“Yeah. He looked… kind of like a little boy himself. I think he wanted to be there with us. I think he wanted to sit beside my mom and cheer us on but didn’t know how.”
I’d never told that story before. I think I worried I’d imagined it. And maybe I did. Maybe it was a hopeful, fabricated memory. Maybe I’d just wanted him to believe in me the way Mom had. But even if the memory wasn’t real, it existed now, outside of me. Winona had heard it, and that made it real enough for me.
CHAPTER 30
Other Assholes
WINONA
The next morning, I woke up the way you sometimes do with an absence of memory, when you think this will be a normal day like any other.
Then it hit me. I didn’t talk much about home with anyone—it was too painful. And I never talked about Adam. I didn’t want his existence known, not only because it was hard, but because I didn’t want to expend another ounce of my thoughts on him. He didn’t deserve that.
Mitchell seemed to have understood. He didn’t try to shush me, he didn’t try to get me to move on. He didn’t even try to get me to stay after that, even though we hadn’t even addressed his needs.
I told Mitchell everything. Everything, right down to the blame I hadn’t admitted I still felt for the way Mama passed.
He held me tight, and as he was falling asleep, promised he’d cook me breakfast in the morning, and attempt a coffee on that elaborate machine.
I’d laughed and fallen asleep nestled in his arms.
But talking about Adam had riled me. It had shifted what had been a terrifying experience from start to finish into afurious memory. How had he made me spend all those years running scared?
That morning, I left Mitchell sleeping, slipping out of his house in the wee hours, calling for a cab as I walked down the drive. It was only when I got in that I texted Mitchell. Told him I had to go and I’d see him later.
He’d hearted the text. But that was all. I knew it was unfair of me to leave like that, but maybe we needed to start pulling off the bandage and preparing for goodbye.
It was with a confusing swirl of emotions that I arrived at the Rolling Hills job site that morning. And it wasn’t until I was accosted by Cher and Sarah the moment I walked into Sarah’s office that I began to actually relax.
“Well, well, well,” Cher said. “Look who decided to leave Horndog Island.”
“I’m not sharing details,” I said after both of them stopped squealing with laughter. I’d told them all week I wasn’t going to talk. But I guess there was a limit to Cher’s restraint. “I thought you were being a little too good at respecting my boundaries,” I said.
“We were just saving up our questions for this meeting,” Sarah said. “Sorry, did I tell you we took all the work stuff off the agenda? This is all about you and Mitchell Harrington, Winona.”
Cher had taken Sarah over to the dark side.
Cher put up her hands. “I don’t want any details. I’m just proud of you for doing it. My friend Winona—torrid affair-haver.”
“Iwant details though?” Sarah said, her chin in her hands.
I couldn’t help smiling as I thought of all the details they’d never get. I just called it ‘the best sex of my life.’ Which was a woefully inadequate way to describe what Mitchell and I had been through together. I did tell Sarah about the house. But the moment my words ‘library’ left my lips, my stomachtwisted as the strange mix of feelings came back with a wallop.
I suddenly didn’t feel as buoyant as a moment before. A happily-ever-after wasn’t what I was getting with Mitchell, I knew that going in. Still, I’d poured my soul into him. The sudden reminder of my continued inability to separate church and state sat like a lump on my chest. Right next to the brick I’d set there when I’d left him with an empty space next to him this morning.
“How much longer do you have?” Sarah asked, as if reading my mind, her voice softer now.
“Tomorrow night’s his last night here,” I said.
He told me he’d come back. The weekend after he left, if he could manage it. “Every time I can,” he’d said, but I’d seen the truth in his eyes. He couldn’t guarantee any of that. He didn’t know what his life looked like. “But I want you in it,” he’d told me. “I need you in it, Winona.”
Sarah gave me a look of sympathy, but Cher clapped her hands. “It’s perfect. Right? No complications.”
If only she knew how different this was. I’d tell her, after Mitchell left. But until then, I was keeping what we had pressed in my chest, for me alone. Yet even as I sat there, green eyes flashed before me. Rough hands, so gentle on mine. My skin tingled with the memory of his touch, my ears filling with a low, rough voice.You’re so fucking beautiful, Winona.AndI won’t let you blame yourself.
It was the cruelest trick life ever played, giving me my Prince Charming, only to make him temporary. And I’d been played by life before.
“I once dated this person I knew was shit for me,” Cher was saying. “And when we ended it, I kept going back. It wassounhealthy. I?—”
