Chapter 45
CHAPTER 45
WYATT
September 4
“Hazel’s leaving,” I say as soon as I shove through the door of Grace’s bookstore. It only just opened for the day, and it’s still empty save for Grace and Carson, who are digging through a box of early copies of forthcoming books sent by publishers.
“What are you doing here?” I ask Carson. “Aren’t you supposed to be teaching kindergarteners?”
“It’s Labor Day,” Carson says, pulling the new Emily Henry from the box and clutching it like it’s the Holy Grail. “They’re at home terrorizing their parents.”
“Oh,” I say. I didn’t even realize it was Monday, much less a holiday. My brain isn’t exactly firing on all cylinders.
“What do you mean, Hazel’s leaving?” Grace asks, leaning over the counter by the register.
“She’s going back to Cornell for the spring semester. Her advisor helped her get Eden into this highly coveted campus daycare program for baby geniuses, she found a good sublet, and she’s leaving. Right at the beginning of January.”
“Wow,” Grace says.
“Yeah,” I reply.
“And how do you feel about that?” she asks.
I smile. “It’s great.”
Grace rolls her eyes. “You know ‘it’s great’ isn’t a feeling, right?”
I groan.
“How do you really feel?”
I think about this for a moment. I do feel happy for Hazel, and proud beyond measure. I’ve always known she can do anything, and the fact that she stayed on track with her degree at an Ivy League school while growing and birthing and raising the most badass little ankle biter I know is frankly incredible.
But the fact that she’s going to put that baby in the back seat of her car and drive away? That makes me feel sad. And…
“Lost,” I finally say.
“Oh, Wyatt,” Grace says, her brows knitted together, before rushing around the counter and pulling me into a hug. Carson joins her, and the three of us cling to each other until we’re a teary, rocking mass.
When we finally pull apart, we sit down on the overstuffed chairs Grace has set up for shoppers browsing books.
“Okay, talk,” Grace says.
“I don’t know, you guys. It’s just weird. I came here because Hazel needed me. And after she went to college, I stayed so she’d have a place to land, you know? I didn’t want her to be stuck in the dorms over breaks because she didn’t have a home. But this time, she’s leaving more permanently. She’s starting her life, and I won’t be in it. Which leaves me in this house that isn’t mine with a mother I’m trying to maintain a tentative peace with for the first time. And that feels weird, to be thirty years old and living with my mother in her house. I feel…extraneous.”
“You’re not extraneous, Wyatt,” Grace says gently.
“You have us,” Carson says. “And the Half Pint. Ernie can’t run that place without you, you know.”
“So, what, Libby and I become roommates?”
“You and I could become roommates,” Carson says. “I’m still trying to get out of my parents’ house. And if you’re not moving in with Owen?—”
Grace makes a tsk ing sound, and Carson presses her lips shut, eyes wide.
For weeks I’ve avoided spilling the whole sad story to my friends, partially because it’s humiliating and partially because Owen is Grace’s brother. It’s not fair to make her listen to me bitch and moan about someone she loves. I figured they’d notice we had stopped seeing each other and just assume the fling had ended naturally.
“Sorry,” Carson says.
I shrug, and nobody says anything for a long beat.
“But also if you want to tell us what happened between you and Owen, that would be great,” Carson finally says, the words bursting out of her.
I bark out a laugh, because nosy Carson is maybe my favorite Carson. And the laugh helps cover the twinge just below my left lung that always pinches when the subject of Owen comes up.
“I told you. It was never serious. We had this incredible fling, and it ran its course.” Am I gritting my teeth while I’m talking? Because it feels like I’m gritting my teeth.
“Bullshit!” Carson yells. Like, yells , so loud that I flinch.
“ Carson ,” Grace admonishes, shooting her a look.
“What? No. This worked last time. So I’m trying it again.” Carson clears her throat like she’s preparing to deliver a proclamation, then shouts, “ Bullshit! ” again.
My hands fly to my ears, suddenly remembering that Carson’s voice is fine-tuned to make a room full of five-year-olds snap to attention.
“Okay, you have to stop doing that,” I say, pulling my hands away.
“Well then, tell me what I should do, because trying to walk you through your emotions about Owen McBride is like trying to get kindergarteners to recite Shakespeare. I’m fucking exhausted, Wyatt,” Carson says.
“ You’re exhausted?” I scoff. “Why is this any of your business?”
“Because we love you!” Carson exclaims. “For god’s sake, we love you to the moon and back, and it’s killing us to watch you do this to yourself.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend you’re not hurting,” she says.
“She’s right,” Grace adds. “We’ve been going along with this charade for more than a month, and I’m getting it from both ends. Owen has been an absolute vault, but he’s back to his old workaholic demon ways. His phone is always attached to his hand, and his mind is only on his patients. Or so he says, when he says anything at all.”
My body reacts to this tiny dispatch from Owen Land like I’ve been starving on a deserted island for months. I’ve tried my best to avoid him, to not think about him, but this little reminder that he’s just walking around town existing makes my mouth water. Like I can taste the information.
And I’m terrified by how delicious it is.
Until the reality of it leaves a bitter taste on my tongue.
Because if Grace is telling the truth, then Owen isn’t doing any better than he was when I last saw him. And while it would be easy to revel in the fact that he’s just as miserable as he’s made me, instead I just ache for him. As heartbroken and hurt as I am by what he did to me, I know it all came from a place of deep sadness. Owen was hurting before me, he was hurting while he was with me, and he’s still hurting.
I’ve been hoping that the one silver lining of this whole mess is that maybe Owen would start to feel better. That maybe he’d deal with whatever was plaguing him.
But I guess not.
“Do you want him back?” Grace asks carefully.
“That’s not up to me,” I tell her. And it’s not a question I know how to answer. Do I miss Owen? Like a phantom limb. Sometimes he’s still there, and sometimes I feel his absence like real physical pain.
But I’m not going to beg. All I can do now is try to heal.
“Okay, back to you feeling extraneous,” Grace says, leaning back in her chair. “Here’s the thing: you’ve been taking care of other people for years. Maybe even for your whole life. And there’s still somebody you need to take care of now.”
“Carson?” I ask.
“Hey!” Carson cries.
“What? You’ve been trying to get out of your parents’ house for months.”
“Stop changing the subject,” Carson grumbles. “We’re talking about your life disasters, not mine.”
“Okay, then who are we talking about?” I ask, because I have now thoroughly lost the plot.
“Yourself,” Grace says. “You’ve been taking care of everyone else your whole life, and now it’s time to take care of you . Figure out what you want. Go where you want. Make your life happen.”
I think about Grace’s words for the rest of the day. What do I want? It hasn’t even occurred to me to wonder, but I consider it as I work my shift at the bar, pulling pints and heaving kegs. As I drive home, a Debbie tape in the cassette player. As I wash my face and crawl into my bed, ready for another night of trying not to remember what it was like to fall asleep in Owen’s arms.
As I do all that, I think about it.
And just before I drift off, it comes to me.
I pull out my phone and open the text thread I’ve had going with Romy since she left Indianapolis. Last month she got word that her own tour was a go: twenty-two cities, headlining small clubs and theaters, starting in New York and ending in Los Angeles.
Romy
You know you’re welcome to join me on any leg you want. I can’t pay you, but you can bunk with me in every hotel. It’ll be like a sleepover, like old times.
That text is from a week ago, just after I told her the whole sad, sordid story about Owen. Back then the plan seemed ludicrous. I had Hazel and Eden to worry about.
But now a tour sounds like a good idea.