“With my luck, there’s going to be a bogeyman under three of those beds,” I said with a weak laugh that wilted into nothing when his stare pinned mine, dark with flashes of desire like lightning behind storm clouds.
“You don’t need luck or a bogeyman if you don’t want to sleep alone.”
My heart slammed into my rib cage, and I clutched my hands tight, my ring—Todd’s ring—digging into my palm.Why was I still wearing it?
“Let’s eat, and then we’ll pack your things and head to my house,” Max instructed, locking the shop door behind us and heading for the apartment stairs.
I followed him, spinning the band with my thumb the entire way.
“Doyou think he really called her?” I wasn’t upset. Maybe I should’ve been, but I wasn’t. Honestly, I was surprised when she said it, but deep down, I wasn’t even that either.
I wasn’t surprised or upset that Todd had chosen to step back into reality by calling his mother rather than calling me.
“I don’t know,” Max answered honestly. “I wouldn’t be shocked if he did, but I also wouldn’t put it past her to lie toget what she wants. Can’t imagine after the choice he made that Mary would be his first call…”
I made a soft sound in response, letting his words sink into my mind as we drove, the truck somehow full of a stupefying amount of clothing and personal items of mine that had collected at the apartment over the last couple of weeks.
The coast of Maine stretched its craggy peninsulas like knobby fingers out into the sea. It was so peaceful here. So majestic. I’d buried the memories of the times Todd had taken me on long weekends to his parents’ house on the coast, one because they were steeped in his parents’ judgment. And two, because every time I mentioned how much I loved it out here, Todd’s response was that it was a nice short getaway, but that I’d get bored after a couple of days.
Translation:Hewould get bored after a couple of days.
He wanted to be back in the city. With all the things to do. With his friends.With the bars.How many times had I curbed the things I wanted to fit into his world? Little things, like individual grains of sand. Hardly noticeable until I stepped out of his orbit and saw just how much of my world he’d eroded.
“He never came to a single doctor’s appointment with me,” I blurted out, unsure why now was the moment I wanted to confess this.
“What?” I wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not, but a heavy brake accompanied Max’s question as he turned onto a small private drive.
A few feet later, he stopped completely in front of a wooden gate. “Hold on,” he grunted and put the truck in park.
I watched him walk from the truck over to the locked side of the gate and open it. Before coming back to the truck, he walked to the For Salesign stuck in the yard. It was a nice one. White wood. Brass accents. Not one of those cheap plastic signs held up by metal twigs.
With one yank, he wrenched it from the ground.
My chest squeezed. I hadn’t been able to bury the feeling of being an imposition on him, but now, I felt like a downright intruder. I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like he was even living or let alone wanted to keep this house, but for some reason, as he opened the gate and stared down the moonlit drive, I saw a weight on his shoulders that hadn’t been there before. And I knew it had to be because of me.
I forced my gaze back to the driveway, but in my periphery, I caught Max walk to the back of his truck. I heard the clunk of the sign being deposited in the truck bed, and then Max was back in the driver’s seat, a taut expression creasing his face.
“What do you mean, Todd never went to the doctor with you?”
Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.
“He always…had a reason,” I said, keeping my gaze fixed out the window, the deep blue sea sparkling between the tall pines. “One time, he sent his mom instead.” I grimaced at the memory. I don’t think I managed to speak a single word during that appointment. Mrs. McCormick had just taken over, and I was so exhausted and…shocked that Todd hadn’t shown up, I didn’t do anything to stop her. “After that, I stopped telling him about the appointments until afterward, and he…never asked.”
And, fool that I was, I somehow fitted that into my world like it bolstered my independence. Like it was some kind of proof that I could still stand on my own rather than seeing it for what it was: evidence that I’d settled for a man who wasn’t worthy of being by my side.
When Max didn’t reply, I looked over and found his knuckles ghostly white where they gripped the steering wheel.
“Max…”
“I told him…he told me—” he broke off with something that was nothing short of a predatory growl, the veins running down his forearm looking like they were about to burst.
Without thinking, I reached out and put my hand on his arm. “I’m not upset, Max.”
“That makes one of us.” His eyes whipped to mine and then back to the drive. Ahead, the low flicker of exterior lights speckled the blanket of dark trees.
“It’s hard to miss something you never had,” I tried to explain the feeling as the truck pulled from the dirt driveway onto a cobbled clearing at the end of the jutting peninsula, Max’s house clutched on the bluff.
“No, Daisy, it’s not,” he said, his eyes boring into mine. “It’s hard to miss something you never wanted.” And then he shut off the engine, stopping my heart for a beat along with it.
