I watched as she gathered the broken glass and mopped up the wine while I slumped against the sink. Exhaustion hit me all at once and I was more than ready to crawl into my bed, wrap myself in Henry’s fleece jacket, and sleep until it was time to do this all over again. But we were in the middle of a conversation that felt important and I was also starving, if the rumbles from my stomach could be trusted. The bed would wait.
When Brie finished cleaning up after me, she opened the fridge and surveyed the contents, tapping a finger to her lip. “Okay, yeah, that would work,” she said to herself as she gathered ingredients in the crook of her elbow.
“Have you planned when you’re visiting Mom or is that to be determined?”
“I’ve given it some thought. It’s time for a new adventure.” She opened a few cabinets and pulled out some bowls. “I wasthinking about heading out on a road trip after the holidays. I told Mom I was going to visit some friends and stop in some new cities, and I’d make my way out to Colorado, but that my timeline is very flexible. Not sure when I’ll get there, not sure how long I’ll stay.”
I watched as she whisked eggs and milk in a bowl, and though I had many questions about many things, I grabbed the medical kit I kept in the bathroom, sat down at the island again, and kept it all to myself.
“She was good with that plan,” Brie went on. “She said she was flexible too and we’d figure it out when I arrived.” She glanced around, her brow furrowed. “Do we have vanilla? Like, the stuff that comes in the little bottle?”
I pointed to the cabinet beside the stove. “You don’t have to leave,” I said. “You don’t have to get out of my hair.”
“I think I do,” she said, shooting me a glance as she resumed her whisking. “But not for the reasons you’re thinking. It’s not about Joseph or Mason or any of that. I think, maybe”—her shoulders lifted to her ears and she kept her gaze locked on the bowl—“maybe I’ve been unfair. To you. There are times when I do things that push people away. There are times I know I’m doing it and I know I should stop, but I don’t because I want to know what it will take for someone to leave. To decide I’m too much trouble.” She balled her sleeve around her fingers and wiped away the tears streaming down her cheeks. “But usually I don’t even realize I’m doing it until I look around and notice I’m alone all over again, and that you’re the only person left in the world who tolerates me. Like when I was sick. I was alone in that ambulance. No one came to see me in the hospital, not even once. I try to stop being awful to everyone, but somehow I end up doing it to you instead. I want to stop because I know it’s fucked up, but every time I try, I just make it worse.”
It took me a minute to find my words. “You’re not making it worse.”
She dropped a slice of bread into the bowl. “I’m not making it better,” she said with a sour laugh. “For real though, I’ve been here long enough and now things are”—she waved the whisk around, sending a splattering of eggy raindrops over the counter—“messy. There’s no coming back from that scene you walked in on the other night or the things I said. I’ll buy you a new sofa, by the way. Or pay for that one to be reupholstered. Whatever you want.”
“It’s messy becausewe’remessy,” I said. “You’re not the only one who—” I circled my paper-toweled hand between us. I didn’t want to pretend like she hadn’t hurt me over and over, and that it had eroded my trust in her down to nothing, but I did want us to find a way to be okay. “You’re not the only one.”
“Well, even if we weren’t messy, it’s time for me to find a new sunny spot to avoid my problems. Or finally deal with some of them, who knows.” She leveled me with a flat stare. “But don’t hold me to it.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” I painted some wound glue on my finger and waved it around until it dried. Feeling bold and at least half convinced she wouldn’t bite my head off, I asked, “Any plans to see Mason on this road trip?”
She slapped two slices of bread onto a hot pan and shrugged. “Maybe. Not sure yet. He has a lot of issues to work on and he needs to do that without me around.” She glanced at me over her shoulder, a small smile pulling at her lips. “It would be cool if it worked out. I don’t know if it’s because he’s in a tremendously fucked-up era of his life and that speaks to me as someone constantly living through fucked-up eras, but we’ve both seen each other at our lowest moments and that cuts through some of the bullshit. When everything went down with Joseph, my firstthought—aside from wanting to crack a beer bottle over Joseph’s dumb head—was that Mason would know what I needed.”
I went in search of another wineglass. Seemed only fair. “Then I hope he gets those issues resolved.”
“Me too and not just because I want to spend time in Tahoe and around all these mountains he hikes. He’s fun and he has anamazingdick. Like, so good. Form and function, all in one package.”
I emptied the last of the wine into my glass. “Yeah, it was hard to miss that the other night when he was wagging it all over the place.”
She cringed as she pulled plates out of the cabinet. “I really am sorry about that. Just tell me when you pick out a new sofa.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
I glanced at the notifications on my phone. Mostly calendar reminders and alerts about all the houses I’d never buy. Nothing from Henry. Not that I expected anything. Though I did wonder if he was feeling better.
Brie set two plates on the counter, saying, “I really hope we have syrup. It would be a bummer to make it this far and not have syrup. Should’ve checked on that first.”
I stared at the plate in front of me. Whether it was the wine or the general bleariness of my life, I had to ask, “What is this?”
“French toast,” she said, her head in the fridge. “Ah, yes! Found some.”
As she settled on the seat beside me, I said, “Thanks for cooking. I probably would’ve taken a jar of olives to bed and called it a night.”
“Yeah, about that,” she murmured. “Probably should’ve mentioned it earlier, but this is an intervention.”
I froze with the fork on its way to my mouth. “Excuse me?”
“Yep, an intervention. For you. Because Henry loves you and?—”
“Henry does not?—”
“Helovesyou,” she said. “And if you’re just going to eat olives in bed until he stops calling and leaving cupcakes at the door—he sent more cupcakes today, I forgot to mention that during the emotional purge segment—then you’re no better than me, pushing everyone away just to see if they’ll go.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” I said, stabbing at the French toast. “I told him to figure out why he wants this and?—”
