Chapter Nineteen
“I thought you told us the plows didn’t come out this way,” my mom says as my dad pulls the SUV up to the curb in front of Grams’s house.
The winding road that connects the property to the public and more heavily traveled streets a few miles away has been recently plowed, all the way to the base of the stairs that lead to the front porch.
The driveway is also clear, as are the stairs, now glistening with sprinkled rock salt.
It’s past dark, but Dylan left the lights on for me.
“This place was one giant snow mound yesterday morning,” I say, as surprised as my mom is to see everything cleared. “Maybe Dylan called in a favor?”
My parents exchange a look from their front seats.
“What?” I ask, out of patience with them after two hours in the car together, since they insisted on driving me here after we all stayed in Augusta for the day to enjoy family traditions like sledding, getting candy-cane-flavored cocoa at the tiny local coffee shop, watching holiday movies, exchanging gifts, and hearing what we should all be doing differently with our lives.
“He shouldn’t be calling in favors,” my dad says. “He should be paying you rent.”
My hand flies to the handle, and I fling open the door. “Okay. Thanks. Your opinion on the matter has been noted and considered, so feel free to save yourself the effort next time.”
“I told you she didn’t want to hear it,” my mom whisper-mutters to my dad.
“Doesn’t mean she shouldn’t hear it,” he says. “And what’s going on with the roof?”
As I climb out of the car, my mom peers out her window.
Scaffolding runs up the north side of the house, where Rahul and his crew left it before they had to abandon work entirely until we get our first big thaw in the new year.
Roofing framework pokes out from under a blanket of snow, and a few of the vertical sections are temporarily tarped where they haven’t been reshingled.
“I told you I was making improvements,” I remind my parents.
They exchange another look. One of their all-time favorites.
She never listens.
Choosing to ignore the look—because I can’t seem to win with them whether or not I’m doing home improvements—I brace myself on the open car door as I swing my overnight bag over my shoulder, desperate to make a quick getaway before my parents can sneak in one more comment or one more noncomment, either of which might make me say something I’ll regret.
My mom flaps a hand at me. “Don’t forget your—”
“Yeah. I got it.” I reach into the back seat and pull out a large shopping bag I can barely lift. Sent off-balance by the weight, I slip on a patch of ice, catching myself just before falling while my parents crane around to watch me struggle, neither of them offering to help.
“You know you’re welcome to spend Christmas at our place,” my mom says.
“Thanks. I’ll think about it.” I will not think about it.
“I’m sure your tenant has friends or family he can stay with,” my dad says.
“I’ll leave that choice to him.”
“You could see Dr. Kim again while you’re in Portland,” my mom adds.
“Okay. Gotta go. Merry Christmas. Love you guys.” I wave and shut the door.
My parents watch from the comfort of their heated seats as I lumber my way up the stairs with salt crunching under my boots and the too-heavy shopping bag knocking against my shin.
I let the bag drop the instant I’m inside the house with the door shut behind me.
Then I release a hushed but violent stream of profanities between gritted teeth.
The hall light goes on at the top of the stairs.
“You okay?” Dylan asks, already descending.
I consider the question in a way it’s probably not meant to be considered.
Because it dawns on me in this moment that I’ve never been okay.
I’ve been happy, sad, angry, excited, nervous, upset, amused, disappointed, curious, frustrated, terrified, giddy, hurt, elated, exhausted, and a hundred other emotions besides, often all at once. But I have never, honestly, been okay.
“You really want to know?” I ask.
He slows his descent, eyeing me warily. “Yeah. I really want to know.”
“Well, I just spent twenty-four hours with my family. So that’s enough in and of itself.
In that time, I endured a well-meaning but anxiety-inducing makeover for a date I didn’t want.
I had a serious conversation with a really nice fellow academic, leaving me more unclear than ever about my career.
We took a family photo by Eleanor’s Christmas tree, and no one knew where I should stand since I was the only person there without a partner or kids to anchor to.
I fell off a sled this morning and bashed my hip against a hidden rock.
We ran into one of Haley’s friends at a coffee shop, and she asked if I didn’t have children of my own because I don’t like children.
I was holding Beth at the time while I tickled her toes and she gnawed on my thumb, so yeah, obviously I despise children and think Jonathan Swift had the right idea when he said we should eat them.
This afternoon, without consulting me, my dad set up an appointment with his realtor friend, who’s coming over tomorrow to advise me on selling this place.
Oh, and my parents gave me a coffeemaker for Christmas.
Or maybe it’s an espresso maker or cappuccino or whatever, not that I know the difference.
” I kick the bag, scowling at the box inside as though it’s mocking me from its festive packaging.
“How about you, Dylan? Get anything done on the manuscript?”
His brows pinch together as he frowns at me, though I can’t tell if he’s frowning because I snapped at him about the writing, because I spewed a bunch of complaints at him, or because I abused a perfectly good small appliance we could at least exchange somewhere for a refund.
“I was busy trying to make sure you could get home safely.” He says this so kindly, so lacking in defensiveness or accusation, I feel some of the fight slip out of me.
Some of it, but not all of it.
“If you need a jolt of caffeine to pull an all-nighter, I have the perfect solution.” I bend down, reaching into the bag to take out the still-sealed box. It’s heavy and cumbersome, and as I rotate it to show Dylan the photo, it slips from my hands and drops onto my foot.
I let out a garbled cry of pain as I crumple to the floor. Tears prick at the corners of my eyes, but I will not cry over my parents’ stupid gift, which, yes, I told them they should buy for me, but for once—just for once—couldn’t they give me something I wanted for myself?
I’m yanking at my knotted boot laces so I can inspect the damage when I realize Dylan’s kneeling in front of me. He waits, watching, his eyes full of concern as I take my irritation out on the knot I tied too tightly, breaking a fingernail while I pluck away.
“Hey,” he says with a voice as gentle as eiderdown. “Let me get that.”
“I don’t need—”
“I know.”
“I can do—”
“I know that, too.” He waits, unmoving.
I stop fussing with my laces, suddenly aware of how hard I have to fight my instinct to take care of myself. Maybe because I was raised to nurture that instinct. Maybe because I’ve so often had to rely on it. Either way, in this moment, it’s not serving me well.
“Okay. Thank you.” I lean back against the door and inch my foot forward.
Dylan picks at the knot with way more patience than I displayed, carefully loosening it before sliding the laces free of the skate hooks, removing my clunky boot, and peeling off my thick wool sock.
As he leans over my foot, examining the bruise that’s already forming, a strange delirium overtakes me.
I stop thinking about my foot—the pain or how that pain was incurred.
I barely even register Dylan’s hold or what he’s saying about bruising and nothing appearing to be broken.
Instead, I grow mesmerized by the amber foyer light dancing across his loose black curls with his movement.
As light turns to shadow and back to light, I reach forward and trail my fingertips over a single curl, barely making contact, a ghost of a touch.
I don’t know why I do it. I also do know why I do it, but before I can reconcile those thoughts, Dylan goes still as his eyes lift to mine.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Sorry.” I retract my hand, balling it into a fist and tucking it against my side.
He blinks at me with one of his most impenetrable expressions ever.
So. Painfully. Still.
Mortified, I consider telling him he had a bit of fuzz in his hair. Something, anything, to explain away my instinct to touch him for no other reason than I was desperate to touch him. But I’m so tired of keeping it all inside. Of fortresses and towers and walls. Of fear.
Dylan gently sets my bruised foot on the floor. I assume he’s about to get up and put space between us. Instead, he looks me in the eye and says, “Do it again.”
My breath catches, and my heart hammers like it wants to burst from my chest.
“Are you—?”
“Do it. Again.” He inches forward, barely, his eyes still on mine.
A rush of vertigo overtakes me. A fear of falling and a desire—no, a need—to fall.
I unclench my fist and let my fingers trace the gentle curve of one curl, then another. They’re so soft, like I always thought they would be, and thick, burying my fingers completely as I let them slide deeper into his tousled locks, as smooth as strands of silk, warm at the roots.
Dylan’s eyes close, but only for a moment before fluttering open again.
“You know what I was going to ask you,” he says. “The morning after the storm.”
“I thought, but then I didn’t think, but then—”
“You know what the dare was going to be, too.”
“I suspected, at first, but—”
“And you know why I haven’t done it.”
I swallow, breathe, force myself not to stammer. “Maybe.”
“You do. You definitely do. But the alternative is impossible. So consider this your dare.”