Chapter Sixteen #2
I glare at her. “I didn’t exactly think I was going to see him again, even after finding out he played for my dad. I was in a very different part of my life. Like, you know, married to someone else.”
I’d never dreamed of being in the position I’m in now; divorced and living with her father and stepmother in my thirties after being loyal to my husband to a fault.
The day Bodhi disappeared from the bar, I told myself that was it.
I’d had one night where I could feel like somebody truly appreciated me for who I was.
I’d accepted that if that was all I could get from him, then I would be okay.
But here we are, all this time later.
Her shoulders lift. “Still. Maybe it means something.”
That’s the problem. I want it to mean something. I want nothing more than to claim fate is trying to tell me I’m meant to be in Bodhi’s life, but I don’t. Because that would give me hope, and hope means that I can be let down again.
I’m a walking cliché of hurt and mistrust. The ink on my divorce papers are barely dry and I’m already pent up over some other guy? Someone famous? Someone the world fawns over? It seems dangerous. He has a kid to consider. If Gemma doesn’t want someone around, if he doesn’t want me around her—
“I need you to stop spiraling,” my best friend says, waving her hand in my front of my face. “I can tell you’re freaking out right now. Whatever you’re thinking, stop it.”
I frown.
“Deep breath,” she instructs.
I close my eyes and count to five.
“Better?” she asks.
Eventually, I set my fork down and nod. “You think I’m being dumb.” It’s not a question.
To her credit, she shakes her head. “No. I think you’re being cautious after somebody who should have loved you, hurt you.
That isn’t going to go away just because you met someone you like.
In fact, moving on will probably trigger a lot of those issues and make it harder to make peace with your past. What you have to decide for yourself is if you want those issues to get in the way of being with someone who is worth your time and energy. ”
Since when did she become the voice of reason? “And you think that’s Bodhi?”
She cuts into the bun. “I think anything is possible.”
“What if it isn’t just a rebound?” I whisper, peeking up at her through my lashes.
Mila reaches out and takes my hand. “What if you don’t take the chance and he’s the person you should have been with all along? What if you miss out on something fun for once in your life because you’re scared?”
All I can do is swallow my panic.
I really hate when she has a point. “Mila?”
She hums.
“You and GiGi should get a cat.”
My bestie deadpans. “And why is that?”
I smile weakly. “Because you love her.”
She goes to reply but closes her mouth. Then the corners twitch upward, and she nods. “Look at us,” she says softly. “Two girls who’ve got it bad for people.”
All I can do is stare.
And realize…she’s right.
Again.
*
The headache forms slowly at work, growing in my temples until a piercing pain surrounds both my eyes and makes it impossible to stare any longer at my computer screen.
Soon after that, nausea settles into my stomach and I have to close my eyes and take long, deep breaths to try calming my stomach down.
After being diagnosed with epilepsy, I started assuming everything was related to it out of anxiety. Headache? Muscle spasms? Fatigue? I’d let myself believe that it must be an oncoming seizure. Not having control of your body is terrifying. And not being able to stop it is worse.
Puck relieves a lot of that fear for me.
Before him, I was a mess of nerves. Most of my episodes happened when I was alone.
Whether it was when I was a kid and Mom was away, or an adult when Max was who knows where.
My doctor back in Illinois told me that a service animal would help me find comfort in living without fear.
While I still have my moments, I’ve stopped associating every tiny ailment to my diagnosis.
“Whoa,” Karina says, halting at the doorway with her usual morning coffee in hand. Her eyebrows arch as they study me. “Are you okay? You’re not about to have an episode are you?”
Puck lifts his head and looks between us.
“No,” I muse, rubbing my forehead. I’d stripped out of my sweater twenty minutes ago when I started feeling overheated, but I feel ten times worse now. “Puck would alert me if he sensed a seizure.”
Saying I feel like garbage would be an understatement.
I feel like garbage that’s been left out in the sun for two weeks straight on the curb that not even the trash pandas or homeless want to touch.
I chalked it up to anxiety, to lack of sleep, to the internal panic over the realization that I have a big, fat crush on my father’s right-winger.
More than that, I’ve harbored one since the night we met.
All because he gave me a little attention, because he was nice to me.
“I must have caught something when we were travelling,” I reason, realizing this goes beyond hormones. I’m used to getting sick because my immune system sucks.
Without hesitation, Karina says, “Why don’t you head home? I can pick up some of your work. I don’t have any meetings until this afternoon.”
I frown. “But there’s a lot—”
“I’m pretty sure your father will drag you out of here the second he sees you.
I’d rather not be on his bad side if he thinks I’m forcing you to stay when you look…
” She makes a face as she examines the cramped office.
“Like you might pass out at any second. You’re not, are you?
Because I don’t do well with blood, and there’s a lot of things you could potentially fall and hit your head on in here. ”
“I didn’t feel nearly this bad when I woke up, or I wouldn’t have come in.”
She sets her coffee down on the corner of my desk and fills up a cup with some water from the cooler in the corner. “Here. Drink this and I’ll call you a car or get your dad to—”
“Don’t bother him,” I plea. “He seemed stressed last night, and his mood wasn’t much better today when I saw him talking to someone on the phone.”
I’m not sure who he was speaking to, but he wasn’t happy with whoever was on the other end.
There was a lot of cussing on his part, then pacing back and forth in the hall.
His words were spoken too quietly, but I heard the anger in them all the same.
I haven’t seen him like that since I was younger when he and Mom would get into tiffs about visitation.
“I’ll get an Uber,” I reassure her, pulling up the app. My father paid for the premium annual service to save me money despite my protests, but I’m grateful he did.
Thirty minutes later, I’m in a car with Puck beside me and a bottle of water that Karina insisted I bring.
I don’t remember the car ride.
Or getting out and unlocking the guest house.
I also have no recollection of stripping out of my clothes, putting on pajamas, or crawling into bed.
And I certainly have no idea when Bodhi showed up until I open my eyes long after the sunset and see him watching me from the doorway with a worried expression.
But then I hear him say, “Hi, honey.”
And my body feels warm for an entirely new reason.