He’s watching me with a guarded expression without saying anything.
“Anyway, I baked these.” I hold up the bag in my hands. “For you. They probably won’t be edible, but I baked them. Yeah.”
Swallowing a giant lump of embarrassment, I pull the bag with the pies back to my chest. It’s not going the way I thought it would go. I’m not sure what I expected, but this coldness in his eyes and posture is not it.
His eyes dart between mine, and then he steps back from the door.
52
Jericho
I step back, allowing her into my kitchen. When I first heard her knocking, I froze. Ever since I spoke to Cheryl, I’ve been prepping myself on what I should say, but all rehearsed words left my mind the moment I heard her voice.
So naturally, when I opened the back door, I stood there, looking dumb and not knowing what to do.
“You can set those down,” I say, nodding toward the counter. My voice sounds strange to my own ears, too controlled, too empty, and I give myself a mental kick to my ass.
She places the pies carefully on the counter, then stands there awkwardly, clutching her purse strap. I notice the dark circles under her eyes, the way she nervously tucks her hair behind her ear. She looks as exhausted as I feel.
“I tried to come by yesterday,” she says. “You weren’t here.”
“I needed to keep busy.” I don’t tell her I drove for hours,aimless, all through the night, just to avoid being in this house with all its memories of her.
She nods, eyes darting around the kitchen, landing anywhere but on me. “I understand if you don’t want to talk to me. But I’m hoping you’ll listen. It’s okay if you don’t but I ho?—”
“I’ll listen,” I blurt out before she even finishes her sentence. When her big, beautiful eyes loud with the unspoken pain focus on mine, I try softening my voice. “I am ready to listen, Nora. If you are ready to talk.”
She takes a deep breath, squaring her shoulders like she’s bracing for the worst. “I’m sorry. For running away. For not letting you explain. For judging you without knowing the whole story.”
The apology catches me off guard. I’d expected explanations, maybe accusations. Not this.
“Why now?” I ask, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. Even though I know it’s my fault for keeping it from her, her reaction hurt. “What changed?”
“I did.” Her eyes finally meet mine, steady and clear. “Or maybe I remembered who I want to be. Someone who doesn’t judge. Someone who tries to understand.”
I look away, uncomfortable with the intensity of her gaze, with the hope it stirs in me. “Understanding might not change anything. It definitely can’t change the past.” This shame of lying to her will follow me the rest of my days.
“No,” she agrees softly. “But it might change how I see it. If you tell me.”
The silence stretches between us, heavy with unspoken words. I take a sip of my coffee, now lukewarm, just to have something to do with my hands.
“I had a plan,” she continues when I don’t speak. “I was going to come here, apologize, and ask you to tell me everything. But now I’m thinking maybe I should go first.”
I raise an eyebrow, curious despite myself.
“There’s something I haven’t told you,” she says, her voice dropping. “Something that happened in Boston. Something that might help explain why I reacted the way I did.”
I gesture toward the living room. “Let’s go.”
She follows me, perching on the edge of the sofa while I take the armchair across from her. The distance between us feels both necessary and unbearable.
She starts talking, her voice soft but steady. About Boston. About an alley late at night. About a man beating another man against a wall, the sound of skull against concrete.
About watching someone nearly killing another person in front of her eyes and the nightmares she still has. About her father’s death from a similar attack years before. About her fear of violence that’s haunted her ever since.
And I remember Cheryl’s words about how Nora’s whole life has been shaped around that accident.
As she speaks, I feel something shift inside me—hurt giving way to understanding. I see now why my past would terrify her, why she’d run from me. Her hands tremble in her lap as she finishes, and I resist the urge to reach for them.
