Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Curtains hung open despite the night encroaching up the back lawn. The lower the sun dipped, the sharper Sayer and I’s reflections became in the dining room windows. Shadows from the trees reached over the grass, closer and closer to the light pooling from Harthwait’s lit windows.
Mom never let me open the curtains as a child. “You never know who’s watching,” she’d said.
There was something exciting, almost tantalizing, about doing something she’d told me not to do, even over a decade later.
“… didn’t know what she was thinking with that dress, but—” Sayer leaned back and eyed my food. “You good?”
I broke from my daze with a startle, fork hovering halfway to my mouth. I nodded. “Yeah, just a long day.”
He cleared his throat. Lowered his voice. “You know what I mean.”
And I did.
I ignored the way his eyes danced from my fork to my untouched chicken salad. I took a sip of my water, set my fork down, and wiped my mouth.
“I’m serious,” he said, gentle.
Sayer knew. He’d always known. But still, there lay a painful exposure in the smallest of confessions like this. Especially when it was easier to push them under a rug and act like they weren’t crawling back every few seconds.
If I didn’t answer, he would wait.
“It’s been worse,” I offered. An olive branch—a smidge of acknowledgment without blowing anything out of the water. When Sayer didn’t say anything, I blurted, “I think I’m going to take out that wall upstairs. See if there’s anything behind it.”
He half choked on his water and his eyebrows inched to his hairline. “Which wall?” Aversion successful.
“The one down the hall from my bedroom. I think I could move it back a bit. Maybe build an open closet or shelf space.”
“Remove it, like, a load bearing kind of thing?”
I sat forward with a smile. “Nope.”
“And you know this how?”
“I, my dear friend, just have a suspicion.” On a normal job, I wouldn’t dare touch something that required a permit. But I wasn’t technically removing it. Just uncovering.
Sayer wiped a speckle of dipping sauce from the table. “I’ll take your word for it. Need me to help? Like, tonight?”
I started to gather our paper plates, then squished them into the to-go bag that still sat tall in the center of the table.
“I should be fine, but I might change my mind. Haven’t decided yet.
Don’t know if you’ve earned a gold star yet.
” Sayer had made a competition in grade school about who could collect the most gold stars in a school year.
The ambition wasn’t yet lost to him when it became a running joke.
He clutched his chest. “So demanding.” He took another swig from his bottle. “Where’s Emma?”
“No clue. Out, I think.” The forced indifference in my words leaned more chilled.
“For the night?”
I shrugged. “Maybe.” She’d texted me one word, “out.” My only response had been a thumbs-up.
Sayer nodded and stood from the table. “And you two didn’t fight about Ivan magically showing up today?”
“She told you?” I cradled the takeout bag.
“Didn’t have to. I read minds, remember?”
“Maybe you earned your gold star after all.”
We moved to the kitchen, but I felt his gaze following me, waiting for elaboration. So I gave him the CliffsNotes version, where I admitted I may have flown off the handle, and that was why Emma had vanished for the night.
Which left me alone for a few more hours. Likely until late in the night.
“I can see why you’d be upset.” He leaned on the island. “But I think jumping down her throat might not have been the best approach.”
I bristled. “I know. I said that. But I just—don’t like her acting like it’s her house. It’s mine. I make the decisions. Aunt Cadence left it to me.” It’s all I’ve got right now, my heart whispered.
“So …” his tone shifted, tentative, like I might bite.
“Ivan Kenneth. Taking this listing. The same guy who said you’d only dated him for clout and you were a stage-five clinger after you broke up?
Really?” Sayer reared back like he smelled something putrid.
His glasses flashed with reflected light.
“Everyone’s gonna just”—he swiped a hand over his head—“act like that never happened?”
I chewed the inside of my cheek, leaned against the counter, and crossed my arms over my chest. Tightened my sweatshirt against me.
“He’s the best realtor in town,” I whispered.
“Emma said they have great reviews. What am I supposed to do? Turn him away because of something that happened eight years ago and make Emma look bad for even bringing them here? Or, even better, give the listing to Eleanora?” I covered my face with my hands.
“If she takes it, I’m going to have to hire a contractor.
The load-bearing wall will have to go, not to mention there’s an outlet there, so I’d have to get an electrician, too. ”
He took a measured inhale. “Lan, you can tell her you won’t do the changes.”
“And I can guarantee you, she wouldn’t take it.
Then I’d have to find a new realtor anyway.
Did you look at the houses she’d sold? They’d all been gutted on the inside and updated.
Antiquely modern, and I just …” My hands slid down my face until I cupped my neck.
The visions of this house, stripped of all the character, its originality, and replaced with a grayed color scheme and open floor plan, no door arches, refinished floors, made my stomach sink.
Maybe it was my own inhibitions that made it even harder to accept, because if I changed this house completely, that meant the last shreds of Aunt Denny would be gone, too.
“Not to mention the money it would take to do it.”
Sayer shivered. “I guess you’re right.”
“I wish I wasn’t.”
He sighed. “But—does Emma know about what he said?”
“Everyone knows, Sayer. Everyone knows he said I was trying to sleep with him because Mom needed a job at his parents’ firm.
” Among other things that I refused to revisit.
“And you wanna know what I’ve been told by everyone when I’ve brought it up?
That we were ‘emotional young people who let emotions run too high.’ That I was probably on my period and made some pass at him and got my feelings hurt, or hoped that by letting him use my homework that he’d stick around a bit longer.
So yeah, people think I was a clinger. Despite the pictures of us, they still don’t think we dated. ”
“But you weren’t a clinger,” he urged. He rubbed both palms against his temples. “He wasn’t nice.”
I straightened. “He was plenty nice.” All I could picture was Emma’s exasperation earlier, the way she stared at me as if I were delusional.
“Don’t defend him.” Sayer stiffened with a glare.
“I’m not.” I don’t know what made me say it.
But sometimes, when Sayer attacked Ivan, if felt like an attack on me.
Because I’d picked him willingly, I’d pined, I’d rolled over like a dog, and by saying Ivan was a bad person, Sayer was inadvertently telling me I had poor judgment.
It only emphasized the quiet, underhanded comments Ivan had whispered while I still foolishly defended him to Sayer.
Why’d you look at him? You expect him to come over and talk to you?
Come on, Lan. Just once. No one has to know.
Are you being serious right now? How do you think that makes me feel? How am I supposed to love you when you won’t listen to my needs?
I shook them away. “I just want the house to sell, okay? Maybe Em’s right. Maybe he’s the best one for it.”
“What do you want, Lan?” he pressed. “You. Not Em. You.”
“To get this over with so I can drive two states away and everyone gets to leave me alone again,” I groused. And that was the most honest thing I’d said in weeks.
Sweat slicked my back, sticking my tank top to my skin like window tint. The house practically exhaled every time I inhaled, smothering me in humidity and grime.
Three swings and the sledgehammer broke through the wall. I probably could have gotten away with a regular hammer, but it would have taken too long.
Particles of sheetrock and chipped paint littered the tarp I’d placed over the floor.
The TV murmured from my bedroom, a new requirement because I refused to have nothing but silence and risk hearing something I didn’t want to hear.
The TV, at the very least, acted as a stand-in during Emma’s absence.
I coughed and fanned the floating debris with my hand. Stepped closer, sledgehammer still in hand, I bent to get a better look through the hole I’d made.
There it was.
I straightened, took a breath, and swung. With a grunt, I heaved the sledgehammer upright and brought it down on the bottom section of drywall. Bits connected to the doorframe splintered away with the sheetrock—enough for me to grab and pull open.
I propped the sledgehammer against the wall, weighted end down. My hands moved with urgency, pulling and yanking and snapping as I tore away piece after piece of wall and piled them to the side. The longer it took for me to pull parts away, the sloppier my hands felt.
I’d really left that little boy behind.
The weight of it festered anger, not for the boy, but myself. Why hadn’t I tried to usher him out?
And maybe, just maybe, it was the conversation with Sayer today that spurred the urgency. What if I went back in and I couldn’t find him?
“Come—on,” I grunted.
Once I removed the majority of the sheetrock, I wedged the heel of my shoe against the base of the doorframe.
If I could get all this out of the way, I’d have a bigger opening in case that creature came after me again.
The last thing I needed was a child in tow and the both of us getting tripped by something I could have cleared out.