CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Sam
The sound of a car in the driveway shouldn’t send my heart rate spiking. But it does.
I move through my sun salutation again, breathing steadily and channeling the calm I usually feel when practicing yoga. I need the physical reminder that Andrew is in my past and I am living here and now.
I’m not getting dragged back into an awful marriage. I’m not even being sent back to LA. I’m simply being forced to experience feelings about those things and I’ve really enjoyed not physically burning myself into exhaustion with work and mentally wishing something would change. I made the change. Iamchanging. And clearly, a major part of me wishes I could change the things that got me here.
My current mood isn’t helped by the fact that when I checked my e-mail, I had nothing but spam and promotionssave one short, brutal email from my mom. It shouldn’t have gutted me, but as anything from her tends to, it did.
I don’t know why you’re acting like a child, but this is a man. If he makes a mistake here and there, you live with it. Running away is beneath you—or should be.
A mistake? Does she really believe him wrapping his hands around my neck a year ago was a mistake?
It was why we divorced, and because of the police report, he’d had no ability to contest. But even with that, he managed to financially gut me. And he made sure I had a steady stream of expenses to deal with as I planned my exit from his life entirely.
My mother knew much of this, and many of the small concerns and bright red flags waving before he finally put his hands on me.
That she would suggest his violence, not to mention over a year of emotional abuse, was simply a mistake?
Sometimes, it makes me sad, but today, my fear is morphing into anger, and it’s palpable. It’s in the grind of my molars and the tension in my chest. It’s in the harsh breaths I can’t seem to fully smooth out as I flow from post to pose.
The sound of boots on the stairs knocks me back into the moment and summons the shreds of logic and sociability I have left. I used to be a person who liked being around people. And though I thought I wanted to keep to myself—I’d planned to—I’ve loved making friends and stepping back into having a social life. That space I’ve been giving myself with this change and this low-stress job and keeping my expenses basic so my financial worries aren’t in the front of my mind has in fact allowed me to recognize I want more than survival and quiet.
But right now, I’m missing the hermit life I lived in LA—work, home, work, home, and so on.
“Sam.”
My eyes open and my pulse ticks up. For some reason, I thought maybe May, or even Finn would be here.
“Sam, it’s Grant. Please open the door.”
I scramble to my feet and approach. “Why didn’t you knock downstairs?”
There’s no reason for me to ask this question, but I’m jarred by him being so close. I didn’t have time to compose myself before I jogged downstairs to answer him there. Instead, he’sright here.And today, it feels unmanageably close and confusingly welcome.
“I talked to Finn.”
My heart sinks, though I’m not completely shocked. “Oh.” But it’s hardly a whisper, and there’s no way he heard me.
“Please open the door and let me talk to you. Please.”
His tone is soft and pleading, and I’m a mess of emotions only snowballing into something more out of control. I yank open the door, heedless of the reality that I don’t look at all composed enough to see this gorgeous human, and start talking.
“You talked to Finn? So that means he talked to you, which I specifically asked him not to do?” I stomp away from the door and stand in the kitchen, hands braced on the island. I have gone from searching for calm in all the wrong poses to a white-hot anger I definitely don’t have a leash on, and this man’s slow approach does nothing to quell it.
He very calmly shuts the door behind himself, then saunters over to where I stand.
Fine, it may not be a saunter, but right now, I’m not sure I’ve met a human male who is actually decent, and Finn hasjust proved that one more seemingly okay guy can’t keep his mouth shut for even a full day.
“What did he say?” I cross my arms, frustration absolutely radiating out of me.
Somewhere deep down, I know it’s misplaced. Grant has done exactly nothing to wrong me, and Finn didn’t actually promise me he’d keep quiet. Even so, I’m too far down the path of overwhelming emotions, and this man just shoved his way into a problem that is quite definitivelynot his.
“He mentioned the phone call. Said you seemed upset and suggested I talk to you.”
His face is dusted with stubble, and he looks even more dark and severe than he did the first few times we talked. If I hadn’t seen him laughing and playing with his little girls, I might think he was some shadowy crime boss.
