Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
SHILOH
Ibring the boat in slowly, trying not to think about the last time I did this and Ewan was standing on the dock watching.
He’s not there today, and he won’t be at home when I get there either.
His studio will be empty, and there won’t be any stray clothes left on the living room floor, no dishes sitting in the sink and no kiss at the door to welcome me home.
Yesterday, with no work to keep me distracted, I’d numbly gone through the motions of completing my chores.
I tried to do a few DIY projects but gave up after nothing seemed to be working.
I tried to read and do a Sudoku. I tried to watch television.
I couldn’t focus on any of it, and so my final day of vacation was spent in abject misery, missing Ewan and unable to figure out what to do with him gone.
Oliver and I exchanged a few text messages, but he was busy, and I was pretending to be, so it didn’t offer the kind of distraction I needed.
Now, mindlessly going through the end-of-day tasks on the Drifter, despondency nips at my heels.
I don’t want to go home to an empty house.
My entire adult life, I’ve lived without, and then Ewan came back, giving me so much happiness and love to gorge myself on, I’ve become spoiled with it.
I have to remind myself again that he’s not gone for good.
That this time is different, and he’s coming back.
I wish I could believe it. I wish there weren’t that small, angry sliver of doubt imbedded in the crack where my heart broke the first time around.
I love every part of Ewan, even the ones that are flighty and fearful, and I hate that there is any portion of me harboring mistrust. I don’t know how to kill it.
I’ve been trying all day, reminding myself of all the conversations Ewan and I have had since he came back, reminding myself that you can’t have a relationship without trust, and if I’m going to give him a second chance, then I need to let go of the first.
I wish I could talk to my dad. Or, better yet, my grandpa.
I wish being an adult didn’t mean I had to figure things out on my own and I could still call up my parents and ask for help.
A hand touches my shoulder, and I startle, turning around quickly enough to have Oliver stepping away to avoid an elbow.
“Sorry, Oli,” I apologize. I’ve been distant all day, I know—quiet and taciturn and probably a little bit rude. Nils won’t care or say anything. Oliver, I should have guessed, will.
“Lost in thought?” he asks now, peering at me with those crystalline eyes. My mom, when she met him, said he was a doll, and she was right. He’s also strong and hardworking and incredibly clever, which just goes to show how little one knows when judging a book by its cover.
“Yeah, sorry. I know I’ve been rotten company.”
He tilts his head just slightly to the side, probably thinking about all the other days in the past that have passed exactly the same as this one—silently.
Well, silently but for Oliver himself, who doesn’t know the meaning of the word.
It’s different, though, when someone is quiet because they’re comfortable and they want to be, and being quiet because you’re miserable.
Oliver, I know, is more than capable of picking out the difference between the two.
“Anything you need from me?” he offers, giving me yet another reason to be glad I know him. Oliver will always offer assistance over platitudes.
“No, Oli. Thanks for your help today.” He nods, glancing over his shoulder at Nils before bringing his attention back to me.
“I’ve got some leftovers you can take home.”
I smile. Oliver loves patching bullet holes with food. It’s yet another thing I have to worry about—him being too good, too talented to waste his days toiling away on a fishing boat. I wish I were nosy enough to ask him why he does.
The three of us finish and leave the boat together, our vehicles waiting in a row in the spaces we always utilize.
I love having such a steady routine that even something as simple as a parking space is available to me every day.
It’s not a good realization to have right now, feelings raw and thoughts stretched thin after a sleepless night.
If I’m the kind of person who thrives on a routine—who enjoys something as simple as having the same parking space every day—then I fear I am also the kind of person who wouldn’t fit in with Ewan’s lifestyle.
Fishing vessels run in California, I remind myself, hating this mood I’m in.
It feels selfish and ridiculous, and there is every possibility I’m being miserable for no good reason.
Ewan told me he’s coming back tonight, and that’s what I need to focus on.
Just because he’s out of sight doesn’t mean he’s gone forever.
Oliver transfers the leftovers from his cooler to the passenger seat of my truck after I assure him I’m heading straight home and can put everything in the refrigerator.
I don’t particularly want to go home, but neither do I want to go anywhere else.
Sitting alone in sorrow is far more preferable than doing it in public, where it’ll be spread across town as whispers.
Amy Libby already managed to find me yesterday, in the cereal aisle of the grocery store, eyes and tone pitying as she asked when Ewan was coming back.
At least there’s one thing I know I won’t miss when I move to LA to be with him.
There’s a single message from Ewan waiting on my phone—a picture from what I assume is the balcony of his loft.
It’s a cityscape view with barely a touch of blue on the horizon to let you know that the ocean is there.
Pretty, I suppose, but hardly compares to what I have here.
Streetlights and mansions will never beat forests and beaches and puffins nesting on the cliffs.
Instead of texting back, I call him. It goes straight to voicemail, which means his phone is either off or set to Do Not Disturb.
He could be working or in a meeting or on an airplane.
Maybe he got an earlier flight. I know which one I hope it is, but I hang up without leaving a message.
I think hearing his voice would have helped me feel better.
Even a text reiterating the fact that I’d see him tonight would have been nice. I should have gone with him.
Since his early text was left unanswered while I was out on the boat, I reciprocate with a snapshot of the wharf from the vantage point of my truck. I send it with an I love you, because Ewan is liable to convince himself otherwise or forget if I do not remind him.
These past few weeks, I’ve found the drive home to be lengthy.
I didn’t want to spend all day on the boat only for it to take thirty more minutes of driving before I could get home and see Ewan.
Now, without him there, I’m wishing it were longer.
It would seem the distance between “stable, independent adult” and “codependent Velcro boyfriend” is little more than inches.
Hopefully, Ewan didn’t step off that plane in California and realize total freedom was preferable to my smothering brand of love.
When I get home, I take Oliver’s food inside and dutifully tuck it away in the refrigerator.
Then, remembering my wasted day yesterday, I buckle down and get those projects done I wasn’t able to manage so soon after Ewan flew off.
Building the standing planters takes a couple of hours, but it holds my attention well enough for the time to be blissful.
I’m not prone to worrying about things I can’t control, and I’d really prefer it if this didn’t become a habit.
Since I can’t seem to control it right now, I do my best to find solid distractions.
Planters done, I move on to the second of the home projects my mother not so subtly advised me to do and begin pulling the various weeds that have sprouted up along my deck.
To be honest, I hadn’t known they were weeds until Mom told me, and I hadn’t been planning on pulling them even after she did.
But, as my father can attest to, Mom has a hell of a knack for getting her way.
Which is why I am now the owner of two standing boxes ready for herbs to be planted and am well on my way to a weeded yard.
Another couple of hours later, back aching and shirt sticking to me with sweat, I consider telling my mom that the next time she has an opinion about my yard, she can do something about it herself.
But because I’m an only child and a bit of a mama’s boy, I do take a picture of the planters to send her, positioning them under the windows on the deck.
She’d told me I could just buy a DIY kit and put them together, which is ridiculous when I’ve got perfectly good wood and a drill handy.
As I’m sending her the photo, I also note the lack of a return text from Ewan.
Instead of calling him again, I go upstairs to wash off the grime of the day.
If I’m lucky, some of this melancholy will filter down the drain as well.
It’s the headlights that wake me up. My bedroom is at the back of the house, window facing the sea and not the drive, but the light is strong enough to filter around the house and brighten what was pitch-black before.
I hadn’t been sleeping well, or it wouldn’t have woken me up.
As it is, I’ve been tossing and turning all night, obsessively checking the flight information Ewan sent me.
He’d texted me before takeoff that he was on the plane and texted me again when it landed, almost as though he knew how stressful this short trip away has been for me.
The slam of a car door has me sitting up and throwing back the covers, tugging on a hoodie and leaving the dark bedroom.