Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Elizabeth
I felt like sludge climbing out of bed Saturday.
I’d eventually left the couch, regretfully moving from the space we’d spent so much time enjoying each other—whether last night or even over the last few weeks when we’d simply been watching movies and chatting—and huddled into the temporary sanctuary that was my bed.
Then I had continued to cry until my throat was hoarse and my eyes were swollen enough I’d remembered to take my contacts out before I finally passed out.
When I woke, I wasn’t ready to see Kenny. I was raw, and both deeply honored and soundly rejected in a confusing way, so I poured myself, as I always did, into work.
Tragically, there was only one email from work and it did nothing to distract me from the disaster with Kenny. Instead, it sent me into a new round of tears, which I hadn’t thought possible after crying a Danube’s worth of tears last night. It pointed out just how inevitable our end was, and now it would come far sooner than I’d hoped for.
Good news for my job. I’d been exonerated from any blame and the junior agent was found fully at fault. It would still be there, in my file, but I could return to work. I could get back to the life I’d built. This should’ve made me feel better, shouldn’t it? They’d gone through the process and they’d seen me for the reliable, trustworthy agent I was. They knew me.
That was what I’d wanted, and what I’d come here needing them to do. But now…
I couldn’t help but think the good news for my job was bad news for my life , but how did that make sense?
The knock on my door sent me leaping from the table where I’d sat with my laptop and racing to unlock it. I could practically feel the excitement and relief until I yanked open the panel to find my sister smiling back at me and Elise and Dove beaming next to her.
Well, she was smiling right up until she took me in and then her eyes grew wide and she rushed at me, the other women close on her heels.
“What happened? Are you sick?”
She reached up to feel my forehead, and I swatted her hand away.
“Maybe she has a winter cold?” Elise asked.
“What are your symptoms?” Dove asked, reaching for my wrist to check my pulse, but I pulled away.
“No. I—” My throat instantly tightened, and I cleared it, then bit down on the sob threatening to climb its way out of my throat. “I just got this email from work. It’s—I’ll be going back sooner than I thought. ”
Dove and Elise were quiet, but Jo’s disappointment came instantly.
“Oh, no. I was hoping it’d get extended. I don’t want you to be in worse trouble, but it’s been so good having you here.” Tears welled in her big brown eyes and she hugged me to her.
“I wasn’t in trouble,” I clarified. Well, she didn’t know the full of it, but I’d never hinted at trouble to her, just a sabbatical.
I cradled the back of her head, hating that anything I was doing was making her sad.
Jo held me by the shoulders and demanded I look at her.
“You don’t have to go back. You know that, right? I mean, I know this is your career, but it doesn’t have to be for twenty or thirty or whatever years. It can just be… what it has been. And you can do whatever you want.”
I was already shaking my head. “It’s not an option.”
She didn’t understand. She’d never had just one thing she wanted. She’d stumbled into her dream career and I couldn’t have been happier for her, but she didn’t get what it was like to have given so much to something and then consider walking away. I’d worked for too long to just give it all up, even after seeing the holes in the fabric I’d woven.
Hadn’t I?
And I was making a difference. On the big scale. On the macro level. I was making the world a safer place for people, for women in general. Women like my sister and her friends—I’d helped dismantle a network of human trafficking in Europe. Tell me that didn’t count! In the worst moments, I reminded myself that eventually, those outcomes did show out. And now I was clinging to them with claws out.
“But it could be. You could make it an option. And you could?— ”
“Jojo, please.”
She must’ve heard the devastation in my tone, because she stopped instantly. “I’m sorry. I just hate the idea of you being this miserable going back.”
I shook my head, knowing if I even hinted at Kenny, I’d start bawling again. And he was so much of it, but not all of it. It was her, and my dad, and even Jane, who was so lovely. It was being even farther away from my mom, whose Pacific time zone made me a full nine hours from her. It was these mountains feeling more and more like something I could call home and this town charming my face off.
And none of it was enough to stop me from myself. From this stubborn path I’d set out on years ago and felt nothing short of trapped by now. I was making a difference, and that’s what mattered ultimately. I got to do it this way, and unfortunately, not in any other form. So be it, because it counted for something.
“Alright then, that’s it.” Elise snapped into action, digging around in my kitchen until she found a trash can and plucking it up. “We’re leaving this lovely little den of sadness and we’re going to give you a good day.”
She held the trash can up and slid the pile of tissues I’d accumulated into it, then grabbed the empty glasses I’d left there and bustled back into the kitchen, placing dirty things in the dishwasher.
“Great idea,” Dove agreed, clapping her hands. “Let’s get you into some clothes and maybe a quick face wash, and we’ll get it organized.”
Jo urged me along into the bedroom and promised me it’d be okay. I let myself function on autopilot, pulling on clothes, washing my face and brushing teeth, a soothing numbness descending now that I wasn’t having to fill my whole day. A few minutes later, I was out on the street, then piling into Jo’s car, headed toward distraction.
Forty minutes later, they’d kept up a steady stream of chatter about topics my mind wouldn’t fully latch onto—some mention of Elise’s ex-boyfriend, Dove’s grandmother moving into an elder care facility in town, and Jo’s latest update on her and Adam.
They were kind enough not to pressure me to say anything, though I couldn’t have even if they’d insisted. Static like an old TV fuzzed my thoughts enough, I had a reprieve. But the lack of clarity made me restless, too.
When we pulled onto the Escape Spa property, I wished I could beam myself back into town. I didn’t want to lie on a table with some stranger’s hands running over me.
The only hands I wanted touching me were Kenny’s. My heart clutched at the thought, but I breathed through it as we exited the car.
Even at this time of year, when most plants had died, the property was gorgeous. It looked like an inn, but I’d seen a few outbuildings as we’d turned up the long drive.
“I know you’re thinking I’m crazy, but please trust me,” Jo said, her hand hugging me to her and releasing all in a flash.
“Okay,” I said, no pith or pushback left.
A strikingly pretty woman welcomed us from behind a long reception desk when we entered the cozy lobby. A fire roared in the fireplace and a wall of what I guessed were live plants grew at the far end of the space.
“Welcome. I’ve got everything set up, so go on back and they’ll get you ready.” The woman smiled at each of us.
“Thanks, Gen. Really appreciate it,” Jo said, tapping the countertop as we walked by.
Jo’s life here was so full. She had a network of friends, small business owner colleagues, and of course, Adam. Then there was the Saint family, whom she’d gained by our dad marrying Jane Saint.
I should’ve been happy with these truths, and some other time I would be, but right now all I felt was jealousy and longing and a pathetic self-pity that asked, “Why can she have that and I can’t?”
Big picture difference, Liz. Macro level. International bad guys.
Sometimes I wanted to slap myself in the face for those internal chants, but right now, I also needed them.
In the changing room, we were each given a stack of clothes. The material felt odd for a robe…
“Please leave everything on and place the suit over your clothing. Please change into the boots before you exit. We’ll have your protective eyewear just across the way.” The pretty blonde who’d materialized out of nowhere smiled brightly, then handed each of the other women neat bundles of clothes, though not all our instructions were the same.
I tried to catch Jo’s eye, but she was listening intently to her own instructions. Place the suit over my clothing? What kind of massage or mud mask was this?
A few minutes later, Elise and Dove emerged in plush robes and Jo and I stepped out in coveralls.
“Do I get to know what we’re doing?” I asked my sister, who looked as utterly ridiculous in the full-body bright white outfit.
She grinned. “Why you certainly do. Follow me.” She wiggled her brows, and Dove and Elise told us good luck.
Good luck?
Jo followed a hallway to what felt like a back door, then we crossed an outdoor space on smooth paver stones set into the earth, and she knocked on the door of one of the buildings I’d seen when we drove up.
“Welcome. Please leave these on while you’re in the house. Whenever you’re done, we’ll be here to assist your exit. Volume adjusts by the remote on the left.”
Jo thanked her, and I accepted the plastic eye protection glasses, then stepped inside after Jo.
She shut the door, and I looked around. It appeared to be a normal kitchen, though smaller than what you might find in an average single family home, and there were rooms branching through two different doorways.
“This is a smash house. I know you’ve got a lot going on in that head and lying on a table for a massage would probably have driven you crazy, so we’re going to dance and smash stuff, and then if you want, we can go relax, or we can just call it. Whatever you need.”
I blinked at her. “Smash house?”
Her mouth slid into a wide grin and she reached for a plate sitting on top of a pile I hadn’t noticed, then slammed it down on the linoleum floor. I jolted when the dish shattered, the small bits of ceramic sliding across the floor and bouncing off her steel-toed boot.
“Yes, Lizzy. Smash house.” She handed me a stack of plates.
I took them, a sense of excitement and another little wisp of heartbreak mingling, before I threw the first plate at the wall.