Because I'm not sure I can handle whatever explanation he's going to offer.
I lower my hand and walk back to my studio.
My phone is still in my hand, the bid amount still glowing on the screen.
The number feels personal somehow, like it was calculated specifically to crush any hope I might have had.
Which is ridiculous—O'MalleyMart doesn't care about my hope. They care about acquiring property efficiently and eliminating complications.
I'm just collateral damage.
I sink into my chair and stare at my illustrations without really seeing them.
I need to talk to someone who isn't Seamus, someone who won't give me careful explanations filled with corporate speak.
I pull up Luna's contact, but before I can call, I see I already have a message from her.
Saw the O'MalleyMart bid. I'm so sorry, Rosie. Want me to come over?
I can't face Luna right now. Can't handle her sympathy or her I-told-you-so's or her well-meaning suggestions that I should leave before this gets worse.
Instead, I open my laptop and pull up my email. There's a message from Shay waiting, sent late last night in response to something I wrote about feeling trapped. I click it open like a lifeline.
Dear Anna,
I've been thinking about what you said—about being married to someone who won't let you in. I understand that more than you know. I'm realizing that I've been doing the same thing to someone I care about. Keeping them at a distance because I'm afraid of what happens if they see all of me. The damaged parts. The parts that are still carrying wounds from before.
But here's what I'm learning: distance doesn't actually protect you. It just makes you lonely.
And eventually, the person you're keeping at a distance stops trying.
When you told me about playing chess with your husband in the park, I kept thinking about how hard you were trying.
Maybe he was trying too. Maybe you just couldn't see it.
I don't have advice. I'm struggling with this just as much as you are.
I wish I knew how to be this honest with everyone. How to be Shay in my real life instead of just in these emails.
Does that make sense?
- Shay
I read it twice, and something warm loosens in my chest despite everything else.
This is what real connection feels like.
Not the managed version of love I’ve been living in.
Dear Shay,I type, letting the words flow without editing.
Something happened today that's making me question everything.
My husband's company just made a move that destroys something I've been fighting for.
And the worst part is, he had to have known this was coming.
He sat across from me at breakfast and at picnics in the park, and never said a word.
