Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Samantha
A little way along the wooded path, Lilly was sitting on a bench overlooking the lake, lost in an artist’s zone, her chalk pastel box spread open beside her. A batch of bright orange and yellow tiger wildflowers bloomed in a profusion of color right at the lake’s edge, which were clearly her subject.
I felt a little bad interrupting, but I was on a mission. “Could I talk to you?” I asked.
She glanced up and smiled. “Oh hi, Sam. Sure.” She moved her art supplies so I could sit. In front of us, the sun was shining on the calm water, illuminating the trees and grasses in dappled light as only a bright May sun can. One glance at her sketchbook told me she was a seriously talented artist.
After watching her work for a few minutes, I said, “I want to say something that’s been on my mind. I feel like I need to get it off my chest.”
She put a hand to her own chest. “You’re scaring me a little.”
I sounded a little scary to my own ears, but this was serious. I glanced around, making sure Caleb wasn’t about to pop out of the woods and burst in on us. I knew he wouldn’t like what I was doing. But I plunged ahead, having only two days to accomplish the impossible. “I want to clear up something you might’ve heard about Caleb.”
“Okay,” she said carefully. “What is it?”
“At the hospital, he and I had a professional disagreement that made me upset—I mean, we often disagree—but I didn’t handle it in the best way. In my anger, I repeated what I’d heard about him from one of my friends. It was pure gossip, and it did damage—to you.”
“You’re talking about what Stacey told me?”
I nodded. “Caleb is—well, he’s a good guy. He didn’t two-time anyone, and he didn’t cheat. I wanted you to know that.” I found myself actually believing the good-guy part, which threw me a little.
I really, really hoped I was doing the right thing. Caleb had to get going or he was going to lose this woman forever.
Lilly set down her sketch pad. “You know we used to date, right? Caleb called me to say hi a few weeks ago. He said he wanted to make sure we were okay before the wedding, but I think he might’ve been working up to ask me out.” She turned to me. “I have a lot of conflicting feelings about that. I mean, we were young, but it was a bad breakup.”
“I get that.” Okay, here goes. My chance to make Caleb shine. “I know him mostly professionally, of course, but I can tell you he’s a very good doctor and also a very compassionate one.” I’d seen him interact with patients before their surgeries. He had a great way with kids and their parents. Once, he stayed long after his twenty-four-hour call shift was up to make sure that one of his patients was out of the woods. I’d found him at the patient’s bedside post-op, falling asleep in a chair. Most residents would’ve gone home long before and learned their patient’s fate the next day.
“Being Mia’s best friend, I see that Caleb really loves his family,” I continued. I thought of the cute, casual way he called his mom Ma . How he’d playfully rubbed his beard against her cheek. How tight he was with his parents and siblings.
“He’s really into his family,” Lilly said. “When we’d have time off during his first year in med school, he’d always want to head home to see them.”
She’d said that like it was a bad thing. That was hard for someone like me to imagine, who struggled on a daily basis to keep that sense of family alive for Wynn. “That must’ve been a very hard year for both of you,” I said.
“It really was. I still have hostility.” She laughed. “But it’s nice to connect with him again. I think this weekend will help us to resolve some things.”
“He doesn’t seem to hold grudges.” Even though he detested me, he’d still somehow offered me a ride. Which was kind of incredible. “I mean, I think he’d welcome connecting with you and making amends.”
“Caleb never gives up on anything. Once, the D’Angelos’ dog got sick, and for weeks all he did was research senior-dog ailments and try to find alternative therapies.”
“Larry?”
“Yes, Larry!” She laughed again. “How did you know his name?”
“I think he’s a family legend. Did anything work?”
“The dog was fifteen.” She lifted her hands in a shrug. “I mean, it was just time to go.”
We both pondered that. I wondered what that must feel like, to be loved like that. It didn’t seem like something to take for granted—unless it was stalkerish. Was Caleb a stalker?
“He’s not bad-looking,” she said.
“That he is not.” I suddenly thought maybe I shouldn’t have agreed so quickly, so I added, “He’s also not beyond apologizing.” That damn apology was still rerunning in my head like an Instagram reel on loop. I kept trying to understand how it had still really mattered, even all this time later.
As I strained to come up with more compliments, I thought about adding that fact that he liked kids—I mean, he chose peds ortho for a fellowship—but thought that might be a straw too much. We fell silent in the afternoon heat. An occasional frog made a strange trill.
Something was churning inside my brain, niggling at me like a toddler yanking on their mother’s coat, creeping up on me like a sneak attack.
Good-looking, kind, funny, smart. A golden quadrangle of traits, one of Oma’s favorite expressions.
Caleb had it. The golden quadrangle.
I could never find all four in one man. I usually settled for good-looking and smart. And if funny was thrown in, I was okay for a while.
“Thanks for all that,” Lilly said, patting me on the arm. “You must care about Caleb a lot to want to explain all that to me.”
“I feel terrible for what happened,” I said honestly. “I just wanted to correct the damage I caused.”
There. I’d said it. I’d done what I came here to do. I’d given Caleb his best shot. If he was angry, it would only be for me telling the truth. I felt like I’d done what I needed to do, like shaking sand from my feet.
Caleb. His stupidly handsome, smiling face was stuck in my brain like an earworm song you can’t stop singing all day. Baby Shark do do do do do do…
“Hey, you two.” Suddenly there he was, emerging from the forest path, striding toward us in his confident way with his lean, muscled legs, his tanned skin, and his bright white smile.
He hadn’t heard me, had he?
That seemed the least of my worries. At that moment, my head was spinning, my hands were clammy, and the rest of me was sweaty. Had I forgotten to drink water? Sometimes I did that at work.
But this felt different. I felt like a Mack truck had just hit me, knocked me off-kilter and sent me flying.
I was falling for the guy I was trying so hard to convince Lilly to love.
And that was very messed up.
* * *
Caleb
I took in the two women on the bench. They couldn’t have been more different. Lilly’s hair was sun-kissed, backlit by the warm afternoon sun, her eyes blue as the water in front of us. She’d somehow managed to find time to change outfits and was wearing a sundress with daisies on it and sandals. She looked like a perfect work of art.
My heart ached with nostalgia, because how many times had I seen her like that? Knees up, supporting a big sketchbook, head cocked a little to the side, hand poised above the paper, lips pressed together, every part of her in total concentration.
Sam, on the other hand, looked stricken on seeing me. Guilty maybe. After all, I’d just overheard her telling Lilly I was a great guy.
Sam with her dark silky hair bound into a ponytail and the fresh, honest smile. Who wore a plain gray T-shirt and jeans shorts and white tennies that were a little worn.
I wasn’t angry that she’d gone to bat for me. How could I be? I’d heard her list all my sterling qualities—and it didn’t seem like she was lying.
Before I could wonder why I was more interested in what Sam thought of me than Lilly, Lilly scooted over, so I sat down on one end of the bench. I’d brought a book with me, just in case I couldn’t find her, so I set it in my lap. For a moment, I took in the lake, shaded by willows, some lily pads floating on its mirrored surface. A peaceful place, but I was feeling the opposite of peaceful.
It wasn’t because the stakes were high with Lilly. Sam had set me up for success, and now I had only to take the ball and run with it and see what would happen.
The confusion was that Sam wasn’t at all who I’d initially thought she was. She was nice and funny and kind—and stunning in a very different way than Lilly. I was struggling to untwist my thoughts and actually say something when Sam stood up and walked around us, placing her hands on the bench behind us.
I glanced up to see her closing her eyes, concentrating deeply. My heart started pounding. She was about to do her Oma thing. On us.
My mouth went dry as I tried to pretend nothing was happening. “This place reminds me of that camp we went to once when we were kids,” I said, just to say something . “Remember?”
“Oh, I forgot about that place,” Lilly said. “What was it called again?”
As Sam rested her hand purposely on my shoulder. I felt my skin prickle beneath her touch. A frisson of electricity.
I reminded myself that I was a doctor. Science was everything. Experimental studies, statistics, results—those were the foundation of medicine. In ortho we had tests, signs, and maneuvers for diagnosis—the Abbot method, the Achilles bulge sign, the squeeze test, the Addis test, the shoulder abduction sign, the active glide test on the knee—not Oma’s ill-defined matchmaking hocus-pocus that Sam seemed to think could be inherited.
As if such a thing was even possible.
Too late to worry about it. Belief had to be suspended as she touched Lilly’s shoulder too and masked this by nodding toward the pond and saying, “Will you look at that? A mama duck trailed by a million babies. How many are there?”
She managed to sound genuinely amazed. I thought about how she said that growing up, she hadn’t had wild, untamed spaces to run free in as I had. She seemed truly awed by nature.
“Camp Rockbottom,” Lilly said, clapping her hands together, “that’s what we called it. But what was its real name?” I couldn’t remember, because my mind had gone blank. Sam’s hand rested gently on my shoulder and upper arm. I felt her warmth. The soft but steady pressure as I sat frozen, holding my breath.
“I know!” Lilly said. “Camp Rockymount!”
“Right, right,” I said absently.
Whatever Sam was doing was nonsense, I knew that.
But her touch held me spellbound. Made me want more.
She lifted her hands off but then replaced them, as if she was repeating the process. “Is that an eagle high in that tree? And is that a nest?”
I bit down on my cheek so as not to smile. I suddenly wanted to take her all around this farm and show her all the wonders being in the country had in store—hawks and herons, monarchs and geese, and even the chickens.
The hand came down again. A third time? How many times did it take? I didn’t believe in it, but I had to admit that I hoped it would yield a magic solution to all my confusion.
What if it said that Lilly was my one and true soulmate? That was what I wanted, right?
Sam withdrew her hands and gave an exaggerated yawn. “Okay you two,” she said, giving both out shoulders a squeeze, “I’m going to take a rest before dinner. See you all later!”
Once she left, I decided to figure out once and for all if Lilly and I had a shot. “You haven’t changed. You still love to sketch flowers.”
“Caleb, I have changed a lot.” She assessed me carefully, her expression unreadable. “But yes, I still love to draw flowers.” She smiled. “That wasn’t a slap-down. You just remember things in a certain romantic way. But neither of us is the same.”
I rubbed my neck and found that I was sweating. “I just meant that your artistic spirit is the same. Your love of flowers.” I sounded ridiculous. But I was trying.
She set down her tablet. “Okay. I accept that. Sam just went through that whole hospital gossip thing and said the same thing you did. So no worries there, okay?”
Okay, great. “So… we’re friends, right?”
“Yeah. We’re friends.”
And then I paused. Blew out a breath. Now was my chance to say more. But I didn’t—couldn’t—say “I want another chance,” or “Let’s try again.” Or even, “Do you want to go out sometime?”
We fell into silence. Still, I hesitated.
Inside, I was a little panicked. Sam was in my head—dancing with my mom, wearing my lucky sweatshirt, doing her hocus-pocus and telling Lilly the truth to help me.
And then suddenly I looked across the pond, and there she was. I could barely see her through some trees, sitting on a lounge chair, reading a book in the side yard of the women’s cabin.
“What’s your book?” Lilly finally asked me.
I picked it up and looked at the dark cover with bold gold lettering and a scrolled border. “It’s this cool story about four friends who get stuck in this dystopian universe and can’t get back to their own, and these evil beings who are taking over the world and the friends have to stop them. But it’s much more than just sci-fi. It brings up all kind of important issues like taking care of our world, getting rid of waste, conserving resources…”
She laughed.
“Sorry. I guess I get a little excited.” Lilly had never gotten my thrill of reading a great book and then wanting to tell everyone I met about it.
She smiled. Maybe a little wisely. “You always wanted to save the world. I just wanted to draw flowers.”
I shrugged, but inside, I felt like a bomb had dropped. I think she’d pretty much summed up our entire relationship right there—and not in a good way. I was always pushing, never accepting defeat. I was practical, she was whimsical.
Also, she wasn’t into aliens or heavy book discussions. I’d have to save that for my bros in book club.
I thought about Sam’s matchmaking advice. That couples trying to get back together have to fix what happened in the past. I knew I had to attempt that by saying something difficult that I’d said in my head hundreds of times. “Lilly, I just wanted to say I’m sorry about the way things ended between us. I had no idea how difficult that year was going to be for either of us.”
She gave a tight smile. “It was definitely… challenging.”
The first year of med school had hit me harder than a solid brick wall. To say that I’d been overwhelmed was an understatement. “I couldn’t find balance at all that year,” I said, “and I know you suffered for it.”
“Caleb, you always give one hundred percent plus. The problem was that when we were together, there wasn’t any percent left for me.”
Across the way, Sam was quietly reading. I wished I was reading too instead of fielding these hard issues. Except who would suddenly show up there but Quinn, who flopped himself right down on the grass beside her. She promptly sat up. I felt annoyed at him for no reason. How about leaving her alone so she could enjoy that book? How about getting the hint period ?
Why was I thinking this in the middle of a discussion I’d longed to have for years?
“I love my job,” Lilly said. “I’m very passionate about it. I have so many ideas. Maybe getting to where I am wasn’t as hard as med school, but I want to find an equal partner who respects my career too.”
“I’ve always respected you,” I said. “I admire what you’ve done to your family’s business.”
“When we were together, it was all about you.”
I flinched. I knew I had to do better, be more honest. Admit the truth, which was hard for me. I often saw the glass as half full, even in retrospect. I knew that I tended to minimize my vulnerabilities, and maybe if I hadn’t, we might’ve made it. “That first year, it was all I could do to keep my head above the water. The workload was beyond anything I could imagine. I was terrified I wasn’t going to make it.”
“You did make it,” she said in an even tone. “With flying colors. But we didn’t.”
Through the trees, Quinn had picked up Sam’s book. Sam had moved to the far end of her chair, away from him. Judging by her body language, she wanted him to leave. Who does that, parks himself next to a woman when he’s not even invited? A strange, protective urge came over me.
“Caleb?”
I faced her. “Look, in retrospect, I didn’t know who I was or what I was capable of. I’m so proud of you, Lilly. I’m sorry for the pain.”
She stared at me. I knew her well, and I could see a struggle going on inside her. “I’m glad we had this chance to talk.”
“Me too.”
Lilly got up from the bench. “See you at dinner, okay?” After she tossed her art stuff into a canvas bag, slung it over her shoulder, and left, I sat there for a minute, thinking. Carefully rehashing our past as I’d done so many times. I had great memories of our close moments, our romantic moments, and not so many of the arguments we’d had—like, the blowups over whose family to have dinner with on a rare day off, or the fact that I always seemed to be studying, or the times when she felt isolated and lonely and my exhaustion and stress had made me less sensitive of her.
Across the way, Sam got up and went inside the cabin, leaving Quinn to do whatever it was Quinn did. In this case, he found the trail. I could see through the trees that he was traveling all the way around the lake, headed back to our cabin. I was strangely relieved that he’d left Sam alone.
I should’ve come away from this discussion with clarity, but I felt more confused than ever. I mean, I was glad we’d talked honestly. It helped the wounds to heal.
But I didn’t feel… invested.
Or attracted.
I wasn’t pining for her. I wasn’t wanting… more.
I was thinking more about the complicated woman who’d just done everything she could to get me what I wanted.
I just wasn’t sure it—rather, Lilly—was what I wanted anymore.
I felt like my chapter with Lilly was finally ending, not beginning.
* * *
Samantha
I tried to sit out in the sun for a while to calm down after that stupid, horrible matchmaking test, but Quinn came out of nowhere like a puppy dog and literally wouldn’t leave until I confessed to having a whopping migraine.
That wasn’t far off. He was giving me a pain in my head, my brain, my stomach, but most of all, in my butt.
I hated having to tell guys I wasn’t interested, something I’d done a lot. Except this was extra tricky because I’d have to see Quinn for more events before the wedding. So what were my choices? Oh, I didn’t have many.
I hadn’t lied about my head—it was throbbing from stress. And it was all Caleb’s fault. I put myself on the line for him. Going around touching people’s shoulders and mumbling things about eagles and ducks.
But my real problem wasn’t Quinn. It was that the test hadn’t worked.
Either that, or Caleb and Lilly were a dud match.
My head started throbbing so badly that I barely made it into the cabin to rummage through my bag for some ibuprofen.
Had I done everything right? I’d touched Caleb and Lilly at the same time. And I’d focused hard and said inside my head what my Oma always said. Are these two people meant to be together?
And I felt… nothing. A big zero. Nil. Naught. Zip.
I lay down on my bunk and threw my hand over my forehead. The worst thing was, I was an unprofessional matchmaker. Caleb had his arm on the back of the bench, and I aimed for his shoulder, but I sort of got his biceps.
It had been downhill from there. Because he had a big, hard biceps. A mound of muscle—and it had distracted me. Not only that, it… thrilled me. After that, it was all I could do not to think of him. But he was there, right there, and I was touching him and smelling his soap and feeling myself grow hot and tingly all over like a teenager.
He kept furtively glancing at me, probably to wonder what the hell I was doing, and that didn’t help.
I felt a lot of energy coming from him and nothing from her.
And worst of all, it felt directed at me.
Oh no .
And all that energy… might have thrown off the test. It was like static interference.
The one other time I’d done this maneuver, with Mia and Brax, it felt—well, it felt like peace and harmony and great energy. Which was exactly the vibe they still had with each other.
This time I couldn’t even say what the end result meant. Everything was so muddled. But even when I concentrated as deeply as I could, I couldn’t get any positive energy from either one of them going out to the other one.
I rubbed my right arm, which still felt funny from when I’d touched Caleb’s arm. Like pins and needles. Truthfully, my entire body felt like pins and needles.
There must be something I was doing wrong. Why had I thought I could do this? Why had I thought I’d inherited my grandma’s gift? And why was I so upset I hadn’t?
I knew why. Because it was a little piece of her I thought I still had within my reach.
A little piece that… wasn’t.
I should’ve paid more attention when she was still here with us. I should have learned what she’d always been trying to teach me.
Even though Oma was all drama and one heck of a storyteller, I didn’t actually believe the matchmaking. But I felt that her art was being lost, and now it was my fault because I hadn’t learned enough.
But I believed in my grandma. And oh, how I missed her. Somehow, by keeping this ritual of hers alive, I was keeping her alive.
On top of all this, I couldn’t shake off the creeping feeling that Caleb and Lilly were a mismatch, regardless of how fervent Caleb felt about her. This had nothing to do with Oma’s test. It was just an observation I made all by myself.
“Sam, are you okay?” Mia’s voice pierced my bad thoughts.
I was never so relieved to hear her. At the same time, how could I ever tell her? This was about her brother. And me feeling things. Life was so much better when I hated him.
She walked into the dimly lit bunk room and perched herself on the end of mine. “Headache?”
I nodded. “I just took something for it.”
Another voice. “Want me to run up to the farmhouse and get you a diet soda?”
I opened one eye and saw Gabe. My two best friends. A wave of instant relief welled up inside me.
“Do they have those here?” I was suddenly parched and craving a delicious, bubbly, caffeinated beverage.
“Good question,” Gabe took a seat on the bottom bunk across from mine. “I did see a sign about all-natural green juice. But I think you might have to go pick some spinach to get one. You want that?”
I shook my head. “If it doesn’t have caffeine and aspartame in it, I don’t want it.”
“Why are you here?” I asked Mia. “I thought you were with Brax.”
“I was, but my brother is convinced that Quinn is stalking you. He said something about having a talk with him. He asked me to see if you were okay. Is that valid?”
Wait… Caleb was worried about me? I forced myself up, propping myself on my elbows. I was surprised and grateful that Caleb had noticed. Not that I couldn’t handle Quinn by myself, but still. “Quinn’s just not getting the hint, and I’m not sure what I can do other than spell it out for him.” All this reminded me of tonight, so I turned to Gabe. “Could we be partners at the square dance? If not, then I’m going to get stuck with him.”
Gabe’s face fell. “Oh honey, I’d love to, but I can’t tonight.”
“You’re not going?” My throbbing head just got throbbier.
“Jason’s on the way,” he said a little sheepishly.
“Jason’s coming… here?”
Gabe nodded. He couldn’t contain the elation in his voice. “He’s been working really hard on his dissertation, and we’ve barely seen each other. Ani had the idea that he should bring his work up here for the weekend.”
“That’s really nice.” I tried to mean it. “But I hate you.”
“I can help you with Quinn, don’t worry,” Mia said. “But is something else wrong? I mean, I’ve never known rejecting a guy to get you upset.”
Mia knew me so well. A mere mortal man—especially one who was a pain—wasn’t something I ever lost sleep over. And here’s the thing with Mia. The reason we’re best friends. I can’t lie to her. There’s something about this woman that makes me instantly unburden my heart. I wondered if it was genetic, because I’d felt the same way with her mom. But this—how could I tell her any of it?
She pointed to my lap. “You’ve been shredding again.”
I looked down to find that the tissues I’d been clutching had indeed been shredded to pieces. I swooped down and picked up the mess and balled it all up.
I took a deep breath, finding my courage. Mia was my best friend. No matter what happened, she deserved to know the truth. “I spread a rumor by accident about your brother, and it somehow got back to Lilly, just as he was trying to get back with her.”
Mia frowned. “That’s not like you. What kind of rumor?”
“That he cheated on someone that he dumped. It wasn’t true. But I thought it was, and I was mad about something else that happened between us at the hospital.”
She put a hand to her chest. “Caleb’s a pain, but he’s absolutely not a cheater.”
“I offered to straighten things out with Lilly, but he said no. But I had an opportunity to talk with Lilly just now and I took it. And then I did Oma’s matchmaking move, just to reassure Caleb that all was well.”
“That thing where she puts her hands on the couple?” Mia asked. “She did that with Brax and me.” She smiled proudly. “We were a great match.”
“Your grandma did it with Jason and me too,” Gabe said. “We passed with flying colors. But judging by your face, something wasn’t magical about this time.”
“With Caleb and Lilly, I got nothing. No energy. No simpàtico. ” I rubbed my pounding temples. “I didn’t pay enough attention to my grandma to understand what I’m doing wrong. And now it’s lost.” I was now bawling into my shredded tissues. Mia ran to the bathroom and gave me a long tail of toilet paper. I promptly blew my nose.
“There’s something else,” I managed. “It’s awful.”
Mia clutched my hand. She and Gabe exchanged grave glances. “What? What is it?”
“You know how I hated Caleb? Well, the energy I picked up wasn’t between Caleb and Lilly.” I hesitated. Was I really going to spill this? “It was between Caleb and me. I really screwed something up. And I think I might have a crush on him! How is that possible? I mean, the last crush I had was Justin Bieber in high school!” I dissolved back into tears.
“Wait a minute,” Gabe said. “You and Caleb?” He started to laugh. “Girlfriend, you’re not telling us anything we don’t already know.”
Mia nodded. “We’ve been seeing the fireworks between you two for ages.”
“Yes, angry ones,” I said. “It’s not anything,” I rushed to tell Mia, because… her brother! “It’s just one of those thoughts that you get in your head, and once it’s in there, it won’t dislodge. I’m sure it will pass. I swear, I would never ruin his chances with Lilly. Hopefully I said enough to Lilly just now that she’ll give him a chance.”
Mia put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re just… human.” She paused. “It’s been a long time since you’ve allowed yourself to be.” That hit me hard. What did she mean by that? “Besides, somebody’s got to love Caleb. It might as well be you.”
“You don’t understand. I don’t love him. And I definitely don’t want to like him. It’s just… attraction. I’m sure it will fade.”
“I’ve never seen you like this,” Mia said.
I looked up at her and wiped my snotty nose again. “Like what, a mess?”
“No. Vulnerable. I mean, you never ask for help or support. It’s refreshing to see you do that.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m really sorry—for all of this.”
“Sam, like who you like,” she said in a solemn tone. “Love who you love.”
“Here’s a question,” Gabe said. “Just for funsies. What if Caleb actually doesn’t want Lilly? What if he wants you?”
“I would never interfere with what he wants with Lilly.” That was rule number one of matchmaker code. And I already knew my rule number one—never get involved.
Mia sighed. “Deep down, I know you know this, but I’m going to say it out loud. Someday you’re going to have to stop running from love.”
I rolled my eyes. “Or else?”
“Or else you’ll stay closed off your whole life.” She reached over and hugged me. “And you’re too much of a gem to do that. And don’t tell me you don’t want love. Once you find it, you’ll want it. It’s hard, but it’s worth it. Trust me.”
“That’s all wonderful,” Gabe said, giving me a hug too. “But what are you going to tell Caleb?”