Chapter 15 Rowan
ROWAN
“What about your friend—what’s her name? Sharon?” I ask, my shoulder shoved against the doorframe, watching as Willow puts her things back into her bag. I try not to notice that she’s reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. I wonder if that’s because of me.
“Cheyenne left last night. You have to trust me—if there were anyone else available, I would ask them. They’re all busy.
Sean got called back for a delivery. Declan got pulled into…
I forget what he said,” Willow trails off, holding up her sweater against her chest like she might put it on.
Her hair’s still wild from the hospital pillow, her mouth twisted into her cheek as she considers.
“Consults,” I grumble, “It’s seventy-one degrees outside. Put the sweater in the bag.”
She looks up at me sharply, and her lips press into each other in an unwilling smile. “Come on, are you really going to make a pregnant woman call a taxi company?”
“What about your family?”
“You want to open that can of worms now?” she asks me, zipping up her bag. “I’m ready,” she announces, like I was waiting for her.
But she’s right. I’m not going to make her call a taxi.
“Grand,” I say, pointing to the wheelchair in the corner of the room. “You know the drill.”
She eyes the wheelchair like it’s a personal insult. “Absolutely not.”
“Policy,” I tell her flatly.
“I can walk.”
My eyes meet hers, and I don’t even have to say it.
She knows she can’t, not when she was admitted twelve hours ago with contractions that had every one of us thinking twelve weeks might be her limit.
Her glare holds, but then she sinks into the chair like surrender.
No words, no thank-you. Just stubborn compliance.
I wheel her through the hall. Nurses nod at me; I nod back. They all assume I’m steady, reliable. They don’t know my palms are sweating on the handles.
Outside, the night air is damp with salt, Charleston quiet in the way it only is early in the morning, still dewy and almost chilly. But not enough for a sweatshirt. My car waits at the curb. I angle the chair, plant my foot on the bar, and hold out my hand.
She stares at it like it’s a trap.
“Don’t make a holy show of it. Just take my hand,” I say, softer than I mean to.
Her fingers slip into mine, light and unwilling, and I lift her. She wobbles; my arm braces automatically at her back. For a second too long, her weight is against me, warm and fragile. Then she pulls away, and I help her into the seat, shutting the door quickly like a wound I’m stuffing shut.
The drive is quiet. She doesn’t talk; I don’t either.
The city blurs past, Charleston asleep, lights skimming over the windshield.
Every red light is a chance to say something, but I don’t take it.
Her hand rests on her stomach like she’s reminding herself what she’s carrying, and I grip the wheel tighter, telling myself that’s why I can’t, why I shouldn’t.
When I pull into her driveway, she fumbles with the key, and I take it before she drops it.
The lock clicks open, and I carry her bag in.
I set it down and look around her living room, the couch messy with blankets, the coffee table covered in old tea bags.
A canvas with half a painting sits nearby on her dining table.
She turns to me, green eyes sharpening to a point. “You don’t have to stay.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” I reply earnestly, my eyes drawn to the trash around her living room. Without thinking and without speaking, I start to pick up, to at least make some room for her that feels comfortable while she’s alone.
The silence stretches, and she watches me for a few moments before sighing, mercifully not fighting me on the cleaning. “I’ll make coffee.”
“You should be resting,” I protest, straightening and walking toward the kitchen like I might race her.
“And you should be gone,” she fires back, moving anyway. “But here you are.” She brings two mugs to the table and sets one in front of me. “And here I am.”
I drag out a chair and sit. My pulse is loud in my ears, too loud for how calm I look.
The coffee maker gurgles like it’s in pain. She leans against the counter, arms crossed, watching it fill. Her shirt is slipping off one shoulder again, exposing the slope of her collarbone, pale in the dim kitchen light. I stare at the wood grain of her table instead.
“You don’t have to babysit me, you know,” she says finally, watching me while the coffee percolates loudly next to her.
“I’m not,” I say defensively, letting my finger trace the grain.
She lets out a short laugh, sharp around the edges. “So why are you here?”
“Sure look, you’ve no business on your feet,” I remind her, voice clipped.
She smiles at me, like she appreciates it, and pushes a loose curl out of her face. “But I am.”
“I wish you wouldn’t be.”
“I didn’t know you cared so much,” she teases, pulling the pot off the burner and walking it over to the table.
It’s probably true. She doesn’t know how much I care.
I can’t bring myself to tell her. I look at her pointy canines, deep set in wide, smiling peach lips, at her green eyes with flecks of gold under heavy lids and even heavier lashes, at her brown hair streaked blonde from surfing in the sun, and I feel nothing but pure terror.
She pours us each a cup and sets the pot on a trivet in the center of the table before finally attempting to sit, her back arcing backward as she considers her strategy.
I snap to my feet to help her, easing her down by the elbow.
Her weight settles into my palm for just a second too long, and I grip harder than I should, afraid of both letting go and holding on.
But the time to let go always comes, and she offers me a withering look once she’s in her seat.
I stay standing for a moment, as if she might tip over.
Finally, I return to my seat and wrap my hand around the mug, though I don’t drink.
“Are you feeling better?” I ask. It’s a simple question. It’s the best I’ve got.
She pokes out her bottom lip and shrugs. “No contractions. So, you know, that’s always better.” She leans forward, her curls falling over her cheek. “I wanted to tell you thank you for coming to class the other day. That was nice of you.”
I look up at her over the mug that I keep fingering the handle of instead of drinking. “About that, Willow, I don’t know if I made the right call.”
She tilts her head in an expression that disarms me. “What do you mean?”
“I’m just…not going to be your boyfriend, Willow. Ever. You’re better off with one of those guys.”
Her eyebrows lift. She studies me, her expression softening instead of hardening. She whispers, “One of those guys.” She sips her coffee, her eyes still on me. “I thought you were smarter than they are. I don’t deserve a boyfriend that’s smarter?”
I tense my jaw at her using my own words against me. “Well, you know, there are other things that matter more.”
“Oh, okay. And they have those things, and you don’t?” she clarifies, but her tone is biting and sarcastic. I nod, and she nods back, slowly, like she’s marinating in her understanding. “Is that supposed to protect me—you keeping your distance? Or does it just protect you?”
My throat works, but nothing comes out. I can’t tell her that I’m terrified of being abandoned, that even though she needs me, families will always feel like they’re about me.
I can’t tell her that falling for her felt like the easiest thing in the world, easier than I’d ever dreamed, and that the babies made it the hardest. So I say nothing.
Her eyes linger on me, waiting, hoping maybe, and I give her nothing. Because I’m a coward. Because silence is easier than risk.
She exhales through her nose, like she knew I wouldn’t answer. “That’s what I thought.” She pushes her mug away, untouched, and looks away. “Thanks for the ride.”
I stay for a while, my fingers still tracing the grain in her table.
I try to meet her eyes, but she’s stubborn, training them on something far off in the kitchen.
I move my face, trying to catch her, but she won’t let up.
I’m sitting across from someone too like me. Her tactics are mine, and they hurt.
At last, I outwait her, and the scrape of her chair against the floor cuts the air. I watch carefully as she braces on the table to push herself up, her hand trembling just a little. I shove back my own chair and stand to help her, but she jerks away from me like I burned her. “Don’t touch me.”
“Ah, Jaysus, Willow—”
“I mean it, Rowan. You’re not my doctor anymore.
You’re not my boyfriend. You’re nothing.
All you are is a man in my house who I want to leave.
” The words are sharp, biting, but she still won’t meet my eyes.
I have a flipping feeling in my stomach that if I could see hers, they’d be swimming with tears.
My hand drops to my side. The distance between us stretches wider than the whole kitchen.
I walk to her front door and look around her place one last time.
It may be the last chance I ever get. I look at the canvas and the crumpled blanket, the worn furniture, and I glance at the contents of her bag, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
“That’s a good book,” I tell her, clumsy, useless, all I can reach for in a sea of her rejection.
“I decided not to read it,” she spits. “Not worth my time.” One last win.
Dismissed. And I deserve it. She’s right—someone worth knowing wouldn’t make her feel this way. So I take the dismissal, no wave, no goodbye, just a closed door.