Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
FREYA
It’s like I’ve rubbed sand in my eyes as I trudge toward the store. I don’t know how long I tossed and turned last night before I finally fell asleep. I just couldn’t stop replaying my conversation with Oscar, seeing the look on his face.
It’s mild enough now that I don’t really need my coat anymore, but I still pull it around me. Even with the early May sun, I can’t get warm. The walk feels like it takes four times longer than usual, but the store finally comes into sight.
My eyes catch on something in the doorway. What is that? It’s too early for a delivery—has someone littered on my front step?
My pace picks up until I’m stomping towards whatever it is, but when the brown bag comes into focus, it stops me in my tracks.
Of course.
It’s a takeout bag from Becca’s, an insulated cup tucked behind it.
Written on the bag in Oscar’s loping scrawl is my name.
My stomach turns leaden. He left this here?
After everything that happened, he’s still leaving me lunch?
I hesitate to pick it up, almost like it might bite me, but once I’ve worked up the nerve to touch it, I can’t get the bag open fast enough.
I don’t need to check what’s in the cup to know it’s exactly what I want. The bag contains a pesto melt sandwich, a croissant, and a cookie. God, he’s so good. My knees feel shaky as I unlock the door and head in. It’s only been a day, but the room feels different. Colder.
I sink into my chair and tuck the sandwich into my drawer for later.
The cup sits on the wood surface, taunting me.
This is why getting involved with someone was a bad idea, I don’t know how to handle it.
I wish Luci was here, I need one of her tight hugs that kept everything from tumbling down.
As soon as I told her what happened she tried to move her flights to visit sooner, but everything was already booked up.
I spread out a napkin on the desk and start to pick at the croissant, ignoring the way my fingers tremble.
I make it through three bites before the tears come.
Everything that’s been bubbling up, everything I’ve tried to keep locked up all starts coming out, and there’s nothing I can do to stem the flow.
That’s the trouble with letting your walls down, it’s not just the good stuff that gets over them.
A tap on the window makes me jump, and my head whips up to where Becca is frowning from the other side of the glass. You okay? she mouths. I nod, but she just rolls her eyes and points to the door, gesturing for me to unlock it.
I cross to the door and open it reluctantly.
“Oh.” She sighs as she takes in my face. “That bad, huh?”
I shrug. “Just having one of those days.”
She quirks an eyebrow, not believing me for a second. “You know Oscar was in the diner this morning? His face looked a lot like yours does right now.”
I stare at the floor. I’ve dragged him into my whirlpool of misery and now he’s drowning too.
“You guys have a fight or something?” Becca asks.
“No.” I bite the inside of my cheek. “We’re just having a bit of space.”
“That doesn’t usually happen when everything’s all hearts and roses,” she says incredulously.
I gesture for her to follow me as I shuffle back inside, returning to my desk. “It’s fine.” I lean back in my chair, pasting on a casual expression. “It was moving really fast, so we needed to slow down for a minute.”
“And that’s what you want?”
My shoulders slump. I don’t know how much longer I can hold myself up. “It’s for the best.”
Becca perches on the desk, eyes looking like they want to crack me open. “Look, we don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to, but I’m here if you need a friend.”
“We’re friends?” I ask without thinking. What the fuck, Freya?
Becca just laughs. “I sure hope so.”
“I’d really like that,” I breathe.
She reaches out to give my shoulder a squeeze. “Yeah, me too.” Then after a beat, “so, you gonna tell me what’s actually going on or what?”
I deflate, dropping my forehead to the desk. “I kind of fucked things up,” I groan.
“What happened? I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t be fixed. You two are so great together.”
“It is great, I just…” I trail off, not able to find the words.
“Oh, Freya.” She taps the wood. “Look, why don’t you just run me through the events, then we can talk about everything else.”
I roll my head to the side, looking up at her out of one eye. In fits and starts, I manage to tell the whole story. All of last night, what happened with Justin, how I panicked at being called Oscar’s girlfriend.
Becca frowns, crossing one leg over the other. “I’m confused, so you and Oscar aren’t a couple?”
“Honestly…? I have no idea.”
“Do you want to be?”
I shrug. Isn’t that the question?
“I just don’t know if it’s a good idea.”
“Why wouldn’t it be? You two seem to make each other really happy.”
I sit back, not looking at her. The sting of tears registers at the back of my eyes and I know that if I look at her, I’m going to start crying.
“Freya,” she says gently, “if this is hurting you, then maybe it’d be good to talk about it. It doesn’t have to be with me but I think you should tell someone how you’re feeling.”
“I’m scared,” I choke out.
“Of what?”
“What if I’m wrong about him?”
“Oh, baby.” She sighs, scooting forward and taking one of my hands. “You can never be a hundred percent certain, but I’ve known Oscar for years. He’s one of the best people I’ve ever met, you’re not wrong about that.”
I nod, my chest feeling like it’s going to crack in two. “He left me a lunch today.”
“I know.” She chuckles softly. “I watched him do it, looking like a sad puppy.”
“I don’t want him to be sad. This is all just hard for me.”
“It’s scary to open yourself up to someone, but that doesn’t mean it’s the wrong choice.”
“I know, I just… I’ve made the wrong choice before and it kind of messed me up.”
“With an ex?” Her hold on my hand tightens a fraction.
I nod.
“Shit,” she breathes out.
“He really got in my head.”
“Fuck.” She gives my hands another squeeze, prompting me to look up. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
I shrug. I really don’t want to talk about Aaron. “It was a while ago.”
“That doesn’t matter,” she says gently.
“I feel so stupid.” My voice cracks and I have to bite into my bottom lip to stop a sob escaping. “I don’t want that to keep ruining things for me now, but I just can’t shake it.”
“You can’t beat yourself up. Things like this are never that simple.
It’s not a case of ‘oh, it’s been however many years, I’m a hundred percent over it now.
’” She’s telling me exactly what I’d say to someone else, but for some reason when it’s about me, I can’t seem to take the advice.
“You have to give yourself grace. Healing’s not a straight line.
You can have a million wobbles and freak-outs, and it still won’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. ”
“I don’t want to drag Oscar into all of my mess.”
“Freya.” I can hear her smile without having to look at her. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. Messy or not, you could drag that man into anything you wanted and all he’d say is thank you.”
“I don’t know if that’s fair.”
“Why don’t you let him decide?” I finally look up and see the sincerity in her face. “He’s not one to let himself get pushed into something he doesn’t want.”
I feel something in my chest crack open. Maybe Becca’s right and I should stop trying to predict what’s best for Oscar and take him at his word. I mean, that’s the root of the whole issue, isn’t it? He’s told me exactly who he is and what he wants, it’s up to me to let myself believe him.
“What if it’s too late?” I give voice to my deepest fear. “You didn’t see him last night. I hurt him so badly, Becca.”
“Maybe it’ll take time to get to where you were, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. All you can do is tell him what you’re feeling, the rest will come as it’s supposed to.”
I make it through the rest of the day without crying at any of my customers. I manage to keep everything behind the thick shield that I used to be so good at building. It’s only once I’m home and safely tucked under the covers that I call the person I’ve been avoiding.
The phone rings four times, then there’s a sleepy voice on the other end. “Freya?”
“Mom?” I choke out. However much I’ve been looking for space, I really need my mom right now.
“Oh, baby, what’s happening?” The floodgates open and tears start rolling down my cheeks, catching in my hair. I cover my mouth, not wanting her to hear how hard I’m crying. “Freya, you’re scaring me, what’s going on? Do I need to fly out?”
“No, no, it’s okay,” I sniffle, managing to take in a breath. “I’ve just messed everything up.”
“I’m sure you haven’t, baby.”
“I lied to you,” I cry. Everything’s been hitting me over the last few days, all the things that I’ve tried to put in the past, and now they’re tearing me up.
“About what?” I can hear her panic over the line. I don’t want to upset her, but I can’t keep bottling this up, I have to let it out.
“Aaron.”
“Okay?” she says slowly. “Take a deep breath, and tell me everything.”
I sit up, letting the covers fall to my waist. I never told my mom what Aaron did to me.
She only ever knew that things didn’t work out, nothing more.
She was already hovering so much, thinking I couldn’t handle my own life.
I thought that telling her would be just another reason for her to doubt me.
“He wasn’t a good guy, he um… things were really bad between us.”
“Oh, god,” she gasps, “as in… did he…”
“He was so mean to me,” I say shakily, “he made me so confused, I just wanted him to like me but nothing was ever good enough.”
“My baby…”
“It was so bad, I was so sad all the time.”
“Oh my— Freya… he never hurt you, right?” she pleads.
“No, he didn’t hit me or anything.”
“God, baby. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry. And I—I was so ashamed…”
“What on earth would you have to be ashamed of?”
I cover my face with my other hand, like I can hide from this. But I need to get this out. “He always made me feel like it was my fault.”
“Absolutely not,” she says firmly. “Nothing that he did was your fault, none of it.”
“I’m starting to see that now,” I almost whisper.
“Is that why you broke up?”
I was so embarrassed that he’d left me. After all that, I never even got to walk away. Another sob escapes “He broke up with me, he met someone else.”
She mutters something I don’t catch, then clearer she says, “well, I suppose it was a blessing in disguise.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, letting out my deepest fear. “Mom, I don’t think I would have left. He could have kept hurting me for as long as he wanted, and I would have let him.”
She sniffs and I can picture her straightening her shoulders. “That’s not true.”
“I was so confused, I thought he loved me.”
“You wouldn’t have stayed.
“How can you know that?”
“I raised you for twenty-seven years, I know you. You’ve always known your own mind, even if it takes you longer to get there.”
“But, Mom—”
“Listen to me. You refused to go back to girl scouts when those girls were picking on you, you went out and got that gift shop job, and even when you were nervous, you moved across the country! You’ve always known what you wanted your life to look like.
And I know that this was different, it was abuse, but you would have gotten there.
” I’ve heard it before from Oscar and Luci, but somehow from my mom, I’m able to finally let some of it soak through.
“Mom, if I’ve always known what I wanted, then why did you always try to stop me?” I ask quietly.
“What do you mean?”
I have to clear my throat, my voice drying up.
“You never wanted me to go anywhere, you thought that I couldn’t do anything by myself.”
“I never thought that.” She sounds bewildered.
“That’s what it felt like.”
“I was always just trying to support you. I wanted to help.” She says it slowly, the same line she’s always used, but this time I wonder if she’s just trying to convince herself.
“You wanted me to keep living in the annex forever.”
“Of course I didn’t! But I didn’t want to push you if you weren’t ready.” After a pause she says, “is that why you went to Colorado? Did you want to get away from me?”
“No!” I protest, but she isn’t entirely wrong. “I needed a new start, I needed some space to try and find myself.”
“You couldn’t do that here?” She sounds so hurt and it crushes me, but I know I did the right thing.
“I don’t think so.”
“God, Freya. I didn’t realize that I was making you feel that way.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It doesn’t make it right.”
I chew on the edge of my fingernail, not knowing what to say.
“You have to know. Even if I haven’t always understood you, I’ve always loved you,” she says gently.
“I know that, and I love you too.” I’ve never doubted it, even when it felt stifling, she’s always been on my side.
“I promise to try and listen more, I’ll try and show it the way you need.”
“Thanks, Mom.”