Chapter 49
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
“I’m glad you came. I figured Nix could use a familiar friend.”
Jif buried her face in the dog’s neck and wrapped both arms around him. He snuffled at her ear, tail thumping on the floor of Abby’s garage-turned-training-facility.
“I could use a friendly face, too,” Jif admitted, burying the barely-healed wound of Miles’s rejection.
He wouldn’t even trust her to take care of his dog.
He must think I’m such a mess.
“He barely let me take him,” Abby said, almost a response to Jif’s unspoken thoughts. “I don’t blame him, though. I would never have given Gen up when...”
Jif filled Abby’s sudden silence. “I understand. She’s staying healthy?”
Abby glowed, lighting up the entire space. “She has biannual follow-ups with the original oncology team, but she’s been clear every time. They’ve started the process to get the treatment widely approved and are using Gen as their primary case study.”
“And the pups?”
“Both healthy, but they came from a breeder, not a shelter, so we don’t expect anything genetic to crop up. That’s not a guarantee, of course, but it lessens the chances.” Abby frowned. “I can’t imagine how Dylan would take it if Rêve got sick.”
“You can’t account for everything. Sometimes stuff happens. Accidents,” Jif said more to herself than to Abby.
“True.”
Nix pushed his head into Jif’s chest, toppling her backward onto the cool, concrete floor, then crowded into her space, flopping on his side, then rolling to his back.
Jif laughed at his antics while she rubbed his belly. “I’ve missed you, too.”
Abby crouched down beside her and stroked Nix’s flank, tracing the splotch on his haunch. “How are you doing?”
Jif’s eyebrows knit, and the corners of her mouth turned down. “Are you checking up on me?”
Abby met her gaze steadily, as open and honest as ever. “Yes. You’re my friend, and Colton’s sister, and...” She stopped, but Jif could fill in the blanks.
Miles’s... something.
Not his girlfriend. Not anymore. Not even his friend, since he refused to talk to her. Nothing but a former patient, one he’d forget soon enough.
Jif breathed through the hitch in her chest. Would the pain ever stop?
“I’m... fine.”
“It would be okay if you weren’t.”
Jif wanted to pretend Abby’s words didn’t soothe her raw grief, but she didn’t have the energy. Hearing her friend acknowledge the weight she carried unbound an almost invisible tension, and her shoulders dipped, though whether in existential exhaustion or relief, she couldn’t say.
“I talked to Colton last week. He’s settling in okay, I guess. His rubber duck collection arrived unscathed, so he’s busy arranging them. And... I visited my mom this morning.”
“How did it go?”
Jif squinted at Abby. “Are you therapizing me?”
“Maybe a little.” She wrapped an arm around Jif and squeezed, then stood. “Come on. I’ll make coffee, and Nix can try to convince Gen to share her bed.”
Jif pushed herself up off the floor with a broken laugh. Gen loved the pups—somewhat of a misnomer since they hadn’t been true puppies in years—but she did not share her bed with them. Nor did she let them sleep on Dylan’s bed, not even Rêve, who had a mat on the floor.
Once they settled on the plush couch in Abby’s living room, her friend repeated her question.
“It went better than last week. She is who she is, and she’s not going to change, and I promised Colton I’d check in on her, but we don’t see eye to eye.”
Abby sipped her coffee.
“She asked about Miles, and I didn’t want to lie, but then she complained about how she’d warned me. I snapped at her and left in a huff. She’s going to be pissed when I tell her...” Jif trailed off.
She’d not only promised Colton she’d take over visiting their mom, but she’d also promised she’d try to understand her mother’s perspective. It hadn’t gotten off to a good start, and she hadn’t even dropped her bombshell news yet.
“The more I try, the worse it gets.”
Abby ran a hand over Gen’s head, tracing the fine bones of her face.
The dogs had settled on the couch cushions between them, almost creating a yin and yang of opposing cinnamon rolls, black and white (with black spots), each of their heads resting on their person’s lap. Gen, apparently, could share.
Maybe Jif could learn something from her.
“That is normal.”
“It is?” Jif’s head jerked up. Miles had said as much to her months ago, but she hadn’t quite believed him.
“Oh, very,” Abby reassured her. “It always gets worse before it gets better. Anytime you try to change, there’s this rebound effect on the people around you.
They’re comfortable in how they interact with you, even if those patterns aren’t healthy, and now you’re asking them to change, too. You aren’t an island.”
“Huh.” Jif took another sip of coffee as she pondered Abby’s words.
“Think of it like a wound. An infected wound. It has to be lanced and drained, which will hurt. It needs treatment, which takes time. Eventually, it’ll heal, but it might leave a scar, a permanent remnant.”
“An emotional scar.” Jif understood those.
“You may never be the same again. Your relationship may not be, either.”
Jif’s eyes flashed to Abby’s, who regarded her over the edge of her coffee mug. Any number of Jif’s relationships currently matched Abby’s gentle description.
“What do I do in the meantime?”
Abby held her gaze. “Keep trying. Rely on your friends. Hug Nix when you need to.”
“Yeah, that won’t be an option in the future.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Jif took another contemplative sip, then wrapped her hands around the mug and squared her shoulders. “How is he?”
“He’s hurting. More than his body.” Abby frowned. “When Will died, I should have gone to therapy a lot sooner. It would have helped me, but I wasn’t ready to let go of everything I lost when I lost him. I can’t blame him when I did the same.”
Abby’s voice, suffused with sadness, brought the sting of tears to Jif’s eyes.
“Will he walk again?”
“Wes says he will, but he’ll probably never lose the limp. The surgery went well, but the damage...there’s only so much even the best surgeons can do. All the hardware from his spiral fracture last fall shredded the muscle.”
“He must be devastated.” Jif squeezed her mug, the heat warming chilled and shaking fingers.
“Funny, he said the same thing about you when he heard about Colton.”
She had been, but Britt’s words, spoken with so much love, had been the wake-up call Jif needed.
Rely on your friends, Abby had said. At least she was already doing that.
After patching things up with Britt, she’d reached out to Leticia. They’d never be close—Jif couldn’t replay that down—but they moved in the same circles, so a gracious détente would have to suffice. At least her sister and new niece were healthy and safe.
On the other hand, since moving, Colton called every weekend, no matter how long practice ran.
Their conversations mostly consisted of semi-hostile bickering, years of resentment processing and purging with each snarky, sarcastic comment.
Jif would worry they’d never be close, their entire relationship ruined by her devastated accusations, but he’d already secured tickets for her and their mom to attend the late-season game between the Raptors and San Francisco.
“I want you there,” he’d stated simply when she expressed her shock.
He’d also offered to buy her a season ticket so she could continue supporting her favorite team, but she’d declined, buying her own ticket. She’d be sitting in the nosebleed section, but she’d watch her team play on her own dime for the first time in her life.
If the tickets weren’t enough, his prized Raptors-themed rubber duck showed up in a package a couple of weeks later.
To keep an eye on you, the note had joked.
She’d finally told him about her plans then; the duck cradled in her palms as she brokenly stuttered over words almost too difficult to say.
The weight of a legacy she’d never wanted; the emotional wound ripping open again and again, never fully healing, never scarring as it ought to; the person she didn’t want to be anymore, and the broken-winged fledgling she hadn’t quite become yet.
He’d been surprisingly understanding. She could only hope her mom would be, too.
Meanwhile, the duck now held pride of place on her vanity, guarding her jewelry box.
With the realization Colton hadn’t abandoned her, she’d finally been free to examine her feelings about Miles, too.
The hurt he’d inflicted, pushing her away; the spiraling, compounding fear no one would ever love her enough to choose her; the harsh sting of rejection pricking at her self-worth and identity.
It had been a lot to unpack.
She couldn’t allow herself to hope he’d change his mind. She couldn’t dwell on a future he might not want to share.
She could only move forward, broken heart and all.
Still, a fluttering sensation filled her chest, a quivering longing that maybe he still cared.
Jif peeked at Abby. “He did?”
“Mmm. Give him time. Keep trying. In the meantime, I didn’t invite you over just to check up on you. I have this idea, and I wanted your thoughts...”