Chapter Twenty-Six Remi
Chapter Twenty-Six
Remi
We didn’t stay long at the shelter. It was never meant to be a full shift anyway—only facilitating the puppies’ arrival and coordinating the fosters since Ness was working by herself.
Bringing Gavin hadn’t seemed like such a big deal because it would only be a couple hours, and I didn’t want Pops to cancel lunch with his friends.
Mistakes.
Mistakes had been made, and there was nothing I could do about it now.
There was enough left in my haywire brain to put the box from Archer in the passenger seat of my car before I went in search of my son.
I found him in the kennel room, helping Ness feed the puppies.
His eyes were clear, so there’d been no more crying, but his face was drawn, his skin pale.
“Ready to go?” I asked.
Gavin nodded.
“Or do you want to talk first? We can go in my office.”
“Mom,” he sighed. “You know how you said it’s okay to take a little space from something that you don’t understand?”
Screw my past self and her therapy-driven advice.
Apparently, I’d taken that advice to heart, and it had landed me right in the middle of drama city.
I didn’t understand what I was feeling for Archer, and space felt like the only real option.
Genius, Remi. Fucking genius. I’d spaced myself right into a breakup from a non-relationship and eviscerated my heart into pulp.
I rolled my lips together and nodded. “Yeah, I remember that.”
“Is it okay if we talk about it later?”
Literally no greater weapon had been forged than a child giving their parent eyes like that. Big and pleading and sweet. I was helpless. Helpless to say no.
“Yeah, bud. It’s okay.”
Ness gave me a sad smile, and with her thumb and pointer finger extended out to mimic a phone, she held her hand up to her ear and mouthed, Call me?
I nodded, blowing her a kiss.
Gavin was quiet on the drive home, and even though I was too wrung out to attempt an emotionally appropriate conversation about what he’d just witnessed, I couldn’t let him stew in it for too long. After asking permission to play Nintendo, he disappeared into his room.
It was too quiet. There was nothing to distract me. And in that stillness, I heard Archer’s voice. Recalled the feel of his lips on my forehead. This was the messy side of love I’d avoided at all costs. Dangerous and tempestuous, a feeling that would never come close to average.
He’d never come close to average, and the fact that he wished it—for me—made my head spin like a top. What had I done?
How had I ended up here? Heartbroken over someone who’d never given their heart away before, and even though he’d never said the words, I felt like he’d given his to me.
I sank into a chair and speared my hands into my hair, trying to figure out what would make me feel better.
Archer.
Archer would make me feel better.
There was no distraction in existence that would replace him, not right now, and that was terrifying.
The wildly selfish thought sent me spiraling, because I couldn’t pinpoint when that had happened.
Terrifying didn’t even really cover it. Like standing with my toes over the edge of a waterfall.
There was no seeing the bottom through the billowing mist. No way of knowing what waited for me when I jumped.
I could break every bone in my body.
Or it could be paradise.
If I stayed still much longer, I’d think myself right into a panic attack, and I was not trying to add that to my list of fun experiences for the day. I’d had plenty, thank you very much.
Pops wasn’t home from lunch with his buddies yet, and when he came into the house about forty minutes later, it looked like the kitchen cabinets had puked all their contents onto the counters.
I was standing on a stepladder, furiously wiping down the top shelf, but his gaze bored into my back.
“Bug . . .”
“Hey, Pops.” I couldn’t look at him. If I looked at him, he’d know. Was I bottling feelings? Hell yes. I’d bottle the shit out of them for the foreseeable future. “How was lunch?”
“Fine.”
Silence stretched between us, the only sound in the room the squeak, squeak, squeak of my scrubbing.
“What in God’s name is happening here?”
“I’m just doing a little reorganizing. The shelves needed to be wiped down, and half of the stuff in here is expired.” I kept my face forward, heart hammering in my ears. “It could make you sick, right? Making cookies with expired baking soda or something.”
“Is that why they taste like that?” he muttered.
I turned around unthinkingly. “What?”
Once he’d gotten a good look at my face, his eyes sharpened. “Were you crying?”
I whipped around again. “No.”
“Don’t you lie to me, Remi.”
Was it too much to ask for one of those faces that hid all the things? I couldn’t lie for shit, and sometimes you just wanted the ability to deceive the people around you when your heart had been broken.
I set my arm on the shelf in front of me and laid my forehead on my arm.
“I had a bad morning, and I don’t know if I can talk about it yet, because apparently now we take space from big feelings in this house and I give terrible advice to everyone.
I panicked and emptied all the cabinets because I felt like I needed to do something, otherwise I’d fall apart, and I really don’t want to fall apart right now. ”
“Okaaay,” he replied, drawing out the word. “Should I expect Gavin to be stress-cleaning too?”
Reluctantly, I smiled. “No, he’s playing Nintendo.”
“Something happen at the shelter?”
I gave him a pleading look over my shoulder. “Pops . . .”
He held a hand up. “Why don’t you come down from there? If I keep staring up at you, I’m gonna get dizzy and fall and break a hip, and then where would we be?”
“Hopefully, in a place where you don’t blackmail me with fictional scenarios.” I took his hand and stepped down.
He patted it but didn’t let go. “Come on. Come sit down.”
“I’m not talking about it.”
“All right. We can just sit and stare at each other, it’ll be fun.”
The man all but dragged me to the couch and sat me down in my favorite corner, then walked back into the kitchen and got a perfectly cold Diet Coke from the fridge, handing it to me with a knowing look in his eyes.
“This is emotional warfare,” I muttered, but cracked open the can all the same. The first sip was always the best, and the burn down my throat grounded me amid the knotted mess of my thoughts. As I swallowed, I pressed the cold can to my temples, closing my eyes at how good it felt.
I probably had bags the size of a lemon under my eyes.
“Did you have to put a dog down?”
I shook my head.
Pops studied my face and took a deep breath. “Was it him?”
I chewed on my bottom lip for a second. “You know, your generation of parenting doesn’t believe in allowing one space to process emotions, and I find that utter bullshit at the moment.”
“Sweetheart, you could have a week and it wouldn’t help you.” It was said kindly, with the very best of intent, and I wanted to rage at him for saying it, but God, he wasn’t wrong. “You’ll just keep tangling yourself up until there’s no fixing it other than to cut the knot out. Talk to me, bug.”
This was what he did for me. What he’d always done.
It was impossible not to have flashbacks from when I’d told him I was pregnant with Gavin. I’d held on to that little bombshell for a while, until he could see the weight of the secret on my face. It wasn’t until I processed it with him that I could see a way out that worked for me.
And much like he had so many years ago, Pops sat quietly, my hand in his, and just listened. I didn’t cry when I told him—about meeting Archer at the bar, about the fight at his dad’s, the kiss—but his eyes closed when I got to the part about Gavin interrupting us and the drama that followed.
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Pops, I’ve never been more confused.” I tucked myself into the couch, folding my legs up to my chest and laying my chin on my knees. “And that’s saying something, because being pregnant at seventeen was awfully confusing.”
“What’s confusing to you?”
I blinked. “Well . . . all of it. He’s doing the self-sacrificing thing and walking away.
Shouldn’t I be relieved? I told him I wasn’t sure I could do this.
But I’m not relieved. I feel like—” I set my hand on my chest and rubbed the dull ache that had taken up residence there.
“Like he broke my heart. I have feelings for him, and it didn’t feel fair to say it out loud.
Like I would make it worse if I told him. ”
“Mm-hmm. Anyone with eyes could see that. But you’ve been attracted to people before and I didn’t come home to . . . whatever that is in the kitchen.”
“Big feelings,” I whispered.
“Nothing wrong with those either.”
I dropped my head into my hands and sighed. “But it feels impossible when I look at my life and then I look at his.”
“‘Impossible.’” His eyes stayed steady on mine. “That’s a strong word.”
“Feels impossible. I’m not saying it is,” I amended.
“But . . . think about Gavin. How am I supposed to ask him to navigate me dating someone like Archer? Today was hard enough, and that wasn’t even a real argument.
A real breakup. Can you imagine what it would do to Gavin if those things happened?
At school and with his friends, and . . .
I’d feel like . . .” My voice trailed off because something big and thorny swelled in my throat, and I couldn’t force it out.
“Feel like what?” he asked, so patient and unrattled by everything I’d told him that it was almost unnerving. That was my role. I was the one who couldn’t be shaken. But here I was. Thoroughly and completely shook.
I was the one people came to when they needed advice or help or a steady listening presence. Being on the other end, for the first time in a very long time, was disconcerting.