Chapter 21 – Davis
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DAVIS
While rereading the most recent email from Professor Novak, Davis toyed with a strand of her hair. The email from Ben was kind, but she could tell he was getting frustrated with her refusal to give him an answer. She couldn’t blame him. She was frustrated with herself too.
But recently, something had shifted inside her, like a bone healing after a fracture, finally getting stronger even though it was changed. Even though she was changed. Even though she would never be the same again. Even though everything in her life felt so different she could barely keep up. She still felt stronger, better, new.
And then there was Kev. She knew she needed to focus on her future, figure out what this stronger, newer, better version of herself wanted. But her problem was the same now as it had been from the moment she’d first laid eyes on him, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how good her intentions were, no matter how much stronger she felt, she couldn’t resist him. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, finding reasons to be near him, wanting more. Wanting everything.
How the hell was she supposed to make decisions about her near future right now? It was impossible. She needed more time .
Her email pinged, and she creaked out a groan. If it was Professor Novak again, she’d have to recognize it as the sign from the universe that it was. She’d have to answer him. She’d have to make a decision.
“What the fuck?” she said to her laptop. Because the email wasn’t from Ben. It was from someone she hadn’t heard from in months. Someone she didn’t think she’d ever hear from again. It was from her ex.
Hey Davis,
Heard you might be moving back to Missoula. That’s cool. Any chance you’d want to grab a drink? I miss your face.
Patrick
She and Patrick hadn’t necessarily ended on bad terms. Even so, a shudder tore through her while reading his email, her entire nervous system shouting no and wrong. Was this what happened when a person went backward? Was this nervous system rebellion the result of trying to step into old footprints, trace old paths, live an old life?
She didn’t want any of that. She didn’t want to get a drink with the man who’d essentially ignored her for six months while she’d been perfectly fine with it. She didn’t want to sink back into that lukewarm bath. She didn’t want to keep moving in a direction that got her nowhere.
Burying her face in her hands, she gave in to the endless confusion swirling around her. She couldn’t keep doing this, living in this limbo world with one foot in Red Falls and the other constantly reaching out, trying to find solid ground, flailing in empty space instead. She needed to stop trying to do what she thought she was supposed to do, what she thought everyone expected of her. She needed to stick her neck out for once in her life. She needed to grow the fuck up. But first, she needed to get some answers.
“Come in,” Madigan called out after she knocked three times.
Pushing the door open, she found him sitting at his desk, sliding a pair of black frames up his nose.
“Are those new?” She pointed her chin toward the glasses.
“Hey, Davis.” Pulling them off, he tilted the frames back and forth once before setting them on his desk. “Cole convinced me to get readers. He said I was squinting too much and it was making my crow’s feet worse. Which is something I never thought I would care about. But here we are.”
“Nothing wrong with wanting to preserve those rugged good looks.” She took the seat across from his desk. Trying to smile and feeling the fakeness of it—which, of course, Madigan would see straight through—she said, “You do have a piratey reputation to maintain, after all.”
While he sat back in his chair, he squinted at her, already calling her out. “Everything okay?”
Toying with the curled corner of some paper on his desk, she said, “Yep.”
Leaning forward again, his blue eyes sparkling but intense, one of his brows rising, he said, “Davis.”
Sometimes she wished he wasn’t so skilled at reading people. Sometimes she wished they could talk about the weather or something for five minutes before diving headfirst into the hard stuff. But he was skilled at reading people, and she wasn’t here to talk about the weather. She was here to talk about…everything. Time to dive.
“You know how I’m working with some of the men to get their high school equivalencies,” she said.
“Yes.” His expression brightened. “I’ve been meaning to tell you how much it means to me and to the guys that you’re helping us out like this.”
“Oh. Thanks,” she said, ignoring the blood rushing up her throat from his gratitude. “But about that… If it’s okay with you—and I’ll ask Mo m too—I’d like to clear out one half of the storage room downstairs and move the computer lab in there. It’s a bigger space, and the men won’t get kicked out of it when Mace gets back at the start of ski season. Because I know you’re always working with the guys on their emotional growth. And that’s amazing,” she added quickly. “But they deserve a chance to work on their educational growth too. And not only for the summer.”
A corner of his mouth hitched. “I hadn’t really thought about what to do with the lab when the rental shop opened back up again. But I think moving it into the storage room is a fantastic idea. Thank you, Davis.”
“And we’ll need more desks and chairs. And computers. At least two.”
His smile slipped. “You’re right.” Running his knuckles through his beard, he admitted, “But I don’t really have that in the budget.”
Fighting not to wring her hands in her lap, not entirely sure why she was so nervous but really not appreciating it, she said, “I’ve been researching some state-funded opportunities for nonprofits, and there are actually quite a few, several of them focusing on education. So I thought, if you’re interested, I could try to apply for them.”
“You’d do that?” he asked, his eyes going round. “For us?”
“Of course.” She waved him off with a little white lie. “No big.”
“It’s pretty big, Davis,” he insisted. And someday she’d learn not to bother lying around him, not even little white ones. “For these guys, it’s huge.”
Needing to fidget, because her chest had grown so tight she was worried something inside it might crack—and also because that had been the easy part of this conversation—she picked up a glass paperweight from his desk. “This is cool,” she said, rolling the clear orb with a black octopus suspended inside it around her palm. “Is it new too?”
“Ashley got it for me after we watched that one octopus documentary on Netflix. I guess I’d said something about wanting my own octopus friend.” He took a deep breath, eyeing her with suspicion. “ But something tells me you’re here for more than sentimental paperweight appreciation. Is there something else on your mind?”
Putting his octopus friend back, she said, “I guess I was wondering. Randomly. Out of nowhere. For no particular reason. Um, what made you decide to run a sober living home? Like, what made you know it was what you wanted to do?”
He clasped his hands, resting them on his desk. “Well, I knew I wanted to help other addicts. But I didn’t really know how at first. I’d thought about becoming a counselor or a social worker. But if I’m being honest, school was never for me. Then I met this guy who ran his own home in Seattle, and I started working for him. It felt good. It felt like important work. After a while, I thought I can do this . And that was that. I moved to Montana a year later, opened Little Timber, and never looked back.”
“Cool,” she said with a slow nod. “Cool, cool.”
“Davis.” His voice shifted back into the concerned, parental tone he’d absolutely nailed even though he’d never had kids. “Is there a reason you’re asking me this?”
Rolling her neck from side to side, unable to sit still for another second, she stood up, started walking. “It’s just, I don’t really know what I’m doing with my life. I mean, I have this huge decision to make, right? And, like, I want to go back to school. But I also don’t.”
“Why don’t you want to go back?” he asked while she paced restlessly in front of his desk.
“For one thing, I’m not sure I’m interested in research anymore. And, if I’m being totally honest with myself, I’m not sure I ever was. It just seemed like the thing to do. Like, oh, I’m eighteen. I have no idea what I want from life. I barely even know who I am. But I’m kind of good at math and didn’t blow anything up in chemistry. So, yeah, let’s go to college and pick a major and then go to grad school and spend all kinds of money because I’m supposed to have all this shit figured out from the jump.” Stopping right in front of him, she planted her hands on his desk, her fingers splayed wide, finally letting herself fall into the deep hole of indecision and uncertainty she’d been tiptoeing around for months. “But I don’t have it all figured out, Madigan. I didn’t then, and I still don’t now. Not even a little bit.”
Staring up at her, he only raised a brow. Like, go on. I know you’re not done.
Pushing off his desk, she started pacing again. “Part of me feels like I should go back. Like that would be the right choice. Take the second chance while I can. Finish what I started. Do what’s expected of me. But another part of me is like, no. No way. That’s not what I want. And if I do decide to commit all my time and energy to school again, shouldn’t it be for something I actually want? Something I’m passionate about?”
“Those all sound like reasonable concerns,” he said calmly.
Scoffing out a harsh pah , she said, “They don’t feel reasonable. They feel awful.”
“I’m sure they do. Concerns are still concerns, even if we understand why we have them.” Pulling the necklace her mom had given him last Christmas out from under his shirt, he slid the pendant from side to side and said, “I guess the question is, do you know what you want? Is there something you’re passionate about?”
This was the right question at the right time. This was Madigan cutting to the chase with surgical precision. This was why she’d come to talk to him instead of anyone else. This was her chance. Now she just had to take it.
Sitting down again, sliding her chair in close, she remembered the look on Brayden’s face when he’d said, “You know, you’re kind of good at this.” How Ace and Stanley had cheered, high-fiving each other when they’d gotten most of the questions right on the practice quiz at the end of their first class. She thought about how her excitement to set up the new computer lab was eclipsed only by the knowledge that she might not be here long enough to help the men get the most use out of it. She thought about Kev, because she always thought about Kev. Because it seemed impossible to make any kind of decision without considering him too. And that was a problem. Because when she did consider him, there was only one decision her heart wanted to make.
Gathering all her random thoughts and internet searches and program comparisons, she took a deep breath, blew it out, and laid it all out on the table. “I think I might know what I want,” she said. “But I need your help first.”