Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Devon
Tara is sprawled out beside me, her honey-gold loose curls still perfectly intact against the silk pillowcase she brought with her.
My mouth is dried shut and my eyeballs are being pushed out from the inside.
I curse Tara for breaking the tequila after midnight rule.
Then curse her again for looking like she’s at a goddamn wellness spa instead of the other side of a sweaty, drunken night.
Good news is I didn’t rupture anything last night—well maybe what’s left of my dignity when I lost my shit in front of Jeff. A minor meltdown, really. Nothing to write home about. I’m sure he didn’t even notice.
I flex my foot and wince. My calf feels like a knot the size of a cantaloupe has formed inside it.
I swing my feet out of bed and use my toes to search for the foam roller Meredith bought me.
She’d bought me a massager, too, that worked wonders on my neck until Tara informed me it was actually a vibrator.
“Did Meredith go home with butt-chin?” Tara asks my back.
“Yup.” I don’t risk nodding for fear of an immediate concussion.
“Nice, he totally looked like Spartacus…”
“I am Spartacus,” we both say in a deep voice. Mom has a thing for the Douglas men.
My foot finds the bag handle and I slide off of the bed and land on the floor with a thump.
It makes my brain rattle, but I focus on digging my fingers into the unfolded clothes to find what I need.
I pull it out and lay it on the floor, shifting my weight so I can attack my calf bump.
I bite hard on my lip, and still a groan comes out through the side of my mouth.
“Are you alright down there?” Tara’s pretty face appears over the edge of the mattress, her eye makeup smudged just enough to look like she’s done it on purpose.
“I’m fine. Arrrrrrrrgh.” Knead the dough. Roll the dough. “Can you go mess up your face?”
She pulls her nose up. “You look like you need help. Do you want me to call Meredith to come home?”
“Nooooooo.” Shit, this hurts. Maybe I should stretch. I kick the roller to the side and reach for my toes and the pain sears through the back of my leg. I’m squinting so hard there’s a throb in my temples.
“What about Kevin?” Tara says as she rolls out of sight.
“You can’t call either of them. Meredith likes to have morning sex and Kev is out on the Schuylkill rowing merrily along.
” And I don’t want to say the words that are forming in a cloud in my head, but the pain in my calf can’t just be from mixing Cab with tequila so I let out a cleansing breath that reeks of alcohol, and tell her in a strained voice, “Call Jeff.”
She looks at me, searching my face for some signal that I remember last night.
“I know. I know. But he’s an orthopedic surgeon and he’s used to my humiliation. Just call.”
She grabs my phone from the charger on my nightstand and puts in my code that hasn’t changed in 15 years. She’s squinting at the screen, scrolling with her thumb.
“Dr. Dick,” I murmur, and she just shakes her head and smiles as she presses the screen then lifts my phone to her ear.
I pull my leg in and bend it over my good one then let my fingers press and push into the ball above my heel. It feels like I’m sticking my fingers into an open wound.
“Jeff, it’s Tara—yeah we are ok—sort of. No. We slept at Meredith’s. It’s Devon’s heel—she’s in pain and I’m not sure—ok.” She’s nodding, staring at me, her lips turned down. “Right. Ok. Thanks, Jeff.” She presses her thumb to the red circle and drops my phone on the crumpled sheets.
“He’s on his way,” she tells me, and I find myself surprised by the fact that I’m not surprised. I knew that he would come. Despite my mini-breakdown while breaking it down.
Tara gets down beside me. “He wants me to elevate your ankle and put ice on it. Do you need help getting back in bed?”
I shake my head and pull myself up on the nightstand putting my weight on my good foot then plop back into bed. The effort makes my head spin, but I’ve lost track of what’s messing me up. Tequila or the pain? Or Jeff.
Tara disappears to play nurse and I’m left with my fuzzy memories of last night.
Jeff must think I’m a lunatic—crying like that on the dance floor.
It’s almost been twenty years since my dad died.
But somehow, sometimes, it feels like I’m still sitting at that table holding Tara’s little hand, watching my mother talk to the police beside the hostess stand at his favorite restaurant.
A pain in my chest takes the attention away from my calf.
I rub at my face then catch sight of myself in the mirror hanging over the closet door. Yikes.
“Tara?” I yell.
I hear her footsteps hurrying back.
“Can you buy me makeup that looks like that—” I point to her face, “—the day after?”
“Jesus, Devon. I thought you were in pain,” she hisses then disappears from the doorway.
“I am in pain. I saw my reflection. It was very, very painful,” I tell her.
I’m gonna buy a silk pillowcase. That’ll do it.
I slide my finger over the shiny pink covering of her pillow while I watch myself in the mirror, imagining that I’m soaking up the magic and my face will suddenly be less puffy and hungover.
Tara reappears with a bag of frozen peas and a bottle of water. She tosses me the water and grabs the magic pillow from my hand. She lifts my ankle and slides the pillow and the peas beneath my heel, then lowers my foot like it might break into a thousand pieces.
“Drink that,” she inclines her head toward the bottle, and I twist off the cap and obey. “Before he gets here, we need to talk.”
“I know. But brush my teeth for me while you talk.”
She rolls her eyes but scurries off to the bathroom and comes back with my toothbrush and a dixie cup. I press my teeth together and pull my lips back like a horse and she thrusts the items at me. I guess I’m brushing my teeth myself.
“Alright, tell me what’s going on,” she says.
Here we go. This is the first time Tara and I have been alone and sober since she broke her news.
Did she see my heartbreak? Was I that transparent?
She knows me well enough to understand that I would never want her to leave, but she’s studying me right now like I’m one of her sketches and I need adjustments.
“What’s going on with you and Jeff?” she asks.
The toothpaste goes down the wrong pipe and I sputter. Drool leaks out over my lip and drops onto my t-shirt. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and stare at her.
She lifts her brows and waits.
“Nothing!” My voice is too loud. Too squeaky. I spit out some toothpaste and try again. “Nothing is going on. He’s just a friend. Some doctor who made me into the punchline of a cosmic unfortunate coincidence.”
“You know that I know that isn’t true. I saw the panic attack when he didn’t show up at the restaurant. And, unfortunately, I also saw the scene from dirty dancing at the club.”
Annoying, nosy-ass, know-it-all.
“You saw me reacting to the fact that my only sister is being swept away by Marcello the Italian pirate. That’s all you saw,” I lie.
There’s a knock on the door and Tara is still staring at me like she can see right through my dry, bloodshot eyes into my shriveled, slow-motion brain. She pushes her lips together and gives my leg a patronizing pat then stands to answer the door.
“You have toothpaste on your chin,” she says over her shoulder.
I let out a breath the second she leaves the room and I feel my heart fluttering in my chest. I look down to tell it to knock off its shit and realize I’m braless.
My favorite shorts have tiny holes trailing up my inner thigh.
I’m a god-damned mess—and not even a hot one.
But there’s no reason to care. It’s just me and my annoyingly perfect little sister.
And Jeff. Who just keeps getting to witness me at my best.
He appears in the opening to Meredith’s guest bedroom, a dark circle of sweat makes his tee shirt cling to his chest, like he’s been working out hard.
Or running across town in this awful heat to assist a crazy woman.
His eyes are so filled with concern that I’m suffocated with that deep gut-wrenching empathy I feel when my students cry and need comforting.
I give him a little wave and he shakes his head and steps into the room.