I know this, and yet every time Elijah’s tricep pops as he stretches his arm, I’m getting a hit of dopamine, and as any drug addict will attest, getting one hit only makes you want another. Elijah is my drug of choice, and I once thought that if I just stayed away long enough, the craving would lessen, but it hasn’t worked that way, has it?
I think about him lying on the couch yesterday, or telling me there’s no reason for me not to have some fun last night, and I can hardly get a full breath.
And what did he mean when he said there’d been other stuff going on at the time?
It’s what I’ve wanted to know for five fucking years, the one thing I haven’t been able to make sense of, and I had too much pride to ask a follow-up question.
I’ve lost my chance, but it’s probably for the best. I don’t need clarification about any of this shit...I just need to emerge in one piece when I return to Boston in a week.
“Are you just going to sit there looking pretty, or are you going to help?” he asks, glancing at me over his shoulder with a brow raised, his right hand continuing to move a spatula along the pan’s surface.
“I was hoping to just sit here looking pretty.” Thoughprettyis a stretch—I look like someone who ate lots of sodium last night and went to bed without showering. My mattress is somehow covered in sand now.
“Start the coffee.”
“You’re only asking me to do this because I’m a woman,” I grumble, which is absolutely illogical given thathe’sthe one cooking. I say it mostly to make him laugh, and he does.
We sit down over eggs and turkey bacon and sliced avocado a few minutes later. I once again think—but do not say—how nice it is just to eat relatively normal food. To have coffee instead of matcha and some tasty cancer-causing nitrates with my eggs.
And how nice it is to sit withhim, a guy who’s known me my entire life, who’s seen me at my absolute worst. Even after two years together, I’m sort of on my best behavior with Thomas, as if our relationship is a thirty-day free trial after which I might be returned.
Hedidreturn me. That’s the crazy thing. I was on my best fucking behavior for two years, and it still wasn’t enough for him.
“So we leave tomorrow?” I ask.
He raises a brow. “In a rush?”
“No.” I like it here. I like having Elijah to myself—the occasional flash of a dimple, the way he makes me laugh, how I come alive when he walks into the room. I like this house. I like the sapphire-blue coastal dune lake right outside our door. A part of me doesn’teverwant this to end. “I just wondered what the plan was.”
“I’m not sure. Today, Grandma wants to go to church in Seaside?—”
I wrinkle my nose and he laughs.
“I knew you’d react like that,” he says, “but you really ought to check it out. You’ve never seen a church like this one. And after that, she wants to go to the graves.”
My fork stops halfway to my mouth. He must be referring to his dad and Campbell. “I had no idea they were nearby.”
He nods. “We lived up this way when they died. The graves are about a half hour from here. You’re welcome to come, though I realize it’s not the most appealing way to spend a Sunday at the beach.”
I shake my head. “As much as I love annoying your grandmother, intruding on that is taking things too far, even for me.”
He sips his coffee. “You wouldn’t be intruding. I mean, Betty’s coming too. And...I think my dad would’ve liked to meet you. You were an important part of our family.”
No matter what Elijah’s saying, Mrs. Cabot will definitely resent my presence. But it sort of seems like Elijah wants me there, so fuck Mrs. Cabot. It’ll keep her spirits up, complaining about me the whole way home.
I go upstairs to shower and once again don the dress I reserved for the rehearsal dinner. It seems, perhaps, slightly too formal and business-like for the occasion, but I don’t have anything else. If I had known this trip was going to take onebillion years when I was back in Boston, I would’ve packed better.
I’ve just pulled it on when Thomas texts.
THOMAS
Look, if you really want me to come to the wedding, I will. I realize I put you in a shitty situation.
I perch on the edge of the bed, staring at my phone.
If he’d offered it a week ago, I’d have agreed. But Thomas doesn’t get to just waltz back into my life after he’s put me through this, so he sure as fuck doesn’t get to waltz back in like he’s doing me afavor.
What happened to Sofia Leigh?
