Chapter 25 #2
“Oooh.” Nevan is behind me, reading over my shoulder. I didn’t even hear him move. “Looks like the date went well.”
I type back.
I’m here with my own car. But thank you. Sleep well.
Nevan makes a low sound. “What did he do?”
“Nothing,” I say and grab my bag from the hook by the door.
“Lemon—”
“Night.” I push through the kitchen door. “See you tomorrow.”
“Lemon, wait…”
Absolutely not. If I stop moving, I’m done for.
I’m already out the door and with a few more steps, in the parking lot.
The night air is cold enough to sting, and I get into my car, pulling the door shut and sitting there in the quiet.
I need a moment. Or three. But my head pounds, and my eyes sting, and I’m not going to start crying in a parking lot.
I catch my own reflection in the rearview mirror and immediately look away.
Instead, I start the car, because looking at yourself while you’re falling apart doesn’t help anything.
The drive home is three minutes. I count the streetlights the whole way, because counting is something to do, and when I pull up in front of the building and turn off the engine, I sit there for another moment, pressing my fingertips to the bridge of my nose the way Nevan does.
I’m not crying, I tell myself. No matter which parking lot.
My phone rings, and I look at the screen expecting Nevan and a “you can’t just leave like that, Lemon,” but instead, I see Spencer’s name glowing up at me.
My whole body deflates with exhaustion.
He has called four times today, maybe five. After the third, I stopped counting.
I stare at his name for another ring, and then something in me just… runs out. The last reserve of energy I’ve been using to avoid things all day, gone. I pick up.
“You have to stop calling me, Spencer.”
“Cherub.”
Cherub. Chubby blonde baby angel, delivered in that soft, certain way he had, as if the nickname was a compliment, and I should feel lucky to have it.
“What do you want?”
“What do I want?” His voice tips into that tone he uses, which might be hurt or exasperation. I used to spend a lot of time trying to figure out the difference. “Lenny, you just… you left. Oregon? Really? What are you even doing in Oregon?”
“How do you know where I am?”
“We’re still sharing locations.”
Ah, shit.
“Did you think I’d let it go that you leave without a word? I’ve been giving you space, Lenny, I’ve been trying to. I’ve been watching that dot on the map, making sure you’re okay—”
“It’s not your business where I am.”
“You’re my—”
“I’m not,” I cut off whatever he wanted to say. “You made that very clear.”
“I didn’t mean it.” His voice has gone quiet now, carefully quiet. “The last six months have been hard for both of us. You pushed me away.”
Cold moves through me. “I didn’t push you away.”
“You stopped letting me in.”
“You stopped reaching out.”
“Because I was trying to give you space, I—”
“I didn’t need space, I needed you present.” The words come out before I can file them down into something less honest. “Not absent. Not giving me space. Present. Do you know the difference?”
He doesn’t answer. And in the silence, I see all of it laid out.
The hospital corridors, the pill bottles on the kitchen counter.
How my mom faded by degrees, slowly and then all at once.
I tried to hold her together with lemon cake, terrible jokes, and showing up every single day because showing up was the only thing I knew how to do.
Spencer was twenty minutes away and found it hard to visit because hospitals made him uncomfortable.
He found it hard.
He found it hard.
“Lenny. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… not today, of all days.”
A hollow laugh slips out of me before I can stop it.
“Why would you even remember what day it is?”
“I have the obituary open in front of me,” he says quietly. I scoff, but he keeps going like he expected that. “I just wanted to call and tell you I’m here. Even if you’re angry. We can put everything else aside today if you need that. I’m here for you.”
The tears I’ve been holding since this morning finally make their move.
“I needed you,” I say, my voice breaking. “For the last six months.”
“Cherub…”
“Don’t,” I snap. “Don’t act like you suddenly care now.”
“I do care.” He sounds desperate now. “I’ll come get you. I’ll drive all the way to Oregon to get you. I’ll show you how much I care about y—”
“Don’t bother.” I hang up before he can finish.
The phone sits in my lap, screen going dark, and I become aware of several things at once.
My hands shaking slightly. The heavy silence that follows a conversation that needed to happen but happened too late.
The fact that I am sitting in a parking lot in Oregon at midnight on my mother’s birthday, and the person I spent six months watching fail her and me is the last person I just spoke to.
The anger arrives properly then, like it’s been trying to all day.
Hot, clarifying, and almost a relief after everything else.
I’m angry at Spencer for calling. I’m angry at myself for picking up.
I’m angry at the obituary he had open in front of him as if that makes up for any of it.
Like bearing witness after the fact counts as showing up.
I press the back of my hand hard against my mouth and breathe through my nose until the shaking stops.
Then, I get out and head upstairs, stopping in the hallway.
Ridge’s door is right there.
My mind shifts to the dream. About waking up to the echo of his voice through the wall, lying there in the dark with my heart racing, and not going to knock because I’m not doing that. I’m not doing any of it. If he wants something from me, he can walk the ten feet himself.
Inside, I close my door, peel off my work clothes, then I pull my hair up and wash my face.
I don’t have the energy to shower, so I slip into the softest things I own and stand in my dark kitchen, trying to figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of this night, because I am not going to sleep.
I know I’m not going to sleep.
I’m still standing here deciding nothing when someone knocks.
My brain immediately starts running through options—Ridge, Paul, Nevan—and the fact that I have to run through options at all, the fact that any one of those three showing up at my door at midnight is a plausible scenario, says something about my life that I don’t have the bandwidth to look at right now.
“Lemon.” Nevan’s voice is low through the door. “Come on. I know you’re not sleeping yet.”
My chest loosens slightly and tightens differently.
My steps are heavy with exhaustion as I make my way to the door and open it. “It’s late,” I say, because that’s the most coherent thing I have.
He tilts his head. “Can I come in?”
I step back, and he ducks under the doorframe on his way in, then sets two lemonades and what appear to be two bars of chocolate on the kitchen counter.
My gaze shifts between them and him, my eyebrows pinching in confusion. “What’s that?”
“I thought maybe you were on your period and needed snacks.” He says it with genuine sincerity, which is somehow the funniest and most painful thing anyone has said to me today.
I stare at him, and then I laugh, which turns out to be the thing that was sitting just underneath all the crying. “Oh, boy.” I lean against the counter. “If I were on my period, I would kick you out so hard right now. We need to do some work with you before we let you anywhere near Sydney.”
His face shifts through several expressions. “I thought I was being thoughtful.”
“If a girl tells you she’s on her period, bringing chocolate is sweet. You’re right about that.” I cross my arms. “But clocking me having a hard day and jumping straight to must be her period is… that’s just rude, Nev.”
His eyes go wide. “Shit. Yeah, I see that.” He pauses, his body sagging at the realization. “I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted.”
“So you did have a bad day.”
The concern in his gray eyes is so uncomplicated and direct that it goes straight through every defense I’ve been constructing since this morning.
I laugh, because I don’t know what else to do, but it comes out a little broken at the edges, and I can feel the moment it shifts underneath me, how a laugh sometimes does when you’re too tired to hold the two things separate.
The laugh is still happening when the sob catches up to it, and for one, awful second, they’re both present at once before the sob wins.
“Oh. Oh, shit, hey…” He closes the distance immediately, arms coming around me.
I’m already falling apart, the sobs hard, ugly, and unstoppable. Nevan makes a steady, low sound, then he reaches down and lifts me, picking me up like it’s the obvious thing to do, and carries me to the bedroom, ducking his head under the doorframe.
He sits on the bed, kicks off his shoes, and settles back against my headboard with me still tucked against him. His hand starts moving in long, slow strokes down my back. “Shh,” he says quietly. “I’m here.”
And there it is, the thing I needed all along and couldn’t name without breaking.
Which makes me cry harder, because that’s what I said to my mom in the hospital when there was nothing else to say, and she’s not here to say it back. I have been so angry at that fact all day, and I didn’t even know it.
He pulls back and tips my chin up, brushing a tear from my cheek with his thumb. His face is so open, sad, and steady that I can’t look away from it. “Lemon. What’s going on?”
“Today is her birthday. My mom’s. She would have been sixty-five. I forgot until I woke up this morning, and then I spent the whole day trying not to think about it.” I press my hand over my eyes. “But I can’t not anymore.”
“I’m so sorry. I had no idea. How long has she been gone?”
“Not even a full month.”
He goes very still before he pulls me back in, both arms tight around me, and he doesn’t say anything else. He just holds on, presses his lips to the top of my head, and keeps his hand moving slowly on my back while the worst of it moves through me.