CHAPTER 36
Lila
T he strong smell of coffee clings to my clothes as I peel them off in the bathroom, the steam of the shower adding to the layers of sweat from my shift. Goosebumps pepper my naked skin as I walk under the waterfall, letting the warm water drown my loud thoughts.
It’s been five long months since I saw him, but the imprint of his hands on my skin, of his words in my heart, of the pain in my soul still linger.
Forget about him. It’s done.
I reach for the shampoo, humming the tune of a pop song in an attempt to distract myself, just like every time I find myself thinking of the one man I never should’ve fallen in love with. The man I’ve sacrificed my career for.
Think happy thoughts.
Right. Happy thoughts. A cute kid came by the café today and asked for an extra cup of whipped cream, which I gladly gave her. She was wearing the cutest frog rain boots, reminding me of the kids at the youth center.
My heart constricts as I think of Melody, Cameron, Ike, Vera, and everyone else. What are they up to today? How are the boxing lessons going?
So much for happy thoughts.
Deciding to leave them behind to come to Norcastle was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make, and I try not to think too often of the day I said goodbye unless I feel like bawling my eyes out.
I keep telling myself leaving my old life behind was the right thing to do, but it doesn’t lift the weight off my heart.
“You can’t catch me!” a familiar little voice shouts right outside the door, loud enough for me to hear, followed by an evil laugh.
“Dylan, I won’t repeat myself. Put your shirt on or you’ll catch a cold,” my aunt yells behind him.
The sound of their footsteps echoes in the hallway outside the spare bathroom, now full of my beauty products. I turn off the water and wrap a fluffy towel around my body, drying myself quickly. After putting on my pajamas, I open the bathroom door to find my cousin pushing toy cars down the stairs. His shirt is on, so at least there’s that.
“Uh-oh. Someone’s getting into trouble when Mommy and Daddy find out.”
He shushes me with a finger on his lips. “Don’t tell.”
Turns out I don’t have to—Maddie exits his bedroom at the end of the hallway just in time to see the fire truck flying down the stairs. She groans. “Are you kidding me?”
I chuckle. “I’ve got this.”
It’s the least I can do after they let me stay in their spare bedroom rent-free.
Easily, I pick up Dylan from under his armpits, making him laugh as I carry him downstairs. “Not funny, little guy. You have to take care of your toys, or Santa won’t bring you any more.”
He frowns at me over his shoulder. “He won’t?”
“He just saw you pushing them down the stairs, buddy. One more, and you would’ve been on his Naughty List. You don’t want that, do you?”
“No!”
I lower him to the ground. “I’m pretty sure he’ll overlook this if you pick up all your toys and bring them back to your room.”
He nods quickly. “I’ll do it. I don’t want to be on the Naughty List.”
“Agreed—that’s not a fun place to be.”
My cousin is quick to pick up the three toy cars he pushed down the stairs and take them to his room. I follow him, making sure he doesn’t trip on the stairs. Just as we reach the second floor, my uncle emerges from baby Alice’s bedroom.
“One asleep, another one to go.” He sighs, picking up a giggly Dylan with one arm and draping him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “What did I hear about some toy cars being pushed down the stairs?”
My cousin shakes his head rapidly. “Nothing, Daddy. Li is helping me tidy up, right?”
“Right.” I exchange an amused look with my uncle. “Good night, Dyl. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
“Never. I’m stronger than them,” he puffs out.
I head downstairs as Maddie and James put him to bed. I’m still scanning the fridge for something to eat when they enter the kitchen.
“Go sit on the couch with Maddie,” my uncle tells me. “I’m in charge of dinner tonight.”
“He’s feeling generous,” she chimes in, smirking.
“I’m all about that.” I yawn, dragging my feet across the kitchen and into the living room.
I plop down on the couch, my aunt joining me a moment later, and we put on some reality TV show as James makes dinner. An hour later, our burritos and green salad are long gone, though the reality show still playing on TV. They sit on the couch, Maddie’s feet on James’s lap, as I nurse a hot cup of chamomile tea on the armchair in a pink mug I made last month.
“How was work today?” she asks me.
“It was all right.” I take a small sip; it’s still too hot. “Uneventful.”
Working in a café isn’t the most exciting job in the world, but it’s peaceful—and that’s exactly what I came here searching for.
“They’re still sending you work from that agency?” James asks.
He means the website I’ve been writing articles for. “Yeah, but I’m thinking of quitting that after the summer. I don’t know yet.”
They exchange a quick look before Maddie voices what we’ve been avoiding since I got here three months ago.
“Li, I think we should talk about what happened in December.”
Suddenly, I can’t stomach any tea. “I’m okay.”
“No, I don’t think you are.”
I shift on the armchair, thinking of a hundred ways I could run away from this conversation.
“Stop running away, smarty-pants,” James warns. Unfortunately for me, my uncle is also a mind reader now. How fun. “Mentally and physically. You know we love having you here, but we have the feeling you’re staying not because you love Norcastle but because you’re avoiding Warlington.”
Wrapping my arms around myself—when did it get so cold in here?—I try my best to sound nonchalant. “I like it here. I like living far away from Mom and Dad.”
“And that’s good,” Maddie reassures me. “You’ve grown more independent here. You’ve even made some friends at work and at that pottery class, haven’t you?”
I nod. Ann, my co-worker, and Kim and Selena from my pottery class have become my unexpected allies here.
When I moved here after my graduation, the first thing I did was go job hunting. Writing articles would keep me at home all day—which I didn’t want—so I applied for all sorts of jobs, including a clothing shop and restaurant at the mall. They called me from the café the next day; I went in for the interview and got hired on the spot.
That’s how I met Ann, who took me under her wing and introduced me to her friend group, a bunch of lovely girls I’ve gone out with a few times now. Mariah says she’s proud.
I met Kim and Selena not long after that when I walked by a pottery workshop on my way to work one morning and saw spots open for a class. I had never given pottery a single thought, but after my first lesson, I became a devoted fan—it keeps my mind quiet, and there’s no feeling like making something beautiful with your own hands.
Norcastle has given me so much in the past three months, so why do I still feel like something’s missing?
“I think being here has helped you in many ways,” Maddie adds. “But I also think you’re avoiding the big-ass elephant in the room.”
My silence is loud enough.
“You know what I was just thinking about today,” my uncle starts, his eyes on me. “The first time we met. Remember?”
That day was one of the hardest of Maddie’s life, being her dad’s funeral, and James traveled all the way to our hometown to be with her. That’s when I met him.
“You asked me if I had games on my phone,” he recalls, “and you only accepted me into the family when I said yes.”
I shake my head in amusement, recalling my embarrassing obsession with phone games. “I had my priorities straight.”
“So why don’t you anymore?”
That question wipes away my short-lived mirth.
Maddie sits cross-legged on the couch, looking at me with intent. “Fine, I’ll say it, since nobody else wants to—what’s up with you and that Reed guy? Have you spoken to him since December?”
My heart skips a beat at the sound of his name. I haven’t allowed myself to say it out loud in months even though he crosses my mind at least a thousand times every day.
Why the hell can’t I get him out of my system?
“No.” My mouth feels too dry. “I haven’t.”
“You don’t know what he’s up to? Anything?”
I do. I do know some things, but not because I asked. My mom brings him up sometimes when we talk on the phone, even if it’s far less frequently than before. She probably thinks I want to know about him, but I’m too afraid to ask.
She wouldn’t be wrong.
“I know he isn’t working at the university anymore,” I tell them, repeating Mom’s words. “That’s about it.”
“He was fired?” James asks.
“Mom said he quit.”
“And the rumors?” My stomach sinks at my aunt’s question. “How does that make you feel?”
Sick. They’ve been making me sick for the past four months.
Eva, Mariah’s now girlfriend, told me someone—namely, Karla—had gone around campus spreading all sorts of nonsense about Reed and me. How we had sex in a classroom, how I had to graduate early because I was pregnant… My head pounds with dizziness just thinking about it.
Eva assured me that not everyone believes it, but the fact that some do haunts me.
“Not great,” I admit.
“Is that why you don’t want to go back home?” James asks.
I lock eyes with my uncle, someone who loves me as if I were his own daughter, and find myself unable to lie to him. I can’t lie to Maddie, who I love more than life itself, either.
And I can’t lie to myself.
“I… I don’t feel strong enough to go back.”
Maddie’s expression softens. “Oh, Li.”
“Why not?” asks my uncle.
I pull my knees against my chest. “I don’t want the whispers to follow me around or feel like everyone is pointing at me, judging me, every time I try to network. My professors surely know about the rumors, and they have so many contacts in the field. Maybe I’m blowing things out of proportion, but I’m so scared.”
My aunt leaves her spot on the couch and sits on the floor right by my feet. She grabs my hand in a comforting gesture. “I understand how unfair all this is, Li. I really do. But you can’t let these people control your life. If you don’t want to go back to Warlington, that’s fine. But make that choice because you want to, not because you’re scared of what people will say.”
I worry my bottom lip between my teeth. “You don’t get it, Maddsy. I tried . I went with my heart, blocking all intrusive thoughts about what others would think, and that’s how I ruined everything. If I had been worried about others’ opinions, I wouldn’t have crossed any lines with Reed.”
“But you still would’ve fallen in love with him.”
The words I’m not in love with him anymore sit at the tip of my tongue.
But I can’t say them.
“You can’t help who you fall in love with,” says James.
“Do you think I would’ve chosen to fall in love with my much-older, asshole physical therapist if I’d had a choice?” Maddie asks in a playful voice. “Duh. Of course I would have.”
“But you guys are different. You wanted to fall in love. You were open to it.”
James snorts. “I didn’t want to fall in love with her.”
“Hey!”
“You know what I mean, love,” he tells my aunt. “When I met Maddie, I had also sworn off women. I wanted nothing to do with relationships.”
I didn’t know this. “Why?”
“Because when I was in college, I found my brother in my then-girlfriend’s bed,” he confesses, shocking me to my core. What the hell? “That tends to traumatize you a little.”
I knew James had an older brother, and I also knew they weren’t on speaking terms—I could’ve never imagined this was the reason.
“That’s…horrible.” I blink away my surprise. “How did you even deal with that?”
“I didn’t. I avoided the problem, just like you’re doing now. You get cheated on? The answer is to close off and never give love a chance again, obviously.”
“Sammy got cheated on, too, when he was younger,” Maddie adds.
“ What ?” I gasp. “My dad got cheated on? When? How did I not know this?”
“It happened before I was born, I think, or shortly after.” Maddie purses her lips, thinking. “It was ages ago, before he met your mom. But that didn’t stop him from finding love again; you’re proof of that.”
I let my tense shoulders sag and release Maddie’s hand to rub my eyes. “What’s wrong with people?”
“Plenty of things, which is why you shouldn’t let them dictate your life. Tell me this, Li—if the rumors stopped, would you go back to Warlington right now?” my aunt asks.
“Maybe,” I admit quietly.
“And would you go find Reed?”
My heart jumps. “What for?”
“To start living the life you want once and for all.”
“He’s my former internship supervisor,” I argue, running out of excuses. “And twelve years older than me. That’s not exactly ideal.”
“Your mom once told me relationships with significant age differences can be healthy if both of you fight for it,” Maddie offers. I didn’t know my mom had such opinions; we’d never talked about age gaps because my only boyfriend was my age. “Your parents have an age gap, and so do we. It may not be ideal, but it’s far from the end of the world. As for Reed being your former supervisor… Li, it won’t be easy, but you can make it worth it.” She looks back at James with a soft smile. “We have.”
I allow myself, only for a moment, to picture what it would be like to be so brave. To take the reins of my own life. What would I even do?
Go back to the youth center.
End this pointless gap year and get my license to become a youth counselor like I’ve always dreamed of.
Find Reed and tell him he was never a mistake. That he’s the one for me. That there’s never been anyone else, and there never will be.
The fog in my brain clears when Alice’s baby monitor goes off, her cries signaling she’s awake.
“I’ll go get her,” James offers, standing from the couch. Before he leaves, he squeezes my shoulder affectionately. “Living an inauthentic life isn’t worth it. Remember that.”
And I do.
For the next few weeks, I think about my conversation with my aunt and uncle on repeat—at the café, at the pottery studio, while I work from home, as I play with my cousins, when my parents check on me, during my weekly video calls with Mariah.
And by the time May rolls around, something in me lights up.