Chapter 13
Anya stood too quickly, and her lovely clearheaded feeling evaporated instantly; her mind felt cloudy and out of sorts.
Bright sunshine streamed through a window behind Gabe, making him backlit and blurry.
He looked different from the last time she saw him: His hair was shorter, darker, and his facial hair was grown out—more than stubble, but not quite a beard.
He wore faded jeans with a brown T-shirt and an olive-green jacket.
He was smiling, but he looked exhausted.
“I don’t understand.” Anya shook her head. “Where’s Dr. Cheng?”
“Groceries,” Gabe said. His smile faded into a look of concern, or maybe fear. “Anya, are you okay?”
“I don’t know.” She took a shaky step backward. She felt like she couldn’t breathe, like this couldn’t be happening. How was he here? Why was he here? The dogs sniffed rapidly, and their tails wagged too quickly, that frenetic motion between happiness and alarm.
“What is it?” Gabe stepped toward her, immediately worried. “Anya—”
“Just stop.” She put her hand up to keep him from coming closer. Her chest hurt. What was he doing here? “You shouldn’t have come.”
“Because you’re fine?” Gabe didn’t break eye contact. “You’re not fine.”
“I’m—”
But Anya didn’t know what she was, because she couldn’t breathe.
She sat too hard on the bottom step, took in great gulps of air, but it didn’t feel like enough.
Her lungs were burning. It struck her as almost funny, the thought that she might die from a bruise on her head and a man showing up in a kitchen.
“It’s okay,” he said, moving closer. “Let it out. This is what’s supposed to happen.”
“What do you mean?” she gasped. Was she hyperventilating? “None of this was supposed to happen! I wasn’t—and she wasn’t— It’s all wrong.”
Anya knew she wasn’t making sense. She felt so embarrassed, so out of control.
“It’s all wrong,” Gabe agreed, his voice gentle. “Yesterday was your first time in a hospital since last year, right? That’s why you passed out?”
Anya shook her head. “The heat—”
“And you didn’t eat, I know. But Sierra says you haven’t been eating all summer, and I’ve seen you canvass in Las Vegas in July. Don’t bullshit me, okay? You know I’ve been where you are. You know I know what really happened.”
Anya squeezed her eyes shut, like she was five years old and maybe if she couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see what a pathetic mess she’d become. He knelt down and reached for her hand, but she jerked her arm back, the sudden movement startling the dogs.
“Anya, please,” Gabe pleaded.
“No.” She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, burying her face. “You shouldn’t be here.”
He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t leave either.
It felt better, a little, with her face between her knees, seeing nothing but the shadowed contours of her legs and oddly shaped slices of sunlight on the floor.
Her breathing slowed, then steadied. A bird was calling in the evergreens off the back porch.
“I’m so sorry,” Gabe said. “I should have come sooner.”
She took a deep inhale. She remembered the day in Las Vegas when Gabe and her mother had gone bungee jumping, the wild grin on her mother’s face when they landed.
Judy had said something to Gabe, and Gabe said something back, and then she threw her head back laughing.
Her big, ungoverned laugh. Her windblown curls.
“What did you say?” Anya looked up at Gabe. Her tone was insistent.
Gabe looked mournful. “I should have been here.”
“No. To my mother.”
Gabe peered at her, not understanding. She had to make him understand, had to know what he’d said to make her mother laugh.
“When you bungee jumped,” she pressed. “When you landed, my mother said something to you, and you said something to her, and then she laughed? You remember, right? Do you remember?”
Gabe looked at Anya like his heart was breaking, and for one horrible moment, she thought he had no idea what she was talking about.
Gabe cleared his throat. “Um, she said ‘Thank you,’ and I said, ‘Don’t thank me, thank Isaac Newton.’ And then she laughed.”
“Oh.” Tears were streaming down Anya’s face. “Isaac Newton.”
“I loved your mom,” Gabe said, and Anya thought he might be crying too. “She was wonderful.”
“She was,” Anya sobbed. “She really was.”
Anya didn’t really know how it happened, but then Gabe was sitting beside her, and his arms were around her, and she was crying into his chest for what felt like hours as he rubbed her back with soft, slow circles.
“I hit my head,” she mumbled. “I thought I just needed to sleep.”
She knew she wasn’t making sense, but he didn’t seem to care.
“Do you want to sleep?” he asked. “Do you want to go upstairs?”
But she didn’t; she couldn’t move. Her body felt like jelly, and she was afraid that if she tried to stand she’d slide down onto the floor.
She couldn’t think of the last time someone had held her like this—or the last time she’d cried like this.
She felt empty, but not in a bad way. Like she was a sopping-wet towel that had finally been properly wrung out.
She might be wrinkled and twisted and wrong, but at least she wasn’t so heavy anymore.
She sat up slowly, wiping her eyes, not wanting to think about how blotchy and unkempt she must look. She opened her mouth to say something, but she had absolutely no idea what to say.
His mouth twitched, the tiniest hint of a smile.
“So,” he said. “It’s nice to see you.”
She let out a small laugh, like someone had pulled the sound out of her. He looked so tired. It occurred to her how much he must have traveled in one night—a flight from LA to Seattle, a long drive to Anacortes, an early-morning ferry to Orcas.
“Did you sleep at all?” she asked.
“Last night?” He looked down. “Not much. I was pretty worried.”
Her eyes stung again. She needed him to know that she was going to be okay.
“Can we have breakfast?” she asked.
His face flooded with relief. “I cooked.”
“I know.” She put her hand on his knee. “It smells so good.”
Gabe led her into the kitchen, then poured them each a big mug of coffee and took a tray with two bacon-and-egg sandwiches out of the oven.
Anya sipped her coffee—it was good, and really strong.
It made her feel kind of buzzy. Dr. Cheng’s kitchen table was tucked in a little nook filled with windows that overlooked her property—the dense evergreens, and beyond them, the water.
Anya loved gazing out at this view, but right now she only wanted to look at Gabe.
She wanted to tell him…something? She wasn’t sure what.
That she’d missed him, maybe? That she liked his hair?
The front door banged open, and the dogs sprinted to greet Dr. Cheng. She appeared moments later carrying four big bags of groceries, and Gabe hopped up to help her unpack.
“Good, you’re eating.” Dr. Cheng glanced at Anya approvingly, then frowned. “Why are you so red? Are you running a fever?”
“No, I’m okay,” Anya told her. “I was, um, crying. For a while.”
“Mm.” Dr. Cheng nodded. “And your head?”
“The bruise hurts a little, but otherwise nothing.”
“No wooziness? Dizziness? Pain?”
Anya shook her head.
“Good.” Dr. Cheng caught Gabe’s eye, and they shared a small smile. Gabe must have spent more time here than Anya realized; the two of them were so easy with each other.
“And what are you two up to today?” Dr. Cheng asked.
“I need to canvass,” Anya replied quickly, and Gabe said, “Are you out of your mind?” at the same time Dr. Cheng said, “Absolutely not.”
“But we have to!” Anya was indignant. “I didn’t go yesterday—I’m two shifts behind. And Gabe’s great on doors.”
“Send him then!” Dr. Cheng scoffed.
“I’m staying with Anya,” Gabe protested.
“And I’m going canvassing!” Anya insisted.
“I’m the candidate, and I’m your boss, and you are absolutely not canvassing today.” Dr. Cheng folded her arms and gave Anya a stern look. Anya had seen her use this same “alpha stance” with the dogs to great effect.
“You’re not technically my boss if you don’t pay me,” Anya pointed out.
“All the more reason for you to take a day off,” Gabe countered.
Dr. Cheng nodded. “You’ll rest, eat, hydrate. That’s it.”
There was some gray in Dr. Cheng’s short hair, a little curl. In some ways, Dr. Cheng was very different from Anya’s mother. But in others, they were exactly the same.
“Okay, I’ll rest,” Anya agreed. “But just for today.”
Dr. Cheng gave her a knowing smile. “We’ll see.”
After breakfast, Anya went down to the guest cabin to shower and get dressed.
Gabe thought he’d crash out and sleep, exhausted as he was, but all the stress and adrenaline of the past twenty-four hours was still roiling through his body.
There was nothing for it but to run down to the rocky beach at the edge of Sierra’s property and dive into the freezing water.
He grabbed a swimsuit out of his suitcase, thankful he’d actually packed it.
He’d been in such a frenzy the night before—booking the first flight he could get to Seattle, hauling ass to LAX and barely making it—that he’d thrown some clothes in a bag without thinking what he might actually need.
It didn’t matter what he wore. Nothing mattered except that Anya was okay.
He hadn’t been back inside a hospital since he and Anya took his mother to Cedars.
He knew Anya was somewhere totally different, but he couldn’t stop picturing her in that same hospital room, that same bed, those same hydration tubes running into her arm.
Nor could he stop replaying the night the police called about Danny’s accident, the hours of waiting while he was in surgery, Danny never waking up, not even to say goodbye.
All through Gabe’s long night of travel, he tried to read, to sleep, to think about literally anything else, but it was no use.
He was nauseous with fear, completely consumed by the idea that something could have happened to Anya and he wasn’t there to help.