“I’d think if you were a good writer, it wouldn’t be trivializing.”
Jill didn’t have anything to say to that right away.It wasalmostinsulting.She had a sort-of successful-ish writing career.Shewasa good writer.But… “Are you making a case for me to write about your…”
He raised an eyebrow, and heat crept into her cheeks because she literally didn’t know how to finish that sentence.Yourproblem?Trauma?Mental health issue?
“Ask your questions, Jill.Really.If I don’t want to answer them, I’ll just say hard pass.Next.Go for it.Write about it.What the fuck do I care?”
Jill hesitated.It feltwrong, but he was telling her to, and the truth was… she didn’t have to use it.And even if shediduse it, itwouldn’tbe trivial, or like stealing from his life.It would be something totally different.
Because shewasa good writer, damn it.He could always read it before she sent it anywhere.Veto it.
And he sat there, sipping his coffee, all detached kind of challenge.It was better than beat down, she thought.So why not lean into it?
“At some point, you became aware you didn’t remember this thing, after not even knowing there was something there to remember.How does it feel then?In that… in between?”Right after Cal had remembered, they’d all come to her cabin needing help.
There’d been a storm, so they’d all been wet and muddy and shell-shocked.
But none of them had anything on the shaking, pale mess Cal had been.She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to get that memory out of her head, because she’d never seen someone look so utterly destroyed.
But she suspected there was something leading up to that.And that was what she wanted to delve into in her book that she probably wouldn’t write.But maybe… if he was okay with it, maybe.
Cal sighed, frowning into his coffee.“It’s like… knowing someone is out there in the dark waiting for you, but you don’t know who or when they’ll jump out at you.”
“A haunted house.”
“Yeah, my mind is a haunted house.Good times.”
Jill felt unaccountably guilty.“Cal, I’m sorry.You certainly don’t want to spend your day discussing this with a near-stranger.”
“No, it actually doesn’t feel bad to talk about.”He had his hands grasped around the mug.Big hands, long fingers.“Better with someone who doesn’t have the whole family hangup.And I’m not paying to be my therapist.Besides, since you’re not one of my brothers, I don’t have to be an ass about it.Because you’re not my therapist I don’t have toanalyze my feelings.I can just be kind of matter-of-fact.”He shrugged.“I don’t mind it.”
“You have to be an ass about it with your brothers?”
He sent her a doleful look.“Clearly you don’t have brothers.”
“Actually, I do have a brother.”And maybe she kind of did know, alittlebit, what he meant.She just thought… well, she liked to think if she and her brother were going through something as horrible as the Bennets were, she wouldn’t spend her time being an ass to her brother.Or vice versa.
Cal studied her, but she didn’t know what he was gleaning from that study.“Let me guess.He’s younger.”
She didn’t feel uncomfortable exactly.But she did feel a bit like for the first time in all the times they’d talked, Cal was looking ather.As an individual, rather than Glenda’s granddaughter or Aly’s friend.Rather than a sort of side plot.
“Well, good guess.Four years younger.”
“Younger and a screwup?You seem like the golden oldest daughter type.”
That made her smile in spite of herself.The idea Sid the Perfect could be ascrewup.“Quite the opposite.He’s a surgeon, like my dad, or is going to be.He’s getting married next year once they’re both out of med school and know where they’re going for residency, which will likely be much closer to Boston than Montana is.So,he’sthe golden child.Though he hasn’t started procreating yet.My one saving grace is they might takeyearsto give my parents grandchildren since Disha is going to be a doctor too.”
“Moving all the way out here and taking care of your grandmother doesn’t make you the golden child?”
Jill twisted the mug in her hands.She didn’t laugh, because she knew it would be bitter, and she loved her parents, her brother.She didn’t want to be bitter.But… “No, it was, in fact, frowned upon.”
“Why wouldthatbe frowned upon?”
“I was supposed to support my dad wanting to move her into an assisted-living facility in Boston.I was supposed to acknowledge she neededrealmedical care after the stroke, not whatIcould offer since I refused to even become an RN.”Jill flicked her wrist, like she was flicking away those old hurts.“I like to think they’ve come around and are more supportive now, but it was a process.”
Cal was studying her now in a direct way that made her feel uncomfortable.Like with just a few minor details about herself, he could paint a full, three-dimensional picture and understand her completely.
When sometimes she didn’t even understand herself.
