Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Devin
“Devin?… Hey, you okay?”
“Huh?” I blink my eyes open, not even aware until now that I was falling asleep. The world comes back in fragments—the hum of tires on asphalt, the faint scent of Maya’s vanilla air freshener, the seatbelt cutting across my chest.
Maya glances at me from behind the wheel of her car, features pinched in concern. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m…” I touch my forehead. The skin there is clammy, cool despite the warmth pumping through the vents. I’m dizzy. Exhausted. Can barely focus my vision. The dashboard blurs, then sharpens, then blurs again like I’m looking through water.
It started while I was on the plane ride home, a bit of extra fatigue and that bone-deep weariness that I’ve learned to recognize as a warning sign.
By the time I rolled my suitcase out of the airport, wheels catching on every crack in the pavement because I couldn’t steer straight, the possibility of a flare was becoming real.
Now, feeling like a melted stick of butter in Maya’s passenger seat, boneless and heavy, it’s a reality.
I turn to look out the window. We’re nearly at the bridge to Pine Island, the water stretching dark on either side, and everything is spinning, my plan for the evening going down the drain.
I wasn’t even going to unpack after Maya dropped me off.
I was going to find Oliver. Tell him I love him before I lose all the courage I’ve built up over these long days apart.
Embrace the success or the failure that comes from spilling my heart out.
Not anymore. Now I can’t even keep my head up. “I think I’m having a flare.”
“Yeah,” she says softly, voice thick with sympathy. “You rest. We’ll be home soon.”
The rest of the drive passes in flashes.
The bump as we cross onto the island. A turn.
Another turn. The crunch of gravel. I’m only vaguely aware of her parking the car and opening my door, the cool evening air hitting my face.
She helps me inside, one arm wrapped around my waist while I lean my full weight against her shoulder, where I collapse in bed and give up on trying to beat back unconsciousness.
Soft voices wake me, filtering through layers of sleep like I’m underwater.
I open my eyes to a darker bedroom, the lamp in the corner providing the small amount of light that makes the shadows stretch long across the walls, and footsteps coming from the kitchen.
“I brought chicken and vegetable soup,” Hannah is saying. “Does she like that?”
I try to sit up but instantly get dizzy and fall back against the cushions, the room tilting sideways. Alexis appears in the doorway, her baby belly even bigger than it was last week, rounded and prominent beneath her loose sweater.
“Hey.” She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “How are you feeling?”
“I need to talk to Oliver,” I rasp. My throat is dry, tongue thick.
The others—Flick, Maya, and Hannah—crowd into the room, Flick setting a cup of steaming tea on the bedside table next to me. The ceramic clinks softly against the wood. “You’re having a flare,” she says, crouching down so we’re eye level. “You need to rest right now.”
“I know.” I press my palm to my forehead, trying to ground myself in the pressure of it. “But I need to…”
There’s a traffic jam in my throat, all the words crashing and twisting together, piling up until I can’t get a single one out. I burst into sobs, the agony of it all shaking my chest and making me feel twice as bad. Each breath hitches, making my head pound harder.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Hannah sits on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under her weight.
“It’s not,” I sniffle, accepting the box of tissues Maya hands me.
I yank one out, then another. “I fucked things up with him. I didn’t even argue when he said that he’s not good enough for me.
I just stood there staring at him like an idiot.
” The memory of that moment burns—his face, the resignation in his eyes, my frozen silence.
“I was going to see him right when I got home and now…” I suck in a labored breath, the crying making every flare symptom so much worse. My head throbs. My vision swims.
“Every hour I don’t see him,” I finish, wadding the tissue in my fist, “is another hour he has to convince himself that we should be broken up.”
“You’ll see him soon.” Alexis brushes hair back from my forehead, her touch gentle and cool. “Right now, you just need to focus on getting better. He’s not going anywhere.”
I shake my head, not so sure about that. What if our breakup has made him decide to leave Pine Island forever? What if he’s already packing, already making plans? “I need to talk to him. Where’s my phone? Someone call him.”
Flick bites her bottom lip, teeth pressing white into the pink. “Devin.”
Painfully, I push myself up to sitting, bracing one hand against the mattress. The room sways but I hold steady. “What?”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Her words come carefully, measured. “You two have already broken up twice, and it was brutal both times. Are you sure that you can trust him with your heart this—”
“Yes.” I stare at her, meeting her eyes without wavering. “I can.”
She sucks in that lip and nods, something shifting in her expression—acceptance, maybe, or resignation. “Okay.”
“Where’s my phone?”
“Your purse is in the living room,” Alexis says, already turning. “Hold on.”
Each second she’s gone feels like a day, a long unending nightmare where I get to imagine Oliver driving over the Pine Island bridge one last time, heading towards a future without me. My heart hammers against my ribs. I pick at the edge of my blanket, then smooth it down, then pick at it again.
Alexis finally returns with my phone, and I eagerly snatch it from her, nearly dropping it because my hands are shaking.
It’s an effort to even type in my passcode—my thumb misses twice before I get it right—and find his name, and once I do my panic catches up.
I’m about to call Oliver... and ask him to take me back.
It’s something I never imagined myself doing, my pride a buoy that I’ve clung to through the hardest of times. Even the biggest heartbreak of my life, when Oliver ended things years ago, wasn’t enough to inspire me to get down on my knees.
It’s different now, though. This isn’t me begging. This is me being honest, me saying all the things that I’ve been too afraid to say. It’s huge. Scary.
It’s the most important phone call of my life.
Taking a deep breath that doesn’t quite fill my lungs, I click on his name... and wait.
It rings once... twice...
“Hi,” he slowly answers, voice rough.
The familiarity of his voice makes me tremble. “Hi,” I whisper. “Um, I just got back and I… I’m having a flare, but… I really need to see you. Can you come over?”
I tense, every muscle in my body going tight, ready for the “no” that can shatter my world.
“Of course,” he says, and something in my chest loosens. “I want to talk to you too. Do you—do you need anything? What can I bring you?”
Tears run down my cheeks, hot and fast. He’s coming over! It’s no guarantee that we’ll work things out, but it’s promising. It’s something.
“Nothing.” I sniffle, wiping at my face with the back of my hand. “I just want to see you.”
“I want to see you too, Devin.” His voice is gravelly and strained. Just from the sound of it, I can tell he’s been doing about as well as I have since we last saw each other. “I’ll leave now. Be there soon.”
“See you.” Hanging up, I look around at my friends, all of them watching me with varying degrees of hope and worry. “Okay. He’s on his way over.”
There are nods and encouraging smiles, but the lingering doubt is undeniable. They’re only trying to protect me, though, like my mom and sister, so I don’t hold it against them. I’m merely grateful for them.
“We can clean up and then give you some privacy.” Hannah pushes her glasses up her nose, the frames sliding back into place.
“No, don’t clean up. You’ve done so much already.”
“We have to clean up,” Maya protests, gesturing toward the kitchen. “We were meal prepping in your kitchen, and the laundry—”
“This is what it looks like when I’m having a flare.
Like a bomb exploded in my house.” Originally, I had planned on catching up on the two laundry piles on my couch once I got home, sorting through them with music playing, but that’s life.
Messy and sometimes covered in clothes that have been sitting there so long you no longer remember if they’re dirty or clean.
Everyone laughs in appreciation, the sound soft and knowing. If it isn’t one chronic pain crafters’ place one week, it’s another’s. We all take our turns at being bedridden, our chores, family, and work responsibilities falling to the wayside around us.
“I want him to see what the hardest part of my life is like,” I add, my voice steadier now.
Alexis nods in understanding and touches my arm, her palm warm through my sleeve. “I’ll text later to check on you. Call if you need anything.”
“I will,” I smile, and mean it. “I promise.”
They say their goodbyes and leave the bedroom as a group, their footsteps retreating, voices fading until the front door clicks shut.
The silence echoing behind them is profound, filling every corner of the room.
I lay back down, fighting the urge to get up and check my reflection or make sure the sink isn’t full of dirty dishes.
My body aches with the desire to move, to fix, to present the polished version of myself that I’ve spent so long perfecting.
But this is life, the ugly side to the pretty side. The unwashed hair and rumpled sheets and half-empty water glasses. I want Oliver to know everything I’m going through, inside and out.
I want him to know me. To love me for who I am.
More than that, I want him to believe that he’s good enough. Unfortunately, I can’t make that last thing happen. It’s up to him. I’ve shown my hand, laid out every card I have, and the next move is his.