41. Find a girl who will tell you how it is
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
find a girl who will tell you how it is
The flight back home has a somber feel to it, and not just because our trip together is over.
I have this massive decision looming over me.
Forrest gets more anxious about his next exam the closer it gets, and it’s only a handful of days away.
He tries to hide it as he supports me, but I want to be able to support him too.
I also want to ask him exactly what he meant when he said we’ll figure things out if I end up taking the job at DCU. Will we do long distance? Will I come back to Massachusetts for school breaks and holidays? Will he move? Can he move? Will we break up and stay friends? Will we… just stop?
I know he wants me to decide what I want for myself, but he is part of my decision. And Jason needs an answer soon. If I accept, he’d like me at the school for the start of the spring semester in mid-January, so I can shadow and learn from one or both retiring professors during their last semester.
Lori called me this morning and said she absolutely loved the pages I sent over, and while that’s good news, it does little to comfort me right now.
She has a call scheduled with Grace to sell her on my romance later this week, but she warned me again that a quick “yes” is unlikely considering the divergence from our existing contract.
She said she may need multiple conversations to convince her.
The only problem is that I don’t have time to give.
I sink into my seat, lift the armrest between us, and lean my cheek against Forrest’s shoulder, thankful we’re at least seated together for this flight.
It’s a red eye, so the cabin lights are dimmed and most of the other passengers are asleep.
Forrest’s looking over his study materials under the glow of his phone’s flashlight.
He looks tired, but I know he won’t sleep until his body physically forces him to.
He sets his notebook on his knee so he can wrap an arm around me, pulling me close.
“Get some sleep,” he whispers. “I’ll be right here.”
I know he will. But for how long?
Returning to real life after so long in Arizona is jarring, and not just because it’s fucking freezing in Massachusetts.
On the one hand, it’s so good to be home with Jigsaw and familiar surroundings, but the post-trip calm doesn’t exist, even after I’ve done all my laundry and unpacked, something I usually procrastinate on as long as possible.
This time, I was finished within hours of getting home.
Of course, my parents wanted a full debrief of the trip as soon as I got home, and while I left my renewed relationship with Forrest out of the recap, I think my mom is still suspicious. Or maybe she’s just hopeful.
I did tell them about the job offer, though, and they were both extremely supportive of it.
Part of me wishes they were more controlling as parents, telling me what I should do.
But no. They have healthy boundaries when it comes to things like this and only tell me they know I’ll make the right choice.
At least they removed any guilt I could have over selling the house by saying up front that they’re happy for me to do whatever I’d like with it.
But would I be happy to lose it? My childhood was here.
My life is here. I always said I wanted to get the hell away, but when faced with the prospect of exactly that, is it really what I want? Forever?
When I look out the window and see my trusty treehouse, it feels like I can never leave this place.
My parents are staying in New England through the New Year so we can celebrate Christmas together, but they’ve gone to Newport for a few days to see the mansions decorated for the holidays. I suspect they just wanted to give me space to settle back in here without them hovering.
But now it’s just me and my thoughts. And Jigsaw, but he can’t help me with this either.
We’ve spoken on the phone daily, but I miss seeing Forrest every day.
I keep picking up my keys to drive over to his apartment, but I stop myself.
If I go, I know I’ll be a distraction. Forrest will be too nice to admit it, but I know he wants quiet so he can study.
Even if I say I’m just dropping off food for him, I’ll end up staying.
If I stay, he’ll take care of me, even if I tell him to focus on himself.
I do keep having meals delivered to him though, and when we speak, he promises he’s eating.
As expected, Lori doesn’t have an answer from that first call with Grace.
She said the call was tense, and Grace wasn’t overly pleased by the divergence from the contract, but she agreed to take a look at what I’d written and talk to some people.
Lori tells me the fact that they ended the call without an outright no is good news.
Surprisingly, writing has become my safe space again, even though the story I’m working on is also a source of my unease.
I know there’s doubt about whether Grace will want this book, and that led me to wonder whether readers would want this book.
However, I realized I want this book, and it wants to be written.
I haven’t had a story screaming to come out of me like this in years. I can’t ignore it.
On Thursday, I plan on hiding in my writing cave again when I hear a knock on the front door.
Mom and Dad are still in Newport, and Forrest is taking his test. My millennial instincts tell me to hit the deck and pretend I’m not home until whoever it is goes away, but a familiar voice calling from the porch changes that plan.
“Cam, open up. I’ve got baked goods!”
When I rip open the door, a beautiful blonde woman stands before me with her mini-me by her side.
“Iris,” I sigh, being hit with the full force of how happy I am to see her at the exact same time her daughter, Samantha, physically plows into me, taking me out at the knees. I crash to the ground with the girl on top of me, but it doesn’t hurt. I’m too overcome with relief of having them here.
“Cam!” the girl cries as she climbs over me, wrapping her arms around my neck and squeezing. I swear her endless energy pours into me, filling me up beyond my capacity until I burst out crying.
“Oh Cam,” Iris says, sinking to her knees beside us and pulling me and Sam against her chest.
“Did I hurt you?” Sam asks, squished between me and her mother.
“No,” I choke out between gross sniffles. “I’m just really really happy to see you both.”
“Forrest called me last night,” Iris explains once we’re settled on the couch with steaming coffee mugs in hand. Sam is happily playing with some of my old Legos on the floor across the room.
Iris brought a box of treats from a woman named Hannah in the town she and Sam moved to last year. The blueberry muffin I picked is heavenly.
Even though Iris and I were closest my freshman year, she was friends with both me and Forrest, and the two of them continued to run in the same circles after I left Rhode Island.
She never took sides when Forrest and I were distanced, and I couldn’t be more grateful that both of us got to keep her.
“I didn’t meddle last time you two were dealing with whatever the fuck you had going on because I think we all had our shit to figure out, but Forrest asked me to come here this time. I think he wanted to know somebody would be here for you while he was testing,” Iris explains.
Forrest thinking of me when he’s got a life-changing test today is so very Forrest.
“So, what the hell happened in Arizona?” Iris finishes with the pleasantries and cuts to the chase.
Unlike with my parents, I tell her everything. Well, everything I can share in front of a six-year-old, though my words are supplemented by some suggestive eyebrow raises that only Iris can see.
“It’s about damn time!” she squeals when I finish, kicking her feet against the couch cushion and reminding me of when we were nineteen, squeezed together on one of our dorm beds.
I can’t hold back my smile. Few things have felt as right as being with Forrest, now more than ever.
That’s kind of the problem. I’ve got perfect parts of my life in two very faraway places. My smile slips.
Iris scrutinizes me like she’s reading my mind, always a perceptive woman. Good luck to teenage Sam if she ever tries to keep secrets from her mom.
“You want to take the job,” she deduces.
And I nod. I haven’t admitted it to anybody yet, but I really want to take the job.
“I felt something so special working with the students last week. I love writing, but it’s solitary.
Being able to create with them was a whole new kind of fulfillment.
I’m not ready to give up writing, but if Jason meant what he said about working with my schedule, I’d still have time for it.
Teaching would give me stability that writing can’t.
It’s too fickle of an industry. Whether or not this romance sells, having this other career would help give me the freedom to write whatever my heart tells me to write.
I won’t need to lock myself into multi-book deals out of fear of what’s to come.
” I smile sadly, thinking of what I could do with this new opportunity.
“It feels like I’m being offered a whole new world. ”
“Then why do you look so miserable?” Iris asks.
“It’s a big move, and it’s not like last time. This is permanent—at least for a long while. It means moving out of this house and away from my life. Forrest and I are just starting back up, and it’s like I’m leaving him behind again,” I say.
“You need to talk to him,” Iris says, an obvious answer.
“You can’t assume what this will or won’t mean for the two of you without that.
I saw him after you left, and while it took him a bit to get his head out of his ass, he never stopped loving you.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I’d bet my right arm there’s no will stronger than his when it comes to you.
” She reaches forward and squeezes my ankle.
“Is it fair of me to ask this of him?” It’s so much.
“Is it fair of you to make the choice for him?” Iris counters.
We both know I did last time.
But Forrest and I aren’t who we were then.