Chapter 14
Fourteen
Henry
Two weeks out from surgery. I’m still not supposed to drive, so Mom asked Aunt Melanie to come over for lunch.
Right.
She’s actually arranging a therapy session for me. Nice try, Mom.
Mom and Anya prepare all my favorites for lunch.
I’m so tempted to call Tabitha, but I don’t want to be that guy. I’m still a mess, now physically as well as emotionally. My body will heal—is healing, and healing well—but my heart?
How did I let this happen?
How did I fall in love with Tabitha in a span of two days, when I was still reeling from taking Ralph’s life?
I’ve been over and over this in my mind.
What the hell?
Maybe Aunt Mel can help me figure it out.
The smell of rosemary chicken and sourdough rolls drifts from the kitchen to my room.
That’s my cue.
“Come on, boy,” I say to Zach.
I showered this morning and put on actual clothes instead of sweats. Zach and I amble to the kitchen where Mom has set the table with her good linens and silver.
In the kitchen.
That’s Mom, though. Making this ceremonial.
Anya sets out glasses of iced tea.
Aunt Melanie arrives a few minutes later. She sweeps into the room looking beautiful as usual, her silver hair swept up with a green scarf that matches her eyes.
“Henry.” She leans down and hugs me. “You look good.”
“Thanks, Aunt Mel. You too.”
She studies me, eyes sharp, before sliding into the chair beside mine. “And your head? Is it still aching?”
Only when I think too much. Not what she wants to hear, though. “It’s a lot better. No more Percocet, thank God. That shit stops me up like nothing else.”
She laughs.
Because of course she does. What else can you do when your nephew tells you he’s constipated?
“TMI, Henry,” Mom says as she brings the chicken and sets it in the middle of the table. But I can tell from the sparkle in her eyes that she’s amused too. She takes her seat, and we start on lunch.
“So,” Aunt Mel says, spearing a green bean with her fork. “Two weeks back home. How are you really?”
I glance at Mom. She pretends not to listen, but her fork pauses midair. Dad’s at work, and Mom dismissed Anya. It’s just the three of us.
“Fine,” I say. “The doc says I can drive now, short distances. So I’ll be heading back to work next week.”
“I still think it’s too soon,” Mom presses.
I resist rolling my eyes. “I need to do something,” I tell her. “Sitting here alone with my thoughts is beginning to drive me a little bit crazy.”
Mom simply sighs.
I set down my fork and look at Aunt Melanie. “I get what you’re asking. I’m alive. Zach saved my ass. My head is much better, and my hair is growing back. That’s the medical version. The truth?” I drag in a breath. “I’m restless. I’m angry at myself. And I keep thinking about things I shouldn’t.”
Mom smiles and rises, taking her plate. “I’m going to eat in the dining room. You two go ahead and talk.”
I shake my head. “You know I always love to see you, Aunt Mel, so please don’t feel like you have to give me therapy just because Mom invited you over here to give me therapy.”
“She’s just concerned,” Aunt Mel says.
“I know.”
“Do you want to talk?” Aunt Mel leans in. “About the accident? About the shooting? About…Tabitha?”
Her name slams into me harder than the beam did. I look up sharply. “She didn’t come. I told Mom to call her and ask her to come, but she didn’t.”
“Yes, I know.”
Heat creeps up my neck. “Great. So now it’s a family story.”
“No,” Aunt Mel says firmly. “It’s your story. And you’re allowed to own it.”
I eat a little more, though my appetite is gone. When the dishes are cleared, Aunt Mel steers me into the family room. I sink into Dad’s old leather armchair, the one that creaks under pressure but he refuses to get rid of. She sits across from me and folds her hands in her lap.
“Henry.” Her voice is steady. “Tell me what’s really going on in that head of yours.”
I rub the back of my neck. “Where do I start? I killed a man. I don’t regret it.
You know all of this. He would’ve killed Angie and Jason.
But it doesn’t matter. It’s still there, stamped on me.
Then I almost died. I owe my life to my dog.
And now…” I struggle to find the words. “Now I’m in love. And I don’t even know how it happened.”
Her gaze softens, but she doesn’t interrupt.
“It was two days,” I say. “Two days. We hardly knew each other. But I’ve never felt like this before. With anyone.” I rub at my forehead. “And now she’s gone.”
“Is she?”
I nod. “She chose her career. Her seminar. She said she couldn’t come.” My throat tightens. “And she’s right. I basically told her we had no future. Why would she stick around for a guy like me?”
Aunt Mel leans forward and rests her elbows on her knees. “You’re talking like love is measured in months or years. Sometimes it’s measured in moments. And sometimes those moments matter more than the calendar ever could.”
I stare at the hardwood floor. “It doesn’t change anything. She made her choice.”
“And you made yours,” she says. “You opened your heart in the middle of your worst pain. That’s not weakness, Henry. That’s courage.”
The word grates. Courage? It feels like anything but.
I look up at her. “So what now? Do I just wait? Pretend I don’t care? Or keep torturing myself by replaying those two days over and over?”
She tilts her head. “What do you want?”
The question hangs in the air. What do I want?
I want Tabitha’s laughter filling this room.
I want her hand brushing mine when she thinks no one’s looking.
I want to kiss her slow, the way I did in her guest room after Angie’s wedding, when every nerve in me screamed to take her hard and fast, but I didn’t.
I held back. I wanted her to know she wasn’t just another rush of adrenaline to numb the pain.
The memory burns through me. The curve of her back under my palm, her breath hitching when I moved slower than either of us expected. The way she looked at me afterward, like I was more than the sum of my mistakes.
“I want her,” I whisper. “Even if it’s impossible.”
Aunt Mel lets the silence stretch before she answers. “Then the question isn’t whether you want her. The question is whether you’ll let yourself believe you deserve her.”
Her words crack something open in me. My chest feels too tight, and my hands tremble against the leather armrests.
Do I deserve her?
I don’t know. But for the first time since the accident, since Ralph, since everything…I let myself wonder.
I shift in the chair and rub my forehead. “You already know that she didn’t come to the hospital,” I say. “Mom called her and asked her to come, and she didn’t. So that says something to me.”
Aunt Mel doesn’t flinch. Simply gestures for me to continue.
“She’s in Boulder,” I continue. “She got invited to a surgical seminar, one of those once-in-a-lifetime deals. I can’t blame her for choosing it.
Hell, I respect it. I respect the hell out of it.
” My jaw tightens. “She’s worked hard. She deserves every opportunity that comes her way.
Why the hell would she give it all up for a guy who treated her like shit the entire weekend of her best friend’s wedding?
I’d have told her myself to stay there if she asked. ”
I glance at my aunt, half expecting her to nod, to agree. She just studies me with those sharp psychiatrist’s eyes, like she’s waiting for the real truth to slip out.
“But?” she prompts.
“But…I wanted her there,” I admit, my voice low.
“I wanted to wake up in that hospital room and see her face. Not out of pity, not because I needed saving. Just because she wanted to be there.” I let out a breath.
“But she chose differently. And she was right to. I told her once that we didn’t have a future. How can I blame her for believing me?”
Aunt Mel leans back, folding her arms. “Henry, respecting her choice doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. And hurting doesn’t mean you stop respecting it.”
“I know.” My throat burns. “I can’t fault her. I don’t. But it still feels like she slipped through my fingers.”
“Or maybe it means she has her path, and you have yours, and the question isn’t about today, but about whether those paths cross again.”
I rub at my temple, feeling the tug of the stitches. “That sounds like hope.”
“It is,” she says simply. “Hope doesn’t have to be foolish. It just has to be honest.”
I lean back, close my eyes, and let the words settle.
Respect. Hurt. Hope.
I let my head fall back against the cushion and close my eyes. “She stayed in Boulder,” I murmur again, as if repeating it will make it sting less. “She couldn’t turn the opportunity down.”
“No,” Aunt Mel agrees. “She couldn’t. That choice isn’t about you, Henry. It’s about who she is.”
I open my eyes and meet Aunt Melanie’s. “I know. She’s strong. But part of me wanted her to be weak. Just once. Weak enough to choose me instead.”
Aunt Mel doesn’t scold me. Doesn’t tell me I’m being selfish. She just nods. “Because you chose her.”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I chose her.”
But she didn’t know. She didn’t know that I had decided to go to Boulder for her.
She didn’t know.
And Mom called her, but still…she didn’t know. Mom said I wanted to see her, but she…
God…
The memory rushes in again. Of that last time with her.
I didn’t want to give her a choice. Not then. Every nerve in me screamed to take her fast, to erase the world in a flurry of hard thrusts and gasping breaths. That was how we’d been before. So quick, so desperate, like we were stealing something forbidden.
But that last time I slowed down.
I wanted to lose myself. To bury everything—the guilt, the rage, the ghost of Ralph Normandy—in her body. But instead, I held back. I gave her slow. I gave her more than I’ve ever given anyone.
And I think that’s when she broke me.
“Henry?” Aunt Mel’s voice draws me back.
“She didn’t come,” I say for the umpteenth time. “She stayed in Boulder. And I can’t even hate her for it. Because I respect her too damned much for it.”
Aunt Mel leans forward. “So maybe the real question isn’t whether she chose you this time. Maybe it’s whether you’ll still be standing when she’s ready to choose again.”
Her words slice clean through me.
I don’t answer. I just stare at my hands, remembering the way Tabitha’s skin felt under them, how soft she was, how she clung to me.
And I wonder if hope is enough to get me through.