“And then I landed back in the States and my phone blew up,” I say. “Calls. Texts. Voicemails. He’d been trying to reach me for hours.” I swallow. “His mother had a heart attack. Everything happened fast. Hospital. Decisions. Fear.”
Timantha exhales. “Damn.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I feel like an ass. A worried ass. But still.”
“You can’t beat yourself up for that,” Timantha says. “That’s a normal human response. When your norm gets disrupted, your brain panics. It scrambles to fill the gap. It looks for a reason. A purpose. An exit, even.”
I shake my head. “That’s the part I don’t get. I could understand if this had been months. But it was a week. How do you even build a norm in that short amount of time?”
“The heart—”
“Bitch,” I cut in. “If you say some corny-ass nonsense likethe heart wants what the heart wants, I swear—”
She bursts out laughing. “I didn’t know what else to say!” She wipes under her eye. “But Ididtell you, once you joined the book club, everything you thought you wanted would be called intoquestion. And everything you actually need would just…show up. You just have to decide which one you’re going to choose.”
Decide. What’s there to decide? I’m here. He’s there, with the people who actually need him right now.
I understand his need to be where he is. I respect his dedication to even his personal peace. I just hate that I can’t be there with him. I hate that I didn’t give him a chance to lean on me, to let me carry some of the weight. That I left before I had the opportunity to share his burden because I was afraid of saying three insane little words out loud.
I need you.
And that’s when the thought hits me.
What if I go back?
Timantha shifts gears. “What about the pitch?”
“Apparently Drake and Lara stepped in,” I say. “From what I hear, they were amazing.”
“Of course they were,” she says, half-smiling. Then she looks back at me. “Do you regret any of it? Your time with Eli?”
The answer comes immediately. “No.”
Not even a flicker of doubt.
“It was exactly what it was supposed to be,” I say. “And also, so much more.” I pause, letting that land. “Both things can be true.”
Timantha reaches over and squeezes my hand. “I’m glad you know that.”
As I get ready to head back to my apartment, unpack, still smelling faintly like Canada, my chest tightens. The silence hits harder than I expect. Because despite logic, timing, and common sense, my traitor-ass heart wants what it wants.
And right now, all it wants is Eli.
I’ve Got Your Big Ass Feelings
Eli
The machines are the first thing I notice. The rhythmic beeps. The soft whir of something helping her breathe. Tubes running where they shouldn’t be, wires taped to skin that’s always been warm and alive and stubborn as hell.
My mom is asleep, but she’s never looked like this.
Smaller. Frailer. As if someone turned the volume down on her without asking.
It’s Sunday, and I shoot Drake a quick text to check on the pitch. Everything unraveled so fast that it almost slipped my mind entirely.
Me:How is everything going? You good?
I’ve been messaging him on and off all day, and the asshole has been ignoring me. I get he wants me focused on family, wants me to take care of myself but we poured too much into that pitch for me to sit calmly on the sidelines while everything hangs in the balance.
