Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
JOSIE
At some point, I really do need to go back home. I don’t have a plant that I need to water or anything, but I do have to work in the morning. But lying here, cradled in Colby’s arms, after round three of the day, I don’t want to move. I’m gummy and limby, and boneless in the best way possible.
I roll over and plop one hand under my head, lace my fingers in her hair with the other, and absorb a drowsy Colby lying back on the pillow. I kiss her arm, her hand, each fingertip, and drag the pads of my fingers across her skin. “I have to go.”
“Negative,” she says with a smile. “Five more minutes.” Colby sits up, and tugs the blankets up to her neck, which she shouldn’t do. That woman should walk around naked all the time.
I love that I never made it out of here this morning to my house.
I can’t believe that eight hours ago, or so—who even knows at this point—I started driving down Colby’s pathway to return home for the first time since getting stuck, and I’m still here.
In bed. With Colby. My heart and body are so warm and full that I’m not sure how much of this is a physical afterglow or an emotional one.
We lie there for a while longer until we take a shower together, and I get dressed.
I’m not sure what this all means, but we’ve bonded.
I feel like I know Colby, on every level that I need to know someone.
And yes, there’s so much to discover and work through, but I’m convinced that I’m not the same person I was when I first met her.
Something in me has fundamentally shifted, and I cannot wait to see what the future holds.
“I don’t want you to leave, but it’s getting dark and you haven’t driven in town yet since the storm. What if the roads are slippery?” Colby says, slinking up next to me as I tug on my sweatshirt, and presses her lips to my neck.
Goose bumps skitter through me. Eight hours later, and I swear I want to hop right back into the bed. “You know I was born and raised in Minnesota, right? I promise I’ll be fine.”
“I’m in denial that you’re leaving,” Colby says as she escorts me towards the front door. “I’m going to text you in a few minutes and see if you’ll turn back around. It worked this morning. Maybe it will work again.”
Everything in me is begging me to stay. What if I walk out of here and this magic spell breaks?
What if I return to my apartment, and my job, and everything reverts to the way it was before?
Colby and me go back to being friends. My need to search for something fires back up. The hole in my heart opens back up.
For the first time since Zoey, being with Colby feels right. Like actually right. But we’re still in a fog, and I’m terrified that in the real world that fog will lift. A heavy sigh leaves me. “Trust me, I don’t want to leave, either.”
Colby’s gaze scans mine and she grabs my hand. “Oh no, I’m just kidding. I mean, I’m not kidding. You could totally stay here, but we’re good, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re good. I just… If this is what I think it is”—I wave between us, swallowing back all the nerves that seem to be at a tipping point—“I want to be smart about it, you know? I’ve jumped in headfirst so many times, and I don’t want to ruin this—our friendship, or our time together, anything.
” And the sex. I’m going to say it. Holy shit, I don’t want to ruin the phenomenal sex.
“I feel the same. And I—” She swallows and tucks a long dark lock behind her ear.
“I want to see what it grows into, and I don’t want to put a ton of pressure on whatever this is.
But I like you. A lot. And I like our friendship.
And I want to do that” —she casts her gaze to the bedroom and back up at me, chewing on the bottom of her lip—“again and again.”
My heart flutters. My legs are shaking from the daylong activities, but one more word and I may drag her back in there, cavewoman style.
“Me too.” I pull her face into mine and softly kiss her pinked, swollen lips.
“But for tonight, I think it’s a good idea that I go home, sleep in my bed, go to work tomorrow.
And you should go back to your freelance editing stuff that you do, that you’ll actually have to explain to me more in depth sometime. ”
Colby’s cheeks warm, and it feels like the energy shifted. Is she worried that I’m leaving leaving? I’m not. This between us feels good. Stable. Healthy. We’re on the cusp of something amazing. I’m not going anywhere.
I pull Colby in for a hug and breathe in her scent one last time. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
From the front door, she waves to me with Kona standing dutifully at her side. I keep one eye on the snowy path in front of me, and one eye in the rearview mirror, until Colby and Kona disappear. Even when I hit the country road, my smile still hasn’t faded.
Beep, beep, beep. I tap off the alarm and blink up at my bedroom ceiling.
Someone tell me again why I thought I should sleep in my own bed, at my own place, when I had the most beautiful woman in the world, with a way better bed than me, and the coolest dog next to Lucky Charms, offering me a different place.
This is one of the least bright things I’ve done, and let’s be real, I did a lot of dumb shit in my teens.
Two hours later, when I stroll into work with coffee in one hand, my purse in the other, and the widest grin that Leo has probably ever seen on me, he rightfully glances up from the computer screen with scrunched eyes. “Well, hello, you. You look like you’ve been on vacation.”
He has no idea.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you forever,” he says, rolling his chair back. “I can’t believe you were stuck for a week.”
“I know.” I toss my keys into my purse and sip my coffee, which is not as good as the one Colby makes.
Oh, what I would give to be eating eggs and bacon at Colby’s table, looking outside at that beautiful forest, and sneaking Kona chunks of cheese under the table.
“I feel like a completely different person.”
“Yep, yep,” he says, strumming his fingers and staying silent for so long I feel like tossing a pen at his head.
“What?” I say, but dammit. I can’t hide the grin. And maybe I shouldn’t. Colby makes me smile. But even more than that, I make myself smile. I handled a week in near isolation, alone with my thoughts, worked through so much stuff, and came out the other side happier and healthier.
“Something is really different about you.”
Everything is different about me. “Honestly, a lot of stuff happened this past week that needed to happen for years. I processed so much pent-up shit. I swear it was like I was at a mindfulness retreat or something.”
He cocks his eyebrow. “And?”
Well, darn my cheeks blushing. I slide my chair up to the desk, log on to the computer, and absolutely avoid my cousin’s ultra-invasive gaze. “And… Colby and I bonded. We spent so much time just talking and existing in the same space. She’s kind of amazing.”
“Wow,” Leo says and slides his chair up to the desk. “You’re not your typical weirdly giddy self when you meet someone. You look—”
“Grounded.” Which is not only the only term I can think of that accurately describes what’s happened to my insides, it’s a state of being I wasn’t actually sure I’d ever achieve. And my God, it feels nice.
“Grounded. Yes. Good word,” he says. “Okay, tell me everything that happened. Except for… you know.” He scrunches his nose and this time I actually do throw a pen at him.
“Just be prepared the next time when we go out, Emma will want a play-by-play of everything you’re telling me now, so you’re going to have to repeat yourself.
You know my girlfriend… she lives for details.
So, start with the day you got stuck out there. ”
I suppress a grin. Leo blames the need for intel on his girlfriend, but he’s more gossipy than a prayer circle.
Where do I even begin? More snow than I’ve ever seen—which is saying a lot since we live in Minnesota.
Breaking every muscle in my body by chopping wood.
A freaking bear. The hottest woman alive saving me from said bear.
Falling hard for someone in a pretty short, intense amount of time.
Feeling supported and cared for more than I ever have before. The list is pretty endless.
I don’t want to compare Zoey and Colby. It’s not fair to either of the women.
But Zoey and I were so deeply independent in our relationship.
We supported each other, of course, but not like what I’ve seen with Colby.
It feels so different. More mature somehow.
More equally dependent. I have to laugh-cringe that I took that stupid podcast’s advice last year and tried to win Zoey back.
Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking.
And had that ridiculous advice worked, I would have never met Colby.
But even more than the disastrous event last year with Zoey, there were a lot of things in the past that make me wonder what I was thinking.
Decisions I made that were not in my best interests.
Starting with pushing myself so hard to get distracted, to run, from myself and my memories, when really, I just needed to stop, learn, accept.
Is it possible to find myself in a week?
Probably not under normal circumstances.
But I suppose those who go on wellness retreats and spiritual journeys do it in less time than that.
I think I just finally discovered what it is that I’m looking for, and it’s not a thing, or a person.
What I was looking for was a release, a shedding of my past skin, of renewal.
And I finally got it.
In between clients, I tell Leo as much as I’m comfortable with.
Does he really need to know that yesterday was some of the best sex I’ve ever experienced in my life?
Nope. But I can share how cathartic it was to know that I genuinely don’t need to give my dad any more of my mental energy, but also that it’s okay if I do.
I’m not running from it anymore, I’m not pretending it didn’t happen, I’m not pushing away any memories. If some pop up, I’ll work through them.
The hardest thing for me to articulate, because I know how it will sound to an outsider, is that everything has changed. And I never want them to go back to the way they were before.