Chapter 27 #3
In an instant, Tobin had her in her arms, bearing both her mass and her emotions.
Tobin held her while she cried, trying to shelter her from the campers—especially Delta.
Across the booth, Anchor caught Tobin’s eye, her expression asking if she should intervene.
With a single curt shake of her head Tobin was able to stop her approach, garnering Grier some privacy, then tipped her chin toward the campers.
Anchor understood her meaning and drew their attention to her and away from the unfolding grief.
Grier began shifting in her arms. She pushed herself away and swiped at her cheeks as she began constructing a false exterior of strength. Tobin watched as she hardened her features and dabbed at the streaked mascara beneath her eyes.
“I—I need to go to the hospital. I need to be with Molly.” Tobin patted her back pocket where she kept her key fob, confirming it was there. “I can drive you.”
“No—can you… can you take Delta home?” Grier began moving, gathering her keys from one of the foldable chairs where she’d left them. Her movements were glitchy, repeating her frantic actions—her body operating on autopilot while her brain was already miles down the road.
“I’ll call Grant and let him know what’s going on.
She’s been looking forward to this all summer, and I don’t want to ruin it for her.
” Sad amber eyes blinked up at Tobin, and she could tell Grier was still fighting to keep her emotions in check.
Tobin wished she could wrap her in her arms and let her unravel, to give her the security of her love in the face of such heartbreak.
But she knew Grier needed to react right now, and that she wouldn’t allow herself to be comforted until she had eyes on Jonah.
Tobin watched helplessly as Grier kept returning to the chairs, trying to locate items she’d already stuffed into her pockets. Her heart ached at the sight, like watching a streaming video skip and repeat over the same thirty-second segment after failing to load properly.
She walked over and gently caught Grier’s hand mid-air as it reached for the cupholder in one of the chairs. Tobin brought it to her chest, encasing it with her other hand. Grier’s eyes met hers, frantically tracing her face for a comfort she had no right to give.
“You have your keys and your phone in your pockets, Cinderella,” Tobin said softly, trying to soothe her.
Grier’s shoulders fell with the realization that her erratic behavior was on full display. Tobin couldn’t bare it. She gently squeezed Grier’s hand between her own and brought it to her lips for a soft kiss, hoping it would offer even the slightest comfort.
“I’ll get Delta home. Go be with Jonah and his family. Text me when you get to the hospital, please—I’m worried about you driving right now.”
Tobin watched as Grier’s cheeks flushed with unspent emotion, her lashes blinking furiously against another round of tears.
“Thank you,” was all she could whisper before Tobin felt the faintest squeeze of her hand and then a break in their contact.
Grier practically ran to the parking lot. It was a stretch of immeasurable moments before Tobin realized she was staring at the empty trail where Grier had disappeared.
Anchor silently appeared beside her. “Is she okay? Are you?”
Still staring into the absence, Tobin nodded curtly.
She couldn’t share details with Anchor, but she valued their relationship as something more than a simple acquaintanceship, and she knew the woman asked out of genuine concern.
Regardless of how the question made her bristle at the intrusion, Anchor had a right to an answer.
“Yes—work emergency. We’re both fine.”
She turned to Anchor then, unwilling to let her thoughts linger on Grier’s absence or dwell on the possibilities of Jonah’s outcomes. “Put me to work, boss.”
Tobin was fidgeting across from Nadia. Her nerves were frayed; the emotional whirlwind of the last week had taken its toll. The situation was compounded by the fact that she was leaving for Iceland in about a week—and her mind was solely focused on Grier.
They hadn’t seen each other since the farmers market, and they’d barely talked or texted since.
Every second of Grier’s time was consumed with Jonah.
Or Molly. Or meetings with Dr. Miles, the hospital ethics board, and CPS.
Grier tried to check in, which Tobin appreciated, but she was distracted—and it was obvious.
Tobin understood. But understanding didn’t make it comfortable.
Tobin had heard from Grier just enough to learn that Dr. Vanders had been placed on probation and removed from the hospital.
But his actions against Molly—through misrepresentation to the CPS caseworker—were harder to correct.
That claim now required painstaking scrutiny to evaluate and rectify.
In a system that was notoriously burdened with too many cases and too few caseworkers… well, it was going to take time.
And time was not on their side.
For now, Grier had shared that Haleigh had volunteered to act as Jonah’s Healthcare Provider Authority, and she had conspired to act only as Molly directed.
But Tobin didn’t have to be told that was only a small comfort to a mother whose rights had been stripped while she was losing her son to cancer.
Tobin squeezed the top of her knee, trying to quiet the anxious bouncing her leg was performing against her will.
She knew Nadia was watching her, staunchly refusing to coax anything out of her.
Nadia had made it clear that Tobin needed to express herself of her own volition—teasing it out wouldn’t help her build the skills to communicate openly in her relationships.
Tobin knew she was right, but that didn’t mean she was miraculously void of the vulnerability Nadia’s direction required.
“She’s so hurt, and so… consumed by Jonah and work. I want to give her the space for that.”
Tobin knew she was right—but she also knew she was deflecting. She was using Grier’s grief as an excuse to withhold her own feelings. And she knew Nadia was going to call her on her bullshit.
“Giving her space and giving her a safe space are mutually exclusive in this case, Tobin. Which one are you trying to accomplish? Because you can’t do both and get the same results.”
She inhaled deeply, trying to steady her heart—it was the only physiological phenomenon she felt she might control at this point.
“I… it wouldn’t be fair to tell her how I feel right now. She’s… got too many emotions to deal with—I’d feel selfish adding to her mess.”
Nadia’s expression remained stoic, save for the one thin eyebrow she raised in inquisition—inquisition that felt a hell of a lot like accusation from where Tobin was sitting.
“Are you rationalizing for my benefit or for yours?” Nadia asked flatly.
Nadia had this way of prodding her within millimeters of her sanity and her will—then somehow compelling her to uncover deep, internalized self-truths.
Truths that, in the aftermath of their psychological dissections, felt so obvious that Tobin was astonished they hadn’t been self-evident from the start.
“You were ready to tell her last week. The words were literally on the tip of your tongue. She said it first—but does that make your feelings any less true? Any less anything?”
Nadia paused, her eyes drifting up as she pondered her next statement. Tobin braced, versed enough in her therapist’s tics and tells to know that whatever was coming would be hard to hear. Or profound. Probably both.
“If your love is fickle enough to be withheld or altered because your plans to reveal it were disrupted, can you really say that you’re in love with her?”
The look Nadia gave Tobin wasn’t as abrasive as she’d expected— in fact, it was rather soft, especially by Nadia’s standards. The effect lessened Tobin’s instinctively defensive response.
Mildly.
Tobin caved to Nadia’s observations. She whined in frustration, the sound escaping as a scoff. Self-reflection was a buzzkill.
“Am I wrong? Like—I’m in love with her Nadia! Shouldn’t I be able to tell her that for the first time without it getting lost in the overwhelming sadness of loss?” She was getting upset, and her outburst was just the beginning.
Nadia sat back, resting her elbows on the arms of her chair, steepling her fingers and tapping the index fingers together. She had the presence of a mob boss—always with the upper hand and quietly enjoying the show as her constituents prostrated themselves before her benevolence. Tobin hated it.
“I’d argue that now is the most opportune time.
She needs all the support she can get. Your confession shouldn’t be news to her, nor should it be a distraction.
In fact, it should be the opposite— your love should be bolstering.
It should reinforce her strengths and gild her against all the challenges surrounding her.
Your mutual love should continually reinforce your individual strengths.
If you can’t withstand this trial so early in your relationship, how can you expect your love for each other to grow—much less endure any future trials?”
Nadia just looked at her. Like LoLo, she was waiting for Tobin to talk herself into her own answers.
Nadia was right. Tobin was dragging her feet out of fear. It wasn’t for Grier’s benefit that she hadn’t confessed her love. It was for her own.
But that didn’t make her feelings any less valid—did it?
She didn’t want to give Grier her heart over the phone or through a text message.
In the long-term, she knew they could figure out a way to cope with the memory of her admission coinciding with Jonah’s crisis.
But in the short-term, Nadia was right again—Grier deserved all the support and love in the world right now.
Tobin’s shoulders slumped with the realization that she’d been withholding parts of those things—of those feelings—and, therefore parts of herself from Grier, at the very moment she needed them most.
“I want to give her the space. And I want to be her safe space. And I want her to know I love her—and am in love with her. I want all of those things to be true.”
Nadia dipped her head, leveling her gaze with Tobin’s. Tobin knew this would be her only indication that she was nearly there, following the breadcrumb clues of her own mind. She was on the precipice of self-discovery.
“It’s that fucking ampersand again. All the fucking ands in the world. It’s who she is and… it’s the effect she has. That’s exactly what I want. I want all of her ands, Nadia.”
Nadia sat forward, finally satisfied with Tobin’s admissions.
Now, maybe, they could find a solution.
“So what are you going to do about it?”
Or not. Fuck.
Tobin crossed her arms. She was irritated with Nadia’s misanthropic approach, and she wanted her to know it. “I don’t know, Nadia. That’s why I’m here.”
“You do know. And you know you know it. You’re choosing fear instead of love. So fear is what you’ll keep, and love is what you’ll lose.”
Both of Nadia’s eyebrows were arched, and she gave a curt nod in Tobin’s direction.
“You’re never going to keep the love if you don’t let go of the fear, Tobin.”
A faint click was the only indication that Nadia’s words had registered with Tobin; she’d been clenching her teeth in frustration with her therapist’s intuitive assault, and her jaw clicked under the increasing pressure.
A bolt of pain zigzagged from her jaw through her ear and settled behind her eye, where it began to pulse.
Now she had a headache—and she felt no closer to resolution with Nadia. Or, more accurately, with Grier.
Grier.
Grier and resolution.
That sounded terminal in Tobin’s head. A finality she absolutely didn’t want.
She wanted more of Grier’s ands.
And… if she was going to ask for more—for all—of Grier’s ands, then she needed to stop with all the buts. Because there truly was no room for I love you, but…
No. Everything about Grier—everything about their love—was a perpetual, repeating, infinite ampersand.
And Tobin wanted to choose a life of perpetual ands. She wanted to choose love and leave behind the fear. She wanted to choose Grier.
“I want to give her all of my ands. Overlapping ampersands, shared history, and promised tomorrows.”
Tobin shifted her jaw back and forth, perplexed by the looseness she felt in the muscles of her face. Interestingly, her entire body felt pretty good. Really good, if she was being honest.
Which—she was trying to be.
Nadia huffed a stifled snort of laughter from her seat across the room, dramatically interrupting Tobin’s internalized thought dissection. “Your body is giving you away, Tobin.”
This woman was infuriating. How could she just sit there and gloat while her clients experienced their epiphanies? Sadist.
Tobin tried to fume, to make Nadia work for her admission. But her body felt so good. Like—a literal weight had been lifted from her chest. She could breathe—and feel her ribs expanding with each breath. Her head felt clear. Certain.
She didn’t want to fume. She wanted to rush out of here and find Grier. To take her in her arms and tell her she loved her. She wanted all of her ands.
And she wanted them to start right now.
“I have to go. I have to find Grier.”
Nadia rose and walked to the door, opening it with a smug and somehow affectionate smile. “And that is how you get the girl. Go get her, Tobin.”