Chapter 29
twenty-nine
Georgia
As soon as I open the top email in my inbox, I’m met with disappointment.
Hello, Georgia,
Apologies, but we won’t be attending.
Thx,
K & T Webster
K and T? The email address offers no clue as to their real names, so I find Aunt Julie’s address book and flip to a back page where I wrote my list of invitees.
Kat and Thomas Webster, my dad’s cousin and her husband—or was it his second cousin?
Okay, so not the chattiest folks, but at least it’s a response, which is more than I can say for seventeen out of the twenty invites I’ve sent.
I cross the Websters off my list and go back to my inbox.
The next email doesn’t even contain a greeting.
Wow. Didn’t know Julie willed you the house? News to me. Were you even in touch with her all these years? Because I would have thought Harmony would get the house or she’d donate it to charity or something. That would at least make sense.
Good luck with it.
No signature either, but the email address tells me it’s from an uncle of mine through marriage.
And a jerk, apparently. I reread his words, my throat closing around the lump lodged in it.
I don’t know why I’m offended—I was just as shocked to be willed the house—but I am.
Like I’ve been branded a member of this family in name only.
Does he expect a response? I close my email app. Maybe later. Then I write a question mark next to his name in the address book and close it too.
A memory pops up of my grandmother a few years before she died, insisting she wanted no funeral when the time came.
No funeral, no memorial service, no gatherings of any sort.
At the time, I didn’t understand, but I wasn’t one to question her.
Now I wonder if she wasn’t all too aware of who’d be on the guest list.
I’m not going to think about the reunion any more today.
In my bedroom, I turn on music—not classical but happy pop music from a decade ago—and pull out my small suitcase.
Time to focus on the trip to Indianapolis.
Stacking my best cute-yet-comfy outfits on the bed, I search the dresser where I’d haphazardly dumped all my underwear and bras that first night I moved in.
I have no idea what to expect at the Combine except a lot of waiting and very little alone time with Cash, but on the off chance he can sneak away late at night before bunking down with his assigned roommate, I’ll be ready with some cute lingerie.
The idea that I might get to be the one he comes home to tired, nervous, and excited sends happiness dancing through me.
I pick out far more sets than I’ll have the chance to wear, lace and silk and embroidered details in happy shades of hot pink, royal blue, and pale yellow, but they take up little space on top of the jeans and bulky sweatshirts.
I’ve always had a thing for beautiful lingerie, and except for the bustier I bought last weekend in bright Shafer red, I owned all my sets before Cash came along.
But he’ll be the first man to see me in any of them.
I don’t hear Cash’s voice until it echoes up the stairway, too immersed in my music and bad dance moves.
“In my room,” I call over my shoulder and push the stack of lingerie deeper into the back so as not to ruin the surprise.
When Cash appears, I expect him to start dancing to the overplayed club favorite pulsating from my phone, but he lingers in the doorway.
“Hey.” I open my arms. “Get in here.”
He slides his hands into the pockets of his jeans and wanders over to me.
“You’re nervous?” I ask.
His hair flops over his forehead as he nods. “I guess I am.” But his hands come out of his pockets to give me a long, lingering hug, and he settles his face in the space between my jaw and shoulder like he’s been waiting to all day.
“You’re gonna be amazing. You wouldn’t be going if you weren’t amazing.”
His gaze snags on my open suitcase as he turns toward my bed. He reaches into it, where a neon-pink bit of lace peeks out from under a black sweatshirt, but I smack his hand away playfully.
“That’s a surprise for Indianapolis.”
“Oh.” His hands dart back to the safety of his pockets. “You’re packing already?”
“I’m excited,” I say, turning away to search the dresser for my cute silk pajamas.
“I know it’s Indiana in March, but it feels like a vacation.
” The silence that follows is curiously long—long enough for a tiny spike of unease to poke through my insides.
I spin to find him seated on the edge of the bed, his shoulders hunched.
“I need to tell you something.”
I pause with a pajama set in my hands.
“I really hate doing this to you, Georgia, but…it would be better if you didn’t come to the Combine.”
The spike of unease suddenly triples. “Oh.” I study him. It’s not what I wanted to hear, but it doesn’t seem to match the gravity of his expression. “Because you don’t want me to watch you? I promise I don’t know enough about football to judge.”
He blinks slowly. “That’s not it. I’d love for you to watch me. It’s my sister.”
A sour taste coats my tongue. “What about her?” I ask, even though I suppose I already know.
He shakes his head, his mouth tight. “It’s ridiculous,” he says without looking at me. “The more I think about it, the more pissed I—”
“What did she say?”
Apology shines bright in his green eyes. “She’s not comfortable with you being there.”
I stare down at the pajamas in my hand. Not comfortable.
Not.
Comfortable.
“Wow.” The warmth of embarrassment moves up my neck and over my cheeks without warning, and I sit on the side of the bed so he can’t see my eyes.
“I didn’t realize she can’t even be in the same stadium as me.
” My fingers ache from being clenched around the stupid pajamas I was so excited to wear, and I fling them to the floor.
In an instant, Cash is kneeling in front of me and holding my hands. “It’s not you, Georgia.”
“It is, actually. She doesn’t do this to you.”
“No,” he concedes. “But that’s why it’s not rational. I know it’s not fair, and I’m not gonna let it go on, I promise you that.”
“Cash, you just told me not to come to the Combine because of her.”
His shoulders sag. “I know, and I’m sorry. It’s only because she’s struggling with everything else in her life right now, and sometimes her mental health can be fragile.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened to her?”
“What do you mean?”
“You told me there have been times you weren’t around and she fell apart.”
He’s quiet for a minute. “Just one time, really. Summer between sophomore and junior year of high school. She was having a bad time, and I was getting ready to go away to a multiweek football camp. My instinct was to stay home, but for whatever reason, I went. I thought my parents could handle it.”
“They couldn’t?”
“They didn’t take it seriously until it was too late and she was in inpatient.
Then I’m three states away and they’re calling me panicking, and I’m packing up my shit, afraid of what I’m going to come home to.
” He takes in my face. “Obviously she ended up okay, but it didn’t have to go that far if she’d had someone who was paying attention.
Someone who was on top of it instead of waiting until she needed an ER visit. ”
“I didn’t realize it ever got that bad.”
“It did. And I don’t want to be responsible for something like that again.”
“You weren’t responsible for that.”
“Tell that to my parents,” he says coolly.
“They blamed you?”
His eyes fix on something far away from this room. “They didn’t blame me, exactly, but they were disappointed I wasn’t there. They always expected me to keep a close eye on her.”
“That’s completely unfair.”
“But it’s what I live with. So maybe I freak out a little about her from time to time.”
I’m quiet, uncertain what to think or say. I don’t have a lot of experience with mental health struggles, and I don’t know if I have the right to hold on to the resentment I still feel, given what he just told me. But under a new layer of understanding, I still feel it.
“Georgia, I’m just trying to do what I can for her. Especially if part of what’s stressing her is the choice I made to be with you.”
“I would never ask you to turn away when she needs you. I just wanted to be there with you.”
“I’m giving her a break this time, but I’m not going to let it go on like this forever. Can you trust me on that?”
“I trust you. But you can’t make her forgive me.”
“I don’t have to make her, she’ll forgive you. Fact is, there’s nothing to forgive anyway, but we’re playing nice and letting her realize that on her own.”
Uncertainty tightens my throat, and I stare past him. I want to agree with him, to believe we did nothing wrong, but my heart remains unconvinced. “I don’t like that I need her forgiveness in order to be allowed to show up for you. We can’t both support you?”
“You can,” he says soothingly. “You do, and I love you for it.” He squeezes my hand. “Just this once, can we let her have her way while she figures her shit out?”
As I look into his pleading eyes, I remind myself this is about his love for Maisy, not about his feelings for me. But comfort never comes. I pull my hand free from his under the guise of tucking loose strands of hair behind my ear. Truth is, I don’t want him touching me right now.
His eyes are a heavy weight as I stand and start pulling clothes out of my suitcase. I don’t bother concealing the lingerie as I carry it to the dresser.
“That was for this weekend?” He raises his eyebrows at the pile of colorful lace.
“Yeah,” I say tightly.
“Damn Maisy.”
I hear the smile on his face but don’t respond. With the suitcase empty, I let the lid drop loudly and yank the zipper, an angry zip filling the space between us. When I turn around, Cash is right behind me.
“Hey.” He gathers me close. “Everything’s going to work out. I love you. We’re going through something, but nothing’s going to come between us.”
Yet his words feel like platitudes, not promises, and the uncertainty they leave behind makes me wish he weren’t here at all. I want to be alone. Still, I nod and give him the smile I know he wants to see.
“You’re right. And we can talk about it next week, anyway. I want your mind on football where it belongs right now.”
He presses his head to mine. “Sweet girl.”
My friends would tell me to speak up. I remember the exact voice Jade used when she said Tell him what you need, but what I need is time. To think before I say something I’ll regret, and to figure out why this hurts so much.