Chapter 34
TELL THAT ASS-WIPE IT’S NOT LOAD-BEARING.
DARCY
She doesn’t bring it up until we’re eating.
The lemon chicken turned out fine. Better than fine, which feels like a small victory after the last hour.
Billie is sitting cross-legged on my kitchen floor because she decided it was more comfortable that way and pulled her plate down there.
I joined her because, apparently, I’m a person who eats on the floor now.
“This is disgusting, by the way,” she says, shoving another forkful into her mouth.
“Disgusting good or disgusting bad?”
“Disgusting that you’re this good at cooking and you’ve been hiding it from me.” She points her fork at me. “I’m retroactively offended by every meal I’ve made for myself this summer.”
The normalcy of it loosens the knot in my chest. She hasn’t looked at me differently since the almost-panic attack.
Hasn’t tiptoed around me or asked if I’m sure I’m okay with that careful voice people use when they’ve decided you’re breakable.
She… stayed. Now we’re eating dinner on the floor as if nothing happened.
Except something did happen, and we both know it.
“I want to say something,” she says, not looking up from her plate. She’s chasing a potato around with her fork, and her focused frown tells me she’s been working up to this. “And it’s not about what happened earlier. I mean, it is, but it’s not—I’m not asking you to explain anything.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” She exhales. Sets her fork down.
“I have PMDD. And ADHD, if you remember me telling you that. It’s a super fun combo that means my brain is always doing the most, and then once a month, my body joins in, and they team up to ruin my life.
” She says it lightly, almost rehearsed.
I recognize that tone. It’s the voice you use when you’ve explained something so many times you’ve built a script for it.
A version that’s palatable. Easy to digest for whoever’s listening.
It’s like whenever Leo tells people his mom died, but it’s totally cool and not a big deal, even though it’s the biggest deal.
“I’m not telling you this because I want you to share what’s going on with you,” she continues.
“I’m telling you because when you were—when it happened earlier—I wasn’t guessing at what to do.
I mean, I was a little. But the reason I didn’t freak out is that I’ve been there.
My version looks different, but I’ve been on the floor, Peter.
Literally. So many times.” She huffs out a small laugh.
“My favorite is the bathroom tile. Super cold. Oddly comforting.”
I don’t say anything, because what’s hitting me isn’t what she’s telling me—it’s that she’s telling me at all.
Billie doesn’t volunteer personal information easily.
Every real thing I’ve learned about her has come in small, unguarded moments—a comment she didn’t mean to make, a story that slipped out.
This is deliberate. She’s choosing to let me in.
And she’s doing it not so I’ll reciprocate, but so I’ll know I’m not alone in this kitchen with someone who doesn’t understand.
“Thank you for telling me,” I say, hoping she can hear my sincerity.
She shrugs, picking her fork up. “It’s not a big deal.”
It is, though. And we both know that, too.
“The ADHD thing.” Her voice has shifted back to casual, like she’s moved past the hard part and is relieved to be on the other side of it.
“That’s why I’m like this”—she gestures broadly at herself—“the bouncing around. Starting twelve things at once. Forgetting what I walked into a room for, but remembering the exact shade of blue you said your mom painted your childhood bedroom.”
“You remember that?”
“Cerulean. Which you called ‘the really bluey blue,’ and I’ve never recovered from that description.
” She grins at me, and the way my heart beats faster has nothing to do with a panic attack.
“Anyway. My brain sometimes holds onto weird things and drops important ones. It’s why I’m good at my job.
I can see the whole picture, the moving parts, but it’s also why I leave my keys in the fridge and forget to eat until three in the afternoon. ”
“Is that why there was a granola bar in my medicine cabinet?”
“We don’t need to discuss that.” The look she levels me with is familiar. It’s the same one my mom was giving my dad not long ago.
I laugh—a real one that surprises me—and she looks satisfied, like making me laugh was a project she’d assigned herself and now she’s passed with flying colors.
“PMDD is the harder one,” she says, quieter now.
“Two weeks out of every month, I’m fine.
Good, even. And then…” She trails off, pressing her lips together.
“It’s like someone turns the lights off in my head.
Everything gets loud and heavy. I either feel everything at once or nothing at all.
I’ve had it tank relationships. Friendships.
I’ve canceled on people I love because getting out of bed felt like climbing Everest, and then felt guilty about it for weeks, which only made the next cycle worse.
I take medication every day for both things, which is feat in and of itself, because, hello, asking someone with ADHD to do something routinely?
Yeah, that’s a recipe for failure. But I’ve worked out a system.
I keep pill bottles everywhere, in case I leave the house and forget to take them.
I don’t rely on anyone else to help me keep up with the routine because… well, that doesn’t matter.”
She’s not looking at me. She’s looking at her plate, and I can see the effort it’s taking to keep her voice even.
“Most people either try to fix me or decide I’m too much work.
The fixing is almost worse, honestly. Like, oh, have you tried yoga?
Have you tried magnesium? Have you asked your doctor for different medication?
Have you tried not having a hormonal disorder?
” The sarcasm is sharp, but there’s something bruised underneath it.
“So, yeah. I’m not asking you to tell me what happened today.
But I want you to know that, whatever it is, I’m not going to try to fix you.
And I’m not going to leave because of it. ”
The silence between us is heavy in the best way. Full, not empty.
“Bathroom tile, huh?” I say after a moment.
“Coldest surface in my house. Very grounding. I recommend finding yours. I bet your mudroom floor would do the job superbly.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She nods once, then stabs a piece of chicken. “Good. Now, stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I just said some life-changing shit. I’m trying to eat.”
I look away, but I’m smiling, and I don’t want to hide it.
The week that follows is the kind of dangerous that sneaks up on you.
It starts small. Billie comes by after work to shower because her hot water heater is acting up, and I tell her she can use mine anytime.
Somehow, anytime becomes every day. She leaves a toothbrush in the bathroom.
Then a hair tie on the nightstand. Then, a hoodie on the back of the couch I definitely don’t hold up to my face when she’s not here. I would never.
We cook together most nights. She’s a disaster in the kitchen—chaotic, impatient, constantly tasting things before they’re done and walking away from whatever she’s making while using way more heat than necessary—and I love every second of it.
She talks while she cooks, jumping between topics so fast I get whiplash.
Half the time, she forgets she was making a point and moves on to something new.
I’ve started keeping a mental list of the abandoned sentences so I can circle back to them later.
The look on her face when I do—surprised, then soft, then quickly covered with sarcasm—is becoming my favorite thing.
She fixes the squeaky hinge on my back door on Tuesday without mentioning it.
I only notice because the sound that’s been driving me crazy for three weeks is suddenly gone.
When I ask her about it, she shrugs and says, “It was bothering me,” like that’s a normal thing to do for someone you’re casually sleeping with.
On Wednesday, she falls asleep on my couch mid-sentence.
One second, she’s telling me about a permit issue with a client’s deck, and the next, she’s out.
Not a graceful drift into sleep—she just stops talking, and when I look over, her mouth is slightly open, and her hand is still gesturing at nothing, frozen in midair before it slowly drops to her lap.
I pull the blanket off the back of the couch and cover her.
She mumbles something that sounds like tell that ass-wipe it’s not load-bearing, and I sit there like an idiot, looking at this woman who is asleep on my couch, dreaming about structural engineering, and the thought arrives without warning.
I’m in love with her.
It’s not dramatic. There’s no swelling music, no moment of revelation. It’s the quietest, most certain thing I’ve ever felt. And it should terrify me. Why doesn’t it?
This was supposed to be casual. This was supposed to be a summer thing—the girl and the cottage and surfing and the small-town life I was trying on like a coat I hadn’t committed to buying.
I was supposed to be able to take it off.
I was supposed to be able to go back to Toronto, back to my life, back to the version of myself that existed before I met a woman who eats dinner on the floor and leaves granola bars in medicine cabinets and knew exactly how to stand next to me while I fell apart.
I sit perfectly still next to her and watch her sleep, which sounds creepy but isn’t.
Or maybe it is. I don’t care. She’s here, and she’s peaceful.
For the first time in months, the thought of Toronto doesn’t make me anxious—it makes me sad.
Not because of what I’d be going back to, but because of what I’d be leaving.
She shifts, pulling the blanket tighter, and murmurs, “Stop staring at me, Peter.”
“You’re asleep.”
“I’m resting my eyes. There’s a difference.” She doesn’t open them. “Also, your couch is better than my bed. I’m mad about it.”
“You could stay.”
The words leave my mouth before I can think about them. The beat of silence that follows is long enough for me to regret everything. But then she smiles—eyes still closed—and says, “Obviously, I’m staying. I already took my bra off.”
I laugh quietly, dropping my head back against the couch. This is a problem. This is a significant, life-altering problem I have no solution for, and I’m smiling about it like it’s the best news I’ve ever received.
In the end, she doesn’t stay; she tells me she caught her second wind.
I watch her leave, wishing she’d let me in enough to let me wake up next to her one more time.