Chapter Twelve #2
"Baby everything."
"Very important distinction."
"And if anything happens, you call me."
Summer's expression changes just enough.
I wrap both hands around my coffee.
"I'll come back. For your shower. And for her birth."
"I would expect nothing less."
That settles between us for a moment.
Summer reaches for one of the pastries under the towel and breaks it in half.
I finally gather up the courage and ask, "How did he look?"
Summer doesn't need me to say who.
"Tired."
I pick at the edge of the pastry. "Just tired?"
She studies me.
"Don't make me drag it out of you."
"I'm trying not to tell you things you didn't ask for."
"I just asked."
"Fine. He looked like shit."
A small, ugly part of me is glad.
The rest of me immediately wants more.
"Was he eating?"
Summer's eyebrows lift.
"I didn't conduct a wellness check, Autumn. He looked tired. Angry. Distracted."
"At me?"
"I don't know."
"At himself?"
"I don't know that either."
I sit back.
"You're very unhelpful."
"I'm trying not to write his emotional biography because you asked how his face looked."
"Fair."
Summer takes a drink of coffee.
"He asked when you were leaving and I told him. Has he reached out to you?"
I unlock my phone and slide it across the table.
Summer reads the message.
Hope the tour stuff is going okay.
She looks up.
"That's it?"
"Every beautiful word."
Her mouth tightens.
"He knows you leave tomorrow."
"Yep."
"And this was his big swing?"
"That's the whole campaign."
I take the phone back.
"I wrote two replies and deleted both."
"What did you write?"
"The first one told him I was leaving tomorrow, which was pointless because you already told him."
"And the second?"
"Is that seriously all you have to say to me?"
Summer's expression softens. "Why didn't you send it?"
I turn the phone facedown on the table.
"Because I already asked him the questions that mattered."
"Are you ready to tell me what actually happened?"
I stare at the pastry between my fingers for a second before setting it down.
"I heard him talking to Bex."
Summer goes still.
"He called us casual. No strings. No labels. Said we weren't serious."
"Jesus."
"Bex asked if I wanted more."
Summer waits.
"He said it wasn't that deep."
Her face hardens.
"I went home."
"What did you do after that?"
"I went back."
"Autumn."
"I wanted him to prove me wrong."
The words are out before I can make them sound better.
Summer doesn't try to.
"I asked him what we were. I told him what I wanted. I asked if he wanted me."
"What did he say?"
"He couldn't do it."
Summer looks down at the table.
"I'm sorry, babe."
I nod because if I try to answer that immediately, I'm not sure what comes out.
"He didn't know everything," I say finally.
"What do you mean?"
"I never told him about London the first time."
Her eyes come back to mine.
"I turned it down."
"You turned this down?"
"The original offer."
"Because of Sam?"
"Partly."
Summer sits back.
"He never knew. I made that decision without telling him I was making it. I didn't ask what we were doing for months either."
Summer studies me. "You should've told him sooner."
I press my lips together. She's right.
Her hand closes around mine. "He still should've answered when you finally asked."
I stare down at my coffee. "You're irritating when you're reasonable."
"It's one of my better qualities."
"I love him, Summer." I stare down at our joined hands. "I'm also furious with him."
She tears another piece from the pastry. "You should be. I love Sam, but what the fuck was that?"
"I still want him."
Summer's fingers tighten around mine. "Yeah, babe. I know what that's like."
She doesn't give me a speech about what I deserve or a list of reasons I should get over him. She just holds my hand while I sit there loving somebody I'm currently furious with.
Her stomach moves beneath her shirt.
I glance down.
"Was that her?"
"She's weighing in."
"Whose side is she on?"
"Mine."
"Traitor."
"She has excellent judgment."
I squeeze Summer's fingers before letting go.
She reaches for another pastry.
"So. London."
I let out a breath. "London."
"How scared are you?"
"Pretty fucking scared."
"Good."
I look at her.
"Not helpful."
"You don't get scared about work very often."
"I do sometimes."
"You get irritated. You get stressed. You get homicidal when people miss deadlines. This is different."
I think about that.
"I'm going into an office full of people who have been doing this longer than I have, and I'm twenty-four."
"True."
"Half of them are going to think I'm there because O'Keefe likes me."
"Probably."
"Thanks, babe."
"You don't want me to lie."
"No."
"What about the other half?"
"They're going to wait for me to screw up."
"Will you?"
"Absolutely."
Summer laughs.
"I just need to keep it below international-incident level."
"Very achievable."
"I think I can do it."
"I think you can too."
It doesn't feel like reassurance. Summer says it the same way she'd tell me the coffee is hot or Colt owns too many spreadsheets.
I believe her.
We spend the rest of the morning talking about London and the baby, the office and the nursery, all the pieces of our lives that are changing whether either of us feels ready for them or not.
Neither of us knows what things will look like a few months from now.
For once, I don't need to.
Later that afternoon, I'm clearing out the ceramic dish by the door when the spare key to Sam's apartment ends up in my palm. I can't remember when carrying it stopped feeling like a big deal.
I stand there looking at it.
Returning it makes sense. I'm leaving tomorrow, and I still have a charger beside his bed, shampoo in his shower and at least one pair of socks under his coffee table.
My eyes move to my coat.
Vibes won't be busy yet. I could be there in twenty minutes.
I'm halfway into one sleeve before I stop.
"What the fuck am I doing?"
I want to see him.
The key just gives me an excuse respectable enough to pretend that's not why I'm going.
I could walk into Vibes and put it in his hand. Ask for my things. Maybe he'd come around the bar when he saw me. Maybe he'd ask me to stay for a minute.
Maybe he'd finally say something worth hearing.
I'm already imagining his face when I pull my arm out of the coat.
I went back once.
I stood in his apartment after hearing him tell Bex we weren't serious and asked him to tell me I was wrong. I'm not going back because I found a key in a bowl.
I still want him to come here. That's the irritating part.
I want the knock. I want to open the door and find him standing in my hallway because he finally figured out that knowing where I am isn't the same thing as coming to me.
I want him to tell me he's sorry. I want him to tell me to go to London.
And I want him to give me something to come back to.
The hallway stays quiet. I look down at the key, then put it back in the dish.
The charger can stay. The shampoo can stay. I'm not walking into Vibes to clean myself out of his apartment so he can wake up after I'm gone in a version of his life where I was never there.
He can look at the socks.
I hang my coat back up.
Nothing new from Sam when I wake up the next morning. I check. I'm not going to pretend I don't.
By the time my car arrives, I've showered, checked my passport twice and nearly knocked over my coffee when my phone lights up with the driver notification.
At O'Hare, I get through security early enough that Jake would make fun of me. I buy coffee and settle near the window while messages start coming in.
Summer makes me promise again to call when I land. Marisol sends a picture of Lucia holding up another dog-cat, this one with six legs. Jake threatens to end our friendship if I come home with an accent.
I smile at that one. Sam's name is farther down the screen. His message is still the last thing there.
Hope the tour stuff is going okay.
I read it once and close the thread.
When boarding starts, I get in line.
A woman ahead of me is fighting with a stroller while her husband holds a sleeping toddler and three backpacks. The man behind me is complaining into his phone about boarding groups.
Movement near the gate entrance catches my eye.
My head turns before I can stop it.
It isn't Sam.
For a second, the disappointment is so sharp I feel stupid for ever letting myself imagine it.
Then the line moves. So do I. I don't want him bursting through the airport to ask me to stay. I never wanted that. I just wish he'd come.
For once, I wish he'd been the one to cross the distance.
My boarding pass scans, and I walk down the jet bridge without looking back again.
By the time I get to my seat, my hands are shaking enough that it takes me two tries to fasten the belt. Chicago is still outside the window when we push away from the gate, gray and familiar and full of people I love.
One of them is Sam.
That hasn't changed just because I wish it had. My eyes fill before we reach the runway.
I let them.
The plane lifts, Chicago drops away beneath us, and I cry harder than I expected to. Quietly, because the woman beside me didn't pay for this particular in-flight experience, but enough that my sleeve is damp by the time we break through the clouds.
It hurts like hell.
Eventually I wipe my face and look out the window.
London scares me. By morning, I'm there. By lunch, I have work to do.