Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
SOPHIE
I was supposed to spend the night at Rob’s, but he isn’t picking up his phone or answering my texts. I’ve tried three times and left two messages, which seems excessive, but he almost always answers his phone.
“You’re going to wear a hole in the carpet,” Otis says, using one of his grandmother’s favorite expressions. I feel a rush of longing for her, but she’s having the trip of a lifetime, and good for her.
I’m ready to live my best life too. It feels like I’m on the cusp of something wonderful. But when you’re on the cusp, you’re also in a precarious position, in danger of teetering toward total disappointment instead.
I glance at my cousin, feeling a swell of affection when I see he’s sketching logos for The Crafty Muncher.
I’ll have to correct him about the name at some point, but it’s the thought that counts. I’m happy he’s so interested. It’ll probably be a long time before we’re able to open it, but I’m starting to believe it will happen.
He sighs and sets down his pencil. “I have to warn you. If Rob did something fucked up, I’m absolutely not capable of beating him up. The best I could manage is a dressing-down, and even then, it might be hard. He’s pretty cool, for the most part.”
I give him a fond smile. “You’re pretty cool for the most part, too. He told me you threatened him the other day.”
He lifts up both palms defensively. “Whoa, let’s not exaggerate. I just made it clear that I didn’t want anyone messing with you.”
Walking up to the couch, I lean down and give him an awkward backward hug. “I don’t want anyone messing with you either.”
“Does that mean you’ll grab me a beer from the kitchen?”
“Absolutely. I could use one myself.”
We’ve just settled down on the couch and uncapped the beers when a knock lands on the door. We exchange a look, and Otis nods toward the front of the house. “I’m guessing it’s for you. I’m still on the hunt for Fluffnut, but pigeons don’t knock.”
I go to the door, nervous but determined. Then I open it to find Rob standing there.
Something’s wrong. I would have known it from a hundred paces away. There’s no trace of his usual smile, and there are hollows beneath his eyes. He looks like he’s been dragged into a dark place.
“Will you come take a walk with me?” he asks in a low voice, and my heart flails, because I know this will be a very different walk than the one we took a couple of weeks ago.
Otis peers at us over the back of the couch, scowling, like he knows he might be called upon to deliver his dressing-down and he’d really rather not.
I wave to the two bottles on the coffee table. “You can have them both.”
He perks up a little, which might have made me laugh under other circumstances.
I follow Rob out into the warm night and look at him, taking in the hard lines around his mouth. “Something’s wrong,” I say, deciding to call it out. “Let’s sit on the porch and you can tell me.”
One corner of his mouth lifts, but it’s such a fleeting smile it barely registers. “You’re right of course.” He sighs and then sits down on the top step, lowering his head into his hands and combing his fingers through his hair. I sit beside him, pressing close enough that our legs touch, because I need to be anchored to him right now.
He places his palm over my thigh, and I’m so relieved I nearly tear up. Whatever’s happened, he still wants his hands on me.
He turns to get a better look at me. “I’ve cancelled the meeting with Nelly tomorrow.”
“What?” I ask, floored. “Why would you do that?”
He pauses for a long moment. “I withdrew my application to become a foster parent.”
I feel myself teetering on the edge as I wait for him to reply, because I already know his answer will everything to do with me.
“Jonah left a box of matches outside of my apartment earlier. I called him, and he confessed that he and my dad had a PI investigate you. They managed to access your juvenile record, and Jonah threatened me with it.” He runs his hands through his hair again, agitation radiating off him like sparks.
And there I go, tumbling off the edge. I was a fool to think I could leave my past behind.
This is all my fault. If it weren’t for me, Jonah wouldn’t have arranged for that initial call to Nelly. I’d thought I was helping by offering to pose as Rob’s girlfriend, but of course I wasn’t, because even though the files were sealed, my secret wasn’t safe. Someone found out, and they used the truth of who I am to hurt Rob and Emil. And now Emil won’t be able to play his music except on those stolen weekend mornings with Rob. And Rob…
Oh, Rob.
My whole body begins trembling as if it might shatter into tiny pieces, nothing but atoms and molecules. “Tell her we’re not together. Tell her you discovered the truth and dumped me. Say?—”
He takes my hand, fixing his gaze on mine. “I’m done lying, Sophie. I shouldn’t have lied in the first place.”
A sob breaks free of my chest, and he runs his fingers over my cheek, his touch so gentle it hurts. “I’m not leaving you, Soph. But if we stay together, there’s a chance they could release this information anyway. They could hurt you. Jonah wants to hurt me.”
“He already has hurt you.” I slip my hand into my pocket and find the guitar pick. I run my finger across its pointy tip, poking myself. It’s stupid, but it feels like it betrayed me. Still, I run my finger over it again and again, hoping for a Hail Mary I know will never come.
I’ve taken Rob’s family from him, and now they’ve turned on him.
I’ve ruined his chance to become Emil’s foster parent.
I’ve ruined everything .
“This was supposed to be fake,” I say, my voice quavering as tears track down my face. “Maybe we should have kept it that way.”
“Are you being honest with me right now, Sophie?” he asks, his golden eyes focused so purely on me that I feel like more than just a speck of a person on a speck of a planet. Being this important in his eyes is really something. Maybe it’s everything. And it makes my heart feel like it’s bleeding out, because the right thing to do is walk away, isn’t it? I draw in a long breath as I think of how to answer him, and whether I even can answer him.
“We promised to be honest, with each other at least,” he continues.
I open my mouth, still unsure of what to say. I close it and lick my lips. And then the front door of the house bursts open.
“Hey,” Otis says, his voice harsh. “I warned you, man.”
My heart bleeds a little more, and now I’m crying for both of these men who’ve put so much on the line for me. Lifting a hand toward my cousin, I say, “No, Otis, it’s not like that. It’s Jonah who did something awful.”
“Oh, thank God,” Otis says, pressing a palm to his chest. “I didn’t know how I was going to follow up on that. But I slugged one of those beers for courage before I came out here, and now?—”
“Why don’t you sit down, bud?” Rob says, nodding toward the porch chair.
But Otis comes around and sits down on the other side of me, on the broad front steps. “What did he do now?”
“He—” I fall silent as the front door of the little purple house next door creaks open.
“Yoo-hoo,” Dottie says, waving from her stoop. “Who would like some fresh-baked cookies?”
I’m guessing what she really wants is some fresh gossip. However much I love Dottie, I’m about to tell her no, but Rob is already waving her over. “Sure. Yes,” he says. “I think we could all use some fresh-baked cookies.”
“Rob,” I whisper as she slips back into the little purple house. “We can’t avoid this. We need to settle it. Now. ”
“It’s been settled,” he says with that firm jaw covered in perfect stubble. “I made the call. Even if I told Nelly it was over between us, it wouldn’t help. The damage is done. My application is dead in the water. And I’m not willing to give you up. I’m not.”
“This is my?—”
“I swear to God, Sophie,” he says with a flash of anger. “Don’t say it was your fault, and don’t you dare apologize. It was my brother. I’ll have to figure out something else for Emil. I will figure it out.”
My heart breaks for him all over again. He’s not going to give up. He’s going to do everything he can for that boy—because when he needed someone to step up for him when he was younger, no one did. “Rob…”
My mind is spinning, my soul reeling. I know Rob is going to do everything in his power to make sure these wrongs are righted, but it’s hard to let go of the thought that this wouldn’t be a problem in the first place if not for me. Emil would probably be practicing guitar in his room even now.
Rob wraps his hand around my chin, tipping my head up. “This is no time to stop thinking Pollyanna thoughts. Let’s settle it this way. I’ll toss my unlucky penny, and if it’s heads up, we invite Dottie inside, and we tell her and Otis everything. If it’s tails?” He shrugs. “We do things your way. We’ll let the little fucker keep us apart, even if it’s not going to fix anything.”
“Uh, are you willing to take a fifty-fifty chance on that, dude?” Otis says, scratching his head. “That’s a bet you don’t want to lose.”
“You’re right,” Rob says, his eyes on me. “But I’m not going to lose. I’m going to believe the glass is half full. Are you going to believe with me, Sophie?”
The look of hope in his eyes makes me want to knit my broken heart back together.
“I want to,” I sniffle. I watch in horror and excitement as he pulls the unlucky penny out of his wallet. “ I want to .”
The last time I say it, it’s a whisper. A prayer.
“I do too,” he says.
“So do I,” Otis adds. And somehow it feels exactly right that he’s a part of this moment, just like he was that first day when Rob came over for a phone that was stowed in the freezer.
I suck in my breath and hold it as Rob flips the penny into the air. Then a snow-white bird swoops into the penny, knocking the coin out of sight.
The breath gusts out of me in disbelief.
“No fucking way,” Otis says as the bird lands and pads across the front porch.
Otis reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handful of sunflower seeds, meaning my cousin has either been walking around with snacks loose in his pockets, or he is very committed to finding this pigeon.
The bird hops directly to him, and I watch in disbelief as he gently strokes her feathers and then picks her up, his eyes aglow.
“It’s her. I did it. I really did it,” my cousin says.
I turn to Rob, my whole heart reaching for him. “We need to find that penny.”
“It’s gone,” he says, getting up as Otis retreats into the house with the bird.
Dottie exits her house with a huge square container, humming absently into the night air as if my universe hadn’t just been torn apart and possibly pieced back together.
She pauses on the sidewalk halfway to our house and stoops to pick something up. My heart lodges in my throat. Could it be…?
When she reaches us, she lifts it up with a grin, the copper shining in the dim porch light. “Find a penny, pick it up.”
My heart seizes. Everything inside of me is frozen. “Dottie, was it heads up when you picked it up?”
“Facing up, dear,” she tells me with a beatific smile. “Always facing up.”
I’m not sure what to make of that. A coin is always, technically, facing up, no matter how it lands. The knowing smile on Dottie’s face suggests that’s as much as she’s going to tell me. And I get it. She wants me to decide which side was turned up, heads or tails.
I take a deep breath, and then I turn toward Rob and take his hand. The love in his eyes makes my decision.
“It was heads up.”
And then I kiss him.