I hold my breath, pressing my teeth together so hard my jaw aches, but it’s the only way to keep my lip from trembling. It doesn’t, however, stop the traitorous proof of my heartache from welling in my eyes. But I don’t want David to placate me or let me down easy. I just want the truth I’ve always known, once and for all, from his own mouth. I want him to just admit that he doesn’t return my feelings. That he never has, and never will. It’s the only way I will ever be able to finally let go of him for good, and move on with my life.
But placate me, he does. He steps forward until he’s close enough to comfort me, but I shake my head, rejecting his touch as he reaches for me, and he retracts his hand. I hate his flinch at my rejection.
It doesn’t matter. David doesn’t need to make contact to touch me, not with those hazel eyes doing his dirty work.
I look away, needing an escape. “Just like you almost kissed me all those years ago, but didn’t, right?” I remind him. Now he can almost try to have a relationship, and use Sammy as the excuse.
David’s brow furrows deeply, casting shadow over his gorgeous hazel eyes.
“He’s coming for a visit this weekend, did he tell you? Maybe you can talk to him then.” It’s a sarcastic challenge I expect him to back down from.
But instead, David nods thoughtfully, and I blink at him.
My phone buzzes and I ignore it. David does the same when his chimes a moment later. But his doesn’t stop, and finally he mutters a curse and grabs it from the pocket of his jeans, discarded on the kitchen floor.
He frowns as he reads through his messages, glancing up at me in a way that makes my pulse accelerate in anxiety. My phone rings again, and this time, I answer.
Sammy has his fake-calm voice on when he tells me he needs me to come to the city for a family dinner. That my parents have to talk to us and it can’t wait, and immediately I think my father must have had a relapse.
My heart stops. What if he’s drinking again?
My mother only took him back a few years ago, and he’s been a new man since then. Well, not a new man, just the best version of himself, and no one has missed the one alcohol draws out of him.
Sammy tells me David will drive me, and by the time I look up at him, he’s already dressed with his car keys in hand, and he’s holding up my discarded clothing.
Chapter Twenty-five
Beth
Less than two hours later, I’m giving my name to the hostess at Smoked, one of my parents’ favorite steakhouses on the Upper East Side that’s not too far from my father’s law firm. David swears he’s as clueless as to what’s going on as I am, and other than the sound of Spotify’s old-school hip-hop selections, the car ride was mostly silent.
I try not to let my mind go wild with fears, old and new, as it tries to deduce what could possibly call for this emergency family dinner. But my gut swirls with dread, because one thing I know for sure is it can’t be anything good.
I think of Grandma Mimi—who hasn’t stopped popping into my thoughts since Sammy called—but I force them away yet again. I just spoke to her two days ago. She’s fine. She has to be fine.
David sucks in a sudden sharp breath, and it draws my attention to my grasp on his hand—to how hard I’m squeezing it—and I hastily let go without meeting his eyes. But now, with nothing to hold on to, to help take some of this anxious energy off my hands—figuratively and literally—it flows back through me in reverse, running through my veins like a dangerous current.
We hand over our coats to be checked, but I hang on to my scarf, as if it can protect me from whatever it is I’m about to walk into—like it can hide me from whatever I’m about to learn.
David lingers uncomfortably behind me, even as we’re led to the back of the dining room, down a familiar narrow hallway, and into the semi-private dining area.
There are only five tables back here, and only one of them is occupied.
My father sees me first. “Bitsy girl,” he greets warmly, but uncertainly, and his gaze gets caught on David behind me before my parents exchange an uneasy glance. It unsettles my stomach.
“Come on, sit down,” Sammy says before standing to give me a kiss on the cheek, lifting his chin to greet David.
“Where’s Rory?” I ask him.
“Class,” he says dismissively.
The tension in the room is thick and suffocating, and I find myself unwinding the scarf from my neck, as if it will help me breathe more easily. It doesn’t.
“Maybe Dave should wait somewhere else? Or perhaps you have a friend you could visit nearby?” My father addresses David directly, more unsure than I’ve ever seen the man—a renowned, world-class attorney who can command an entire courtroom and hold nationally-aired press conferences.
Still, my jaw drops at his suggestion. “Wait somewhere else?” I ask, indignant on David’s behalf. “What is he? My chauffeur?” Sammy didn’t know David and I were even together when he asked him to drop everything and drive me the sixty miles into Manhattan. I could have easily taken the train.
But, of course, to them, I’m still the fragile little girl with the too-big feelings who did that one, awful, crazy thing three years ago, and, in their eyes, I’m not sure I will ever be anything else. I can’t help but peek back at David, wondering for the first time since I confessed my suicide attempt to him mere hours ago, if I was wrong, after all—if it did make him see me as weak. Because no matter how far forward I move, or how great my strides, to my parents and Sammy it’s all overshadowed by that one summer night I can’t take back—that I don’t want to take back, not now that I’m stronger for it.
