Chapter 25
We barely even notice it.
One minute, the sun is shining down on us as we finish planting the last of the flowers, and the next, dark clouds roll in. I pause with my hands in the soil, glancing up as a bolt of lightning flashes across the sky.
A breeze sweeps through, cooling my heated skin as the first raindrop lands on the back of my head. Then another. And another.
“Uh oh,” I murmur, watching the rain pick up.
Lily glares up at the sky, lips tightening like she might curse it into submission. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“Should we go in?”
She hesitates, as if agreeing would be some sort of surrender. But the rain is really pouring, enough that our clothes are getting soaked fast, and her hair is curling up. “Yeah. Fine.”
Brushing her dirty hands on her wet jeans, muttering under her breath about stupid weather and stupid plants, she heads toward the house. I follow silently, disappointment settling in over our time being cut short.
“Don’t move, you’ll get water everywhere,” Lily snaps, darting past me to a closet in the hallway. She reappears with two towels, shoving one into my hands.
“You got water everywhere,” I say into the towel as I scrub at my hair.
She rolls her eyes, but I can tell she’s trying not to smile.
My gaze flicks down to where her tank top clings to her, wet and translucent, exposing more of her than anyone would be able to handle.
I avert my eyes toward the window before I embarrass myself.
“Well,” I say lightly, even though I don’t feel it. “I guess I should probably head back before it gets too bad.”
Lily purses her lips, frowning at the floor. She doesn’t look at me when she says, “You don’t have to.”
“What?”
“You don’t have to leave,” She repeats, the sharpness of her words contrasting with the kindness she’s offering. “The storm will pass. You can stay until it does.”
I shouldn’t care this much,
I shouldn’t feel like my entire life has led me to this moment, getting to spend time with Lily again in her house. But it almost chokes me up anyway. “Really?” I whisper, disbelief evident in my voice.
She meets my eyes. And there it is. The softness that she would hate if she knew was there. “If I didn’t want you here,” she reminds me. “I wouldn’t have offered.”
Lily disappears down the hallway again, grumbling about more towels and not wanting water all over her floors. I hold back the comment about it not being the worst thing, that it could get some of the paint splatters up.
While she’s gone, I stand awkwardly in the kitchen, dripping, hugging the towel around myself like armor, every curve of my body on display.
I used to feel like this when I was younger, back when gaining weight was temporary. Fixable. Before I had my youngest daughter, and it didn’t want to come off anymore. I didn’t even care. It’s not like Scott and I had a sex life by then.
But that was before I was standing in Lily’s house, soaking wet, in front of eyes I always wanted to think I was beautiful.
She returns just as I’ve started to feel like maybe I should go home, and tosses a pile of clothes my way. “Here.”
I blink down at them. Soft fabric. Worn cotton. Her scent on them. “Lily, I—”
My eyes trail down her body for a different reason.
She looks exactly the same.
“I’m not exactly the fashion expert around here, but they’ll be comfortable. We’ll hang your stuff up to dry.” She doesn’t say they might not fit. She doesn’t even look at my body.
“Bathroom’s down there.”
I nod, walking slowly to the open door at the end.
Turns out, I was worried for nothing. The clothes she gave me are comically oversized. Thick and soft, sweatpants loose at the waist even after I tie the drawstring. Relief spreads through me, the thought of having to admit to Lily that her clothes didn’t fit was almost too much to bear.
When I come back out, she’s changed too, ditching her tank and jeans for the biggest shirt I’ve ever seen. The long sleeves swallow her hands until she lifts her arms, pulling her long wet hair over one shoulder, braiding it between her fingers.
She looks different like this, relaxed, soft in a way that makes me want to… “What?” she asks when she catches me staring.
“Nothing,” I lie, tucking my hands into my pockets.
Her mouth twitches as she finishes tying off the braid. It reminds me so much of the girl I used to know. The one who sat on my bedroom floor as a teenager, braiding her hair the same way.
I hold in my smile as I sink onto the couch cushions. She drops down beside me on the other end, close enough that our knees almost brush when she crosses her legs.
She sighs, leaning back, eyes closing.
The rain pounds harder against the roof, loud and steady. We sit in the quiet for a while. It’s not uncomfortable like it was, though. It feels strange, stuck between who we were and who we are now.
My eyes land on the TV.
“Do you—” I start, but pause, expecting her to hate the suggestion.
Lily cracks one eye open, turning toward me, resting her head on her hand. “What?”
“Do you want to watch something?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Have you ever seen The Golden Bachelor?”
She recoils, the exact reaction I expected. “Absolutely not.”
I reach for the remote on the coffee table anyway, turning the TV on to find it. “Come on. It’s sweet. People our age finding true love.”
Sighing, dramatic and offended, she throws her head back. “Diana, I swear to God…” But she doesn’t stop me.
I glance at her out of the corner of my eye as they start to introduce this season’s bachelor. I’ve already seen this episode, of course, but I think Lily would like it if she gave it a chance.
She’s not giving it a chance. She’s sitting stiffly with her arms crossed and her lips turned down.
Five minutes in, she scoffs.
Ten minutes in, she mutters, “That woman has had more plastic surgery than—”
Twenty minutes in, she leans forward in her seat. “If he doesn’t pick the one in the red dress, he’s an idiot.”
I bite back a smile, warmth blooming in my chest.
The episode fades into the next, neither of us making a move to stop it. A quiet laugh slips out of me when one of the women on screen starts crying over an interrupted conversation.
Lily shakes her head in disbelief. “They’re all out of their damn minds.”
“Maybe,” I agree. “But you have to admit, it’s sweet. They gave up time out of their lives for a second chance at love.”
She huffs. “Sweet my ass.”
I don’t let my brain go down that path, but I watch her profile instead of the episode. The way she sits curled up like a pretzel, the braid over her shoulder, the curve of her mouth, smiling at the couple on screen, even though she pretends she hates it.
And then the question is out of my mouth.
“Did you ever get married?”
“No.”
“That’s it? No?”
She pauses the show and turns to look at me. “Do I look like the marrying type to you?”
I open my mouth. Close it. We’ve had this conversation before. When we were much younger, cuddled up on the couch in her old trailer. She always said she would never marry or have children, but I never believed her.
To think that Lily has spent her entire life alone…
“Of course you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Did you ever want to?”
She exhales slowly, eyes drifting back to the screen. “For about five minutes. It was stupid.” She shrugs like it’s nothing. “Didn’t work out.”
I stare at her, at the woman I spent every day with as a child, and never got enough. At the most beautiful, kind, talented person I’ve ever met.
Who never found someone to spend her life with.
“That sounds…” I start, catching myself before I say sad. Her eyes dare me to pity her.
“Peaceful,” I finish. “Sounds peaceful.”
We sit in silence long enough that I’m certain I’ve put my foot in my mouth big time. The rain has softened into a steady drizzle, and when Lily shifts beside me, I expect her to ask me to leave.
“So what happened with… Scott?”
I did not expect that. But the way she says his name, the exact same way she used to, pulls a laugh out of me anyway.
She narrows her eyes. “What?”
“The way you say his name,” I say, smiling despite the heavy topic. “You never even gave him a chance.”
“Yeah, well,” she mutters, eyes flicking back to the TV.
“We were together a long time.”
“That sounds boring as hell. A long time with Scott Whitmore? No thanks.”
“It wasn’t boring,” I say automatically, the default answer, but this is Lily. “Okay. Sometimes it was.” My stomach twists at the admission. Ever since Scott died, it’s felt wrong to talk about him like that.
“He was a good man,” I continue. “Truly. He worked hard. He took care of us. He wasn’t mean. He loved me, I don’t doubt that.”
“But?” Lily presses.
I stare at my hands, guilt warring with the need to tell her everything. “I don’t know if we were ever the right fit. Maybe we were on paper. Marriage, family, money. We had the whole perfect life thing down.”
“I feel awful saying this now, when he’s gone,” I whisper, the only way I can get it out without crying. “But I don’t think I was the only one who felt that way.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was sleeping with his assistant. For, god, years. I think he might have loved her more than he ever loved me. She was a nice woman.”
I’ve come to terms with that piece of information a long time ago. After I got over the initial shock, I never truly minded. I was glad that Scott had someone to love him in a way I never could.
Lily is not as calm as I am regarding that. She looks like she would kill Scott right this second if he weren’t already gone.“He what?!”
“It’s okay, Lil, relax.” I cut her off, half-laughing, half-aching. “I grieve him. I miss him. I loved him. I did. But I don’t think I ever loved him like that.”
The relief of saying that out loud for the first time hits me like nothing else. It’s something I would never have said even a week ago, but Lily doesn’t even bat an eye. She says, firm as ever, “You don’t have to feel bad for telling the truth.”