28. Chapter 28
Lennon
Lark is gone.
She was here one minute and gone the next.
But standing in the hallway, my feet fixed to the floor as I try to push down the anxiety fighting its way out of my chest, she’s still everywhere.
She’s in the two mugs sitting clean and overturned on the drying rack next to the sink.
She’s in the light that’s still on in the hallway bathroom.
She’s on my lips, the taste of her lingering even a half hour after she’s left.
She’s in the fucking air , her citrus-and-sunshine scent still swirling around me.
I squeeze my eyes shut so hard I see stars on my eyelids and press my thumb and forefinger into them. It’s futile to hope that she’ll magically reappear when I reopen them, but I take in a breath to the count of four, hold it, let it out the same way, and open them anyway.
She’s not there. Because she left.
I’m ashamed to admit I don’t know what to do. When my parents would vanish, she was always the one to save me from my anxiety getting really bad. Even when they’d stop by and leave just as suddenly like they did a few weeks ago, I’d always end up calling her. But now, who am I supposed to turn to?
When I promised her we’d remain friends no matter what happened, it didn’t even occur to me that we’d ever be apart again.
We’d figure out where to live, and everything would be fine.
I never, ever thought we’d be physically separated.
Which, in retrospect, was likely the result of not thinking at all rather than having come to any kind of conclusion about it.
But it’s going to work out. She’ll see that once she realizes Devin is okay. We’ll talk. She’ll land in New York, she’ll call me, we’ll hash out some details, and everything will be fine.
Don’t make me choose.
I run a frustrated hand through my hair, tugging at it as my breathing quickens.
I hadn’t meant to suggest it was Devin or me.
I’m not delusional enough to think I’d ever come out on top in that scenario, nor would I want to.
My parents were shitty. They never chose me. I don’t wish that on another person.
But Lark is reasonable. Steadfast. Rational.
If that’s how she read what I was saying to her, I must have fucked something up in the delivery.
Or her fear for Devin clouded her ability to take what I was saying for what it was—a reassurance that everything would be fine.
That we’d wait it out and go together if we had to.
Either way, this is all my fault. My therapist would probably say that thinking about it that way is destructive and not at all correct, but I don’t see any way to share blame for this.
I selfishly wanted her with me. I tried to hold her here instead of letting her go when she felt she needed to.
Which, ironically, is exactly what I had been avoiding doing these past few weeks.
I dimly realize I can’t stand in the hallway forever.
She’s not coming back, and I need to go through some motions to keep the anxiety at bay at least until I can talk to her again.
Her flight probably leaves at five-thirty or six if she’s on one of the first ones out.
She won’t land until eleven or noon. That’s six or so hours.
In the meantime, I can make coffee, shower, get ready, go to the studio, and explain to Noah what’s going on.
Having a plan of small things to do helps calm me a bit, but when I glance at the sink and see our two mugs there again, I decide I can’t face it. Instead, I turn right around and climb back into bed, pulling the covers up over my head and breathing in the scent of her that’s still on my pillow.
***
Bang, bang, bang.
When I blink open my eyes, I immediately close them again as what must be late-afternoon sunlight streams through my open window. Lark and I had opened it last night to let the cool breeze in, and the loud sound of traffic floats through. It’s also hot . And bright.
Bang, bang, bang.
And why is there banging?
I scrub a hand over my face to try to rub some life back into it. It’s unsuccessful. But I have a dim awareness that the banging is coming from my front door, and if I don’t stop it soon, someone on this floor is going to be pissed.
Grumbling expletives to myself, I throw on a shirt as I shuffle to the door.
When I pull it open, Noah is standing there with his fist raised, ready to pound on it again.
From the set of his jaw when he sees me, it looks like he might follow through anyway and bang my face in to knock some sense into me. I kind of wish he would.
“Oh, good. You’re alive.” He doesn’t sound at all happy to have found me among the living, but I step aside to let him into my apartment anyway.
“What are you doing here?”
The hoarseness of my voices must surprise Noah because he halts on his way into my kitchen and gapes at me. “What the fuck happened to you?” He wrinkles his nose and takes a step backward. “You sound like shit, and you stink.”
I lift the collar of my shirt over my nose and take a whiff.
He’s not wrong. I shrug and pass by him toward my coffee machine, forcing myself to swallow the lump in my throat at the sight of the two mugs next to the sink.
“The window’s been open in my bedroom, and it got hot. I must have been sweating.”
“Lark lets you walk around smelling up the place like that?”
Nothing to do but state the obvious, I guess. “Lark’s not here.”
Noah looks around as if he’s just noticing her absence, which is funny considering the lack of her is so big to me that it’s practically squeezing all the air out of the room. “Where is she?” Each word is careful, deliberate.
“Gone.”
He narrows his eyes. “What do you mean ‘gone’?”
I put my mug underneath the spout of the coffee machine and push the button. It gurgles to life. “She left at around two-thirty.”
“This morning?” Noah asks incredulously.
“Couldn’t very well have been this afternoon yet, could it?” I snark, but then I hazard a quick glance at the clock. Four-ten. “Fuck,” I mutter and all but run to my phone in the bedroom. She said she was going to call when she landed, which would have been hours ago.
But when I snatch the phone off the nightstand and look at it, there are eight missed calls, all from Noah. He must have come over because he was worried when I didn’t answer.
She didn’t call. She landed in New York and didn’t call me like she said she would. Which either means Devin is not well or she’s pissed. Or both.
My knees give out, and my ass meets the edge of the mattress as I continue to stare at my phone.
Noah comes into the room holding my coffee.
He sets it on the nightstand and crosses over to the window to close it.
“I think you’d better shower, have some coffee, and tell me what the fuck is going on,” he says. “In that order.”
He sounds a lot like my therapist used to, and I have a vague awareness that I should probably make an appointment with him again. This is getting out of hand.
I practically drag myself to the shower, and I have to admit that the warm water feels good as it runs over me.
It doesn’t go as far as to wash away the past fourteen hours, but it clears away some of the haze.
By the time I leave the bathroom, my brain is a little less foggy, and about halfway through the steaming cup of coffee Noah left for me to drink as I get dressed, I’m starting to feel human again.
He’s waiting for me with his own cup of coffee at the kitchen counter when I emerge, and the asshole has the audacity to sniff the air when I approach. “Better,” he declares. “Sit.”
“I’m not a dog,” I grumble, but I do as he says.
“No, but you clearly need some direction.”
I pout into my coffee. “Fuck off.”
Noah refills my cup for me, then does the same for himself. “Get it out of your system if you need to. You’re not mad at me, and I can take it. But I’m not leaving here until you tell me what’s going on. Did you two have a fight?”
“Yes,” I admit. “But that’s not why she left.”
“Why did she leave?”
“Her daughter, Devin. She had to go to the hospital.” They’re caveman sentences. Short and choppy. But it’s all I have the energy for.
Thankfully, Noah seems willing to prod me for more information. “Oh, shit. Is she okay?”
I shrug. “No clue. Lark said she’d call when she landed, but she didn’t.”
He grunts, then clears his throat. “What did you do to piss her off?”
“Why does it have to be something I did? Why can’t it be a mutual disagreement? Normal growing pains that come along with falling for your best friend?” I sip my coffee to avoid the glare Noah is shooting me from his end of the counter.
“Is that what it was?”
“Probably not.”
He lets out a long and exasperated sigh.
“Listen, Lennon. You ignored my calls, and I got worried. My schedule is cleared now. I’ve got all day, and you’re not in great shape.
So you can either tell me what happened and get it off your chest, or we can sit here in silence until I’m satisfied you’re not going to stink up the place again. Your choice.”
Don’t make me choose .
I dip my head forward so I can thread my fingers through my hair as my elbow rests on the countertop. “I’m such an idiot.”
“You’re not going to get any argument from me,” he quips.
I don’t even have the energy to give him a look. The only thing I can do is breathe. For now, that has to be enough.
After a minute or so, Noah softens. “Tell me why you’re an idiot, Lennon. It’s probably not as bad as you think.”
Taking in a deep breath through my nose, I lift my head and say to the space in front of me, “I told her she couldn’t get on a plane to see her kid every time she got sick. I tried to suggest she stay here until she knew more, or she might be flying out there for nothing.”
Noah hisses a breath in through his teeth. “Oof. That wasn’t a great move.”
“I see that now.”
“Her kid was being taken to the hospital. The one who just moved out of the house. And you told her to wait it out?”
“It’s more than that, though.” Finally, I turn to look at him. “She’s not sure where she’s headed after this. She hadn’t decided if she was going to stay at all. And now I’m worried I pushed her away and she’s never coming back.”
“You wanted her to move here permanently?” he asks. “Don’t get me wrong. That would be great for us, but I didn’t realize things were that serious yet.”
I shake my head like I also can’t believe it. “I didn’t see this coming, either. When I invited her out here, it was because we needed someone for the audiobook—and because I was watching her fade away over a phone screen. She needed this, too.”
Noah rubs his beard. “Let me guess. She’s unsure about giving up her life and a job back in the Midwest?”
I nod. “I offered to move back, but I was honest. I told her I would do it for her even though I didn’t want to.
She was an entirely different person here, Noah.
You didn’t know her before this, but it was like she found herself again.
It was the brightest I’ve seen her shine in a while. She belongs here with me.”
“And you moved around your whole life, so now that you’ve found some permanence here, I imagine that’d be hard for you to give up,” he suggests.
I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but he’s probably on to something.
While settling in LA had never been intentional, it happened.
That and my tattoos and desperately hanging on to my friendship with Lark was all probably, at its core, an attempt to prove I could make something last. Which would explain why the thought of packing up my life and moving it across the country gave me a lot of anxiety.
“Yeah,” I croak out, swallowing and gripping my mug so hard my fingertips turn white.
“You love her?” Noah asks.
It’s a simple question, and there’s a simple answer. Yes. Of course I love her. More than anything or anyone in my entire life. So much that it consumes every waking thought, that her body near mine causes tiny explosions in every one of my cells.
But a simple yes isn’t big enough to encompass everything she is to me. And I’m suddenly too emotional about it to say anything, so I just nod.
“Did you tell her?” he prods.
And this is where I know I’m the dumbest man alive, because no.
I’ve done a million things, big and small, over the years to show her how much she means to me, but I’ve never told her.
Not really. And when she needed me to do the biggest thing and get on that plane with her, come what may, I let her down.
Even though she didn’t ask me to come with her, she shouldn’t have had to.
I should have offered. And when she inevitably said no, I should have done it anyway.
Noah doesn’t need me to admit it. My silence is admission enough. He sighs and sips his coffee, setting his mug carefully on the counter.
“What do I do?” I ask, my voice like sandpaper.
“You get on a plane. You find out where her kid is, and you go there. You wait until you know her kid is okay, then lay it all out. You tell her you fucking love her, and you do what it takes to fix this.”
I huff a sad laugh. “You make it sound so easy.”
“Because it is.” He takes his phone out of his pocket and taps a few times. “There’s a red-eye that’ll get you there around six in the morning local time. Get some shit in a bag. I’ll drive you to the airport.” He smirks at me. “See? Easy.”
“It’s the rest of it that scares me,” I say quietly.
“Well, yeah. Love is scary as fuck.” He shrugs. “Take it one step at a time. And for the love of god”—he shoots me a pointed look—“don’t forget to pack deodorant.”