I stay quiet. He hadn’t. Not once. And I probably hadn’t helped by always being available whenever he wanted to meet. Dropping everything. Rearranging my schedule.
“Exactly,” she says. “Men love the idea of freedom. They just don’t like the consequences.”
I sigh and flop into one of the lawn chairs. The plastic is cold against my legs. “He’s acting like I lied for our entire marriage.”
“Well…” Genesis drags out the word. “You kind of did?”
I shut my eyes. “Gen.”
“I’m not judging!” she insists quickly. “Okay, maybe a tiny bit. But you thought you were breaking up with him, right? He canceled on you, you thought he was out with someone else, you got mad, you made a bad decision, welcome to human behavior.”
Her tone softens a little. “You weren’t exclusive. You weren’t cheating. You panicked and tried to hurt him before he hurt you. We’ve all been there.”
I swallow hard. “I just didn’t expect him to shut down like this.”
“Lore,” she sighs, “men can go to war, run into burning buildings, fight off wild animals. But finding out their girlfriend once had sex with someone else? Oh no. Straight to emotional ICU.”
Despite myself, I laugh.
Genesis lowers her voice. “Do you want my opinion?”
“Not really,” I mutter.
“Okay, here it is anyway,” she continues. “Give him time. But don’t let him punish you for something that happened before you two were even… you two.”
I run my fingers through my hair, staring at Milo’s little toy firetruck overturned in the grass. “I know. I just hate this feeling. I hate not knowing where he is in his head.”
“If you push him,” Genesis says, “he’ll just push you back. Now’s the time to leave him alone and let him come to you.”
I hum under my breath. She’s right. Annoyingly right.
“Like I did with you,” I say, referring to her terrible choice in men and her refusal to listen to my opinion about them.
She bursts out laughing. “You did play that pretty well.”
I shrug. “I was a teenager raising a teenager.”
“Really?” she drawls.
“Let that be true,” I warn her.
Genesis laughs louder this time. She’s twenty-six now, but in moments like this, she’s still the sixteen-year-old I used to chase around with homework reminders and curfews she ignored. She might’ve been living with our aunt, but that was just on paper, I still did the raising.
“I saw your video,” I say, twisting a strand of my hair. “You looked… tan.”
Genesis laughs. “I’m getting paid to travel and enjoy new things. Last week I-”
Her voice cuts out as an engine revs somewhere nearby. That was too close to be a neighbor.
I freeze.
He wouldn’t…
Phone still pressed to my ear, I move through the house, past the kitchen, the living room, and peek out the front window toward the driveway.
My car sits exactly where I left it.
And right beside it… Patrick’s car is gone.
