There are no windows in here, and the harsh overhead light seems to be today’s metaphor for putting a spotlight on everything we don’t want to see. An operating room isn’t where I wanted to have this conversation. I’m not ready. But then again, I doubt I’ll ever be.
My sigh is deep, almost painful, and I carefully lean against the wall. If I’m here and she’s over there, I can’t do anything I’ll regret.
“When you disappeared, it was like a part of me died.”
She opens her mouth to speak, but I hold up my hand to stop her. If I don’t say it now, I’m going to make myself sick reliving the memories.
“I was going through the most profoundly confusing and terrifying moment in my life, and I missed you so acutely that it turned to grief. And the worst part is that I still don’t know why you left.”
Bloodshot eyes twitch, and her jaw hardens. “You really don’t know?”
I shake my head.
She stares at me long enough I wonder if she’s expecting me to figure it out, but I’ve tried and gottennowhere.
“You’re not the only one who was grieving, Hen. You’re not the only one who lost a part of themselves that day.” She swipes a hand across her eyes, smearing tears into what’s left of her mascara. I want to laugh because I know that ifshe knowsshe’s done it, she’d be horrified, but all I can think about is how beautiful she looks.
Instead, I frown, confused. “What does that mean?”
Her head drops, then she throws her arms in the air, like she can’t decide whether she’s sad or mad. “It means that everything I thought I knew about our future was wrong. That I’d spent all our teenage years being hopelessly in love with you, watching you with other girls, waiting until we finally got our moment, ourtiming.And then you tell me you got a girl you’d been seeing pregnant, someone I didn’t even know about, and I knew we’d never have it.”
She’s breathless, her chest juddering as she tries to compose herself.
I’m speechless but alsonot.
It’s one thing to suspect, but quite another to be validated.
Hearing the words I’d wondered about—the confirmation of what Miles has been drilling into me for so long—jolts something inside me, and a switch flips in my brain.
Our moment, our timing. Something we’d never been able to get quite right, but I was the last to fuck up. My nails scrape along my scalp, tugging the ends of my hair.
What a fucking mess.
“Fuck.Stor?—”
“I had to get out of Valentine Nook. I had to get away from you. Was it mature? Probably not. But it’s done now.”
Done now?Just like that. An act so simple and easy to move on from.
I push away from the wall. Four heartbeats and I’m in front of her, so close she has to crane her neck to find me.
“Do you know how much I missed you? Do you have any idea the hole you left in my life? One day you were there, the next you were gone. Not even a text or a phone call. Every message I sent you went unanswered?—”
Creases mar her forehead. “What messages?—”
“Three years I wrote to you. Every day after you left, wondering where you were—” Memories of watching my phone, waiting for it to beep with a response, are so visceral that I choke out the rest of my words. “Then every week, month. It took three years of my own stubbornness before I realized you were never going to reply. That you were gone.Dead.”
“Hen . . .” she sobs, tears streaming down her face. “No.”
Anger hits me in waves at how stupid we’ve been. At how different our futures would be if we hadn’t fucked things up. “I’m never going to regret my son, Story. Do I regret the way he came into the world? Yes. Do I regret my actions around then? Also, yes. It gutted me. I was only a child when I lost my dad, and I don’t know if I truly understood what grief was back then. But when you left? It felt like the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I loved you so much, and you vanished into thin air.”
A gasp is followed by a soft hand circling my wrist. “Inever got any messages, Hendricks. Please believe me.”
“It doesn’t matter now.” I shake my head. “It’s done. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything too.”
“I’m here now.” She lifts my hand to her face, pressing my palm to her cheek. My fingers curl around her nape, and I feel her pulse hammering beneath the surface of her skin. “I’m here, Hendricks.I’m here.”
Her face is so small in my hands. I can’t remember if it was always that way or if I’ve never held her like this. She sniffs hard, tears stream faster than I can wipe them away, and then my thumb brushes across her mouth. Thatfuckingmouth.
