed.

"Goodnight, Ezra," I whispered back, scooting over to him and giving him a kiss on the cheek before returning to my side and falling asleep with a heavy heart.

* * *

When I woke up the next morning, Ezra was already out of bed, and from the delicious smell wafting in my nostrils, it was safe to assume that he was cooking breakfast for the two of us. I hopped out of bed and took a quick shower before slipping on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and throwing my damp hair into a low bun. Since Ezra was moving, that meant I definitely had to get a place for myself, but in the meantime, I booked a hotel close by to stay in after he left, which was in a few hours. Dylan was going to kill me when he found out I stayed at a hotel instead of his place, but I knew I was going to need space to cry, think and just be, and if I stayed with Dylan, I wouldn't get to do any of those things.

"Morning, sweetheart," he greeted me as I walked down the stairs, carrying my duffel bag on one shoulder and my purse on the other.

"Morning," I chirped, trying my best to sound cheery even though I was on the verge of tears again. I dropped my bags on the floor next to the stool I climbed on to watch Ezra finish flipping a piece of pancake.

"This reminds me of our first morning together," he said softly, piling breakfast items on my plate and placing it in front of me.

"It does," I whispered, my throat clogging up with emotions. Fuck, I promised myself I wouldn't cry today until after he left, but he was making it impossible.

Ezra didn't say anything else when he sat down next to me, allowing us to eat in comfortable silence and when we were done, I grabbed his hand and led him to the living room, where we watched Cars for the last time.

"This all happened so fast," I whispered as the ending credits rolled onto the screen. My head rested on his chest, our fingers intertwined. "It feels like yesterday when I first met you, and now you're leaving."

"I know," he murmured. "I didn't expect for things between us to go this way when we met, but I'm glad it did."

"Me too."

Ezra sighed heavily. It was time for him to leave. His flight was scheduled in two hours, and before he left, he wanted to stop by his job to tie up loose ends before getting on the plane to London.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay with Dylan?" Ezra asked for the third time once he finished putting my heavy duffel bag in the car.

"For the last time, Ezra, I'm positive. Dylan's going to worry too much, and I honestly just want alone time. I need to process everything before I'm forced to deal with that drama queen," I smiled and rolled my eyes playfully, leaning against rogue.

"Take care of yourself, Ana," Ezra said firmly, cupping my face and kissing my lips gently.

"You too," I sniffed back tears. "And good luck out there."

"Thanks, sweetheart."

After our last and final hug, I forced myself out of his arms, climbed inside my car, and slowly drove away, tears finally slipping from my eyes when I watched him blow me a kiss and wave from the rearview mirror.

--

A/N: Sorry, #teamezrana, but their time together has finally come to an end. From the very beginning, I knew that Ezra wasn't going to be end game for her. Ezra and Ana both played a huge role in each other's lives, easing each other's pain from their loss, but that's all they were doing, easing, not healing. So maybe apart, they will get the healing they both so desperately needed from the beginning. ❤️