“You say that like I really coerced you.”
“No…”
“But if you’d gotten stubborn, I would have.”
“Sadly, I believe you.”
“Either way,” she said, “you must be doing something right to feel that way. So whatever it is, don’t stop it.”
“I promise.”
“I’ve got to go, I think Scott’s drowning.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, or getting eaten by piranhas,” she said in a flat, dry tone. “Actually, I think a jellyfish stung him. I’ll call you later. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I looked at the phone with a bittersweet feeling before falling back on the cushions and looking at the ceiling. I stayed still there, thinking. It’s amazing how differently you can start to look at theworld when you find out how other people see it.
Thinking about my sister made me think about Hoyt, and I sent him a text to tell him I’d be out of town a few days, that I needed to disconnect. I didn’t give him any explanation, because otherwise I’d have had to lie, and I didn’t feel like it.
I smiled when his response came a few seconds later.
Hey, you can count on me, you know that, right? I’ll always be on your side. Love you, Pumpkin.
My eyes fell closed. It was all I could do to stand up and go brush my teeth.
There wasn’t a sound in the house. When I crossed the hall, I saw Trey lying there on his bed. I could hear his breathing, and my nerves made me shake all over as I walked over to his doorway. He was sleeping there with my book open on his chest. It was adorable.
But I couldn’t just leave him that way, so I tiptoed in, trying not to make noise, picked the book up, and laid it on the nightstand. Then I covered him up with the comforter at the foot of the bed. I looked at him a few seconds and noticed the deep circles under his eyes. They weren’t the kind you get from physical exhaustion; they were from another kind of exhaustion, the kind loneliness can cause. I knew that because I’d seen them under my own eyes too many times.
I turned off the night.
“Good night,” I whispered.
“Good night, Pumpkin,” he murmured, half-asleep, once I was in the hall.
I smiled. And my foolish heart smiled, too.
15
The Truth Is, I Don’t Understand Myself
Trey wasn’t there when I got up the next morning. His car was gone, too. If all his drawing materials weren’t still spread out on the table, I’d have been afraid he’d left Petit Prince forever.
Without him, it was too quiet between those four walls.
I sat on the porch and watched the sun come up in the clear sky. I stayed out there long enough to finish my second cup of coffee, telling myself how much I liked the tranquility there. The lack of bustle, the lack of work and stress, the lack of worries.
When I first arrived, it had gotten to me how there was nothing to do. Now I wondered how the hell I would return to my routine once I was home. What would I do if I couldn’t feel the sun on my face, breathe the fresh air, walk slowly with no real place to go? How could I return to a place where nobody noticed the weeks or months passing until the leaves fell in fall or a Christmas tree reminded them that time hadn’t really stopped, that it was always slipping through your fingers like sand.
My thoughts were contradictory, hard to grasp, uncertain. Had I really lost my mind after just three days here?
Maybe it was something in the water, or maybe in the air, some strange substance that was changing me the same way it had changed Ridge, Adele, Sid, and even Peter.
The sound of an approaching vehicle brought me back from my reverie. A minute later, Trey was walking up the porch steps with his briefcase. He looked like a tourist in his Bermuda shorts, his T-shirt, his tennis shoes, and his sunglasses.
