Harvey pulls the car forward again, the engine humming low, but neither of us speaks for the rest of the drive. I stare out the window, at the blur of streetlights and empty sidewalks, at everything I’m leaving behind and everything I managed to screw up in record time.
And all I can think is:
Why can’t I seem to do anything right?
Chapter Eighteen
Lorelie
The next morning, I stand at the window and watch Harvey’s car pull up to the curb. Milo bursts out the front door, his little backpack bouncing against him as he yells, “Daddy!”
I watch them reunite like they haven’t seen each other in weeks instead of ten hours. Milo forgot his anger pretty fast last night, right around the moment he realized his dad wouldn’t be reading him a bedtime story. The tantrum that followed could’ve registered on the Richter scale. It took hours to settle him down, and when he finally passed out, so did I.
Instead of the sleepless night I expected, I woke straight into morning sunlight.
I’m not an insomniac. But like anyone else, if something in my life is stuck in limbo, my brain won’t shut off. I keep circling it, analyzing it, picking at it until it drives me crazy. Yesterday, I made a decision, and soon I’ll follow through. Until then, I keep avoiding Patrick and using our son as cover.
Milo has already handed Patrick his keys and climbed into Harvey’s car. To Milo, nothing’s changed. His uncle will take him to school. His grandfather will pick him up. And according to the text exchange I had with Harvey this morning, he’ll be at his parents’ house afterward so I can pick him up without having to exchange a single word with Patrick.
Tomorrow is Sunday. I have a twelve-hour shift. I expected Harvey to say Patrick wanted Milo for the whole day, but apparently skipping your nightly bottle for a second night in a row comes with consequences.
According to Harvey he was up all night, that was all he said. And I didn’t ask for more, except to reply:
Probably not a good idea to keep Milo overnight.
I watch from the window as Patrick hesitates beside his car, staring back at the house. For a second, I brace myself, expecting him to come storming inside, demanding to talk.
But he surprises me.
He gets into the car quickly and drives off without looking back.
A huge breath leaves me. I’m not stupid enough to think this will last. I need a buffer. Preferably someone who isn’t related to Patrick.
I don’t want Harvey stuck in the middle. He might like me, but Patrick is his brother. At the end of the day, that’s where his loyalty will land and it should.
I think that’s the part that hurts most. I built my whole life around his family, his village. I let it become mine. And now that I need support… I realize I might’ve boxed myself into a corner.
But I still have my own village. A small, distant one that has no idea what’s happening.
Genesis doesn’t know about any of this. I never told her about Patrick and the cheating. I know her opinion about this kind of stuff and I didn’t wanna fight about it.
All this time, I treated him like he was a victim too, hurt, insecure, broken by what we’d done to each other years ago.
But now the truth is staring me in the face.
And I can’t bury my head in the sand anymore.
“Hey!” Genesis answers on the first ring, a little out of breath.
“Hey,” I reply, surprised she picked up so fast.
She laughs. “I was doom-scrolling.”
“Oh? Anything good?”
“Nothing exceptBye Bye Byeagain.”
Then she breaks into it, sudden and loud:
