Chapter Thirty-Three
ARIA
By the next morning, heartbreak feels less like an emotion and more like a flu.
Everything aches.
My eyes are swollen. My stomach feels empty and vaguely wrong at the same time. I'm tired in that deep, useless way where sleep doesn't seem to have touched any of the parts that actually needed it.
I tell myself that makes sense. People get their hearts broken every day. Presumably their bodies retaliate.
By the time I get to Brookhaven, I've had half a piece of toast, three sips of tea, and exactly one thought looping in my head: If Everett wanted out that badly, why does none of this feel finished? I spend the hour with my father pretending I'm better at pretending than I am.
He's having a decent day. Not perfect. Not effortless.
But decent. He asks if I slept, and I lie.
He asks if I've been painting, and that answer at least is true.
He asks if I've seen Everett, and something in my chest pulls so tight I have to look away under the excuse of adjusting the blanket over his legs.
So I keep the conversation on him.
On physical therapy. On whether Dr. Patel is pushing him too hard this week. On whether the crossword in the paper is getting any easier. On whether Matteo really did bring him lemon cookies the other day or if he dreamed that part.
He smiles at that, and for a few minutes I can almost believe I'm just tired, not cracked open.
When I leave his room, I hug him carefully and promise I'll come back tomorrow.
I'm almost at the front doors when someone calls after me.
"Ms. Taylor? Sorry—one moment."
I turn, purse over my shoulder, keys already in hand. A woman from the billing office is hurrying toward me with a clipboard.
"I just need your signature on an updated consent form before you go."
I blink at her. "For what?"
"For billing authorization." She offers me a polite, practiced smile. "The payer on your father's account was updated yesterday, and we need your consent on file for the Kauffman trust to assume payment of all covered expenses going forward."
I go still.
"The Kauffman trust?"
"Yes, ma'am." She glances down at the form. "They've assumed financial responsibility for his care."
I take the clipboard automatically, eyes already moving over the page.
And then I see it.
Kauffman Trust assumes full monetary responsibility for the cost of care for Henry Taylor indefinitely, or until he no longer requires inpatient or outpatient services during his lifetime.
My breath catches.
"Indefinitely?"
The woman nods. "That's what was entered into the file yesterday."
I look back down at the form.
Indefinitely.
Not for the year. Not through the term of the marriage. Not until the original agreement expires.
Indefinitely.
"That's not what we agreed to," I say quietly.
The woman's face does that careful thing—sympathy plus distance, the look of someone who has wandered into a mess that isn't hers and would very much like to back out of it.
"I'm sorry," she says gently. "I only know what's in the account notes."
Of course she doesn't.
I sign because what else am I supposed to do? Refuse the money on principle and punish my father because a man I married blew through every principle I thought I understood?
The pen is slippery in my hand.
By the time I hand the clipboard back, I'm shaking again. Not crying. Just shaken. Hands, chest, somewhere behind my ribs.
I walk out to my car, get in, shut the door, and immediately pull out my phone.
Brookhaven says Dad's account is covered indefinitely now. What did you do?
I hit send, then I stare at the screen like I can force the answer to arrive if I glare hard enough.
Nothing.
I toss the phone into the cup holder, start the engine, and then pick it right back up at the first red light because apparently I have no self-control and no dignity and I'm fine with both of those things right now.
Still nothing.
It's the third time I've texted him since last night without getting anything back. Not still dealing with this. Not I'll keep you posted. Not silence dressed up as professionalism. An actual answer.
My thumb hovers over the screen. I almost type another message. Why are you doing this if we're over?
I don't send it.
Because I already know what version of him I'd get. Calm. Reasonable. Businesslike. The man in the foyer who told me I should be happy to be free.
I lock the phone and shove it back down hard enough that it rattles in the cup holder. If he wanted out, why expand my father's care beyond the terms? If this was just a job, why build in protection after the ending?
Why the house?
Why the studio?
Why any of it?
None of it lines up and I know—I know—that Everett doesn't say things he doesn't mean. If he said the arrangement was over, if he said this was a good thing, then some part of him believes it.
So why do all his actions keep contradicting his mouth?
The drive toward Seattle is slow and gray. Traffic crawls near the bridge, and my stomach rolls hard enough that I crack the window even though the air outside is cold.
Perfect. Heartbreak and motion sickness… love that for me.
By the time I get off the freeway, I've made exactly no progress in understanding Everett Kauffman. Which, if I'm being honest, has been the theme since I met the man.
I'm still trying to untangle it when I stop at a light two blocks from Serendipity's and glance toward the curb.
Everything in me locks.
He's outside one of those polished downtown restaurants that charge twelve dollars for coffee and act like lighting is a personality trait. Dark coat instead of the suit jacket. One hand low at a woman's back as he guides her toward the black town car idling at the curb.
Sienna.
She laughs at something he says, tipping her head toward him, red lipstick bright even from here.
He opens the car door for her.
She slides in and then he ducks in after her shutting the door behind them. And for one second I can't hear anything. Not traffic. Not the blinker ticking in my own car. Not the city. Just my pulse in my ears.
I should have know.
Sienna told me this would happen. Once our agreement was over, once the trust let him out, they'd find their way back. And I stood there and thought no, he's different now. And she smiled at me the way you smile at someone who still believes in Santa Claus.
The town car pulls away from the curb and disappears into traffic before I can stop staring at it.
The light changes behind me and someone honks. I jerk back into motion and make the turn toward Serendipity's with my hands gripping the wheel so hard they hurt.
That's why he could stand in the foyer and talk about freedom and clean endings.
That's why he looked like a man who'd already made peace with his decision. Because he wasn't losing anything.
He was going back to the woman who always fit.
The one who belonged in his world before I showed up with my contract and my father's bills and my stupid, stupid heart.
He doesn't have to remodel rooms for her or build out an apartment for her father.
She fits like a puzzle piece to his already busy life.
I’m the one he has to make room for—adapt to.
I hate that I can picture it so easily. The two of them in the town car. His hand on her back. Four years of history that never had to be explained or justified or negotiated over a legal document.
And that thought—more than the sight of them, more than the image of her stepping into his damn town car like that was always where she'd end up—hits hardest.
Why me then?
Why not Sienna in the first place?
She would have dropped everything if Everett had asked. Some damn part of him had to know that.
So why bother with me? Why move me into his bedroom? Why ask me for longer? Why the studio and the apartment and the house if he knew this was always how it ended?
My phone buzzes in the cup holder. I look down at a stop sign and see Gabriel's name and then open the message with shaking fingers.
I sent you an invitation for the next showing.
I saw your recent social media posts, and I still believe there is room for one more artist. The series you're working on is unusual and creating emotion in people already.
Think about it. But even if you don't show, come for the opening as my guest. I would love to have you there.
I stare at the screen.
Cannes and the gallery.
A different country. A different coast. A life where Everett is not in every room. Or at least one where I'm farther from the wreckage.
I lock the phone and park outside Serendipity's with my chest aching and my hands still shaking and absolutely no idea what to do with any of it.
Cammy and Penelope are already sitting at a table inside.
Cammy: oversized sunglasses, iced coffee, posture radiating the kind of supportive aggression that would make lesser women nervous. Penelope: herbal tea, no sunglasses, the look on her face that means she already knows more than you've told her and is waiting for you to catch up.
The second Cammy sees me, she pushes the sunglasses up on her head and says, "Oh, honey."
And that is somehow worse than if she'd made a joke.
I slide into the chair across from them and set my purse down carefully because if I move too fast I might actually fall apart in public.
"You look awful," Cammy says.
"Thank you."
"You know I mean that lovingly."
"I'm sure the love helps."
Penelope reaches across the table and squeezes my hand once. Doesn't say anything. Doesn't need to. That's the thing about Penelope—she can say more with a hand squeeze than most people manage with a speech.
Cammy signals the barista. "Tea. Food. Possibly a priest."
I almost smile.
Almost.
The tea comes. A sandwich comes too—turkey and brie, apple slices on the side, which means Cammy ordered it because Penelope would've gotten me soup. I stare at both of them like they arrived from another planet.
Cammy waits until the server disappears before leaning in.
"Talk."
I look down at my hands.
"Brookhaven says my dad's account is covered indefinitely now," I say. "Including outpatient care. Which makes no sense because that wasn't the deal."
Cammy frowns. "So he changed it?"
"Apparently."
"Without telling you."
"Yes."
Penelope's brow creases. "That's not a man who's walking away clean."
"Maybe not." I pick at the edge of my napkin. "But then I saw him."
Both of them go still. Cammy's eyes sharpen. "Where?"
"Downtown. Getting into a town car with Sienna."
"And?" Cammy asks, leaning in.
"And what do you mean, and?"
"I mean, were they kissing? Holding hands? Looking like a Nicholas Sparks adaptation? Give me something here."
"No." My laugh comes out thin. "Which somehow made it worse. They looked like they fell back into old rhythms."
Penelope studies my face. Then, carefully: "What exactly did you see?"
"His hand on her back. He opened the car door. She got in. He got in after her." I swallow. "She was laughing."
Penelope nods slowly but doesn't say what I expect her to say.
I keep talking because if I stop now I'll never get it out.
"He ended things so quickly," I whisper.
"Like the second he was allowed to. And then I see him with her and I just..
." I press my lips together because if I keep going at this volume I'm going to start crying in the middle of a café and that feels like a humiliation too far.
"Sienna was right. Once our agreement was over, they found their way back. "
Cammy's mouth tightens.
Penelope is quiet for a second. Then: "Or there's something else going on that you're not seeing yet."
I look at her.
"I'm not defending him," she says. "I'm saying that a man who pays your father's medical bills indefinitely on the same day he leaves you is not a man who's done. That's a man who's doing something he doesn't want to do."
Cammy tilts her head. "Or a man with a guilty conscience."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive," Penelope says.
I try not to keep going. I keep going anyway.
"Why didn't he just choose her to begin with?" I ask. "If he knew he was going back, why bother with me? Why say the things he said? Why move me into his room? Why build all of that if this was always how it ended?"
I glance down at the sandwich. Turkey and brie and apple slices.
My stomach turns over at the idea of eating, and I look away.
"I know I'm supposed to say something wise," Cammy says. "But honestly, right now I mostly want to hit him with my car."
"That's weirdly comforting."
"I'm a comfort-first kind of friend."
I pick up the tea. The smell alone—chamomile and something floral—hits wrong. Too sweet. Too warm. I set it back down.
Cammy notices my reaction and then glances down at my untouched sandwich. I already can see her mind spinning. Her eyes narrow.
"Okay," she says slowly. "Now I'm concerned."
"About what?"
"You look pale, you're not eating, and if you stare at that sandwich any harder it's going to file a complaint." She leans in. "What are you, pregnant?"
I let out a short, humorless laugh.
"I was on birth control."
Cammy shrugs. "Yeah, and one out of a hundred isn't exactly impossible odds. You wouldn't be the first."
And just like that, everything inside me stops. The noise from the street. The music from inside the café. Cammy still talking, I think, though I can't hear the words.
Tired.
Nauseous.
No appetite.
The dizziness.
My hand tightens around the edge of the table hard enough that my knuckles go white.
No, no, no.
I couldn’t be pregnant with Everett’s baby. that’s…That's impossible. Isn't it?
Cammy's voice cuts through. "Aria?"
I look up. She's staring at me, no longer teasing anymore.
Penelope is too. And Penelope's face has gone very, very still.
"Aria," Penelope says quietly. "When was your last period?"
I open my mouth but nothing comes out. Because I'm trying to count.
And the numbers aren't adding up the way I need them to.
The café is too loud. My hands are too cold. And somewhere between the toast I couldn't eat this morning and the tea I can't drink right now, the math just stopped working.