Traffic is light. I pass familiar streets, the route to Coach’s house etched into my brain from years of being pulled there for dinners, meetings and discipline talks.
I turn onto Coach’s street and my pulse spikes.
I pull up to the curb and cut the engine.
For a second, I just sit there, staring at the front door.
My hands are still shaking.
I take a deep breath.
Okay.
This is it.
This is the moment.
30
TALIA
Back at Home
Inever thought I’d come back here.
I’m in the little apartment attached to my father’s house, the one with its own narrow entrance around the back and the tiny kitchenette.
It used to feel like I was trapped here.
But now it’s become my sanctuary, and I’m more grateful for it than I’ve ever been in my life.
Dad has no idea I’m here, thank God.
But I couldn’t stay at Jake’s. The second that test showed two lines, I knew I couldn’t stay.
I know I’ll have to tell him eventually.
Of course I do. I’m not delusional.
But not before I’ve wrapped my own head around it.
Not before I’ve figured out what this means for me… for him… for us.
Us.
The word makes mythroat hurt.
I sit cross-legged on the couch with a blanket around my shoulders even though I’m not cold. My phone lies facedown on the coffee table like it bit me. I haven’t been brave enough to turn it over in the last half hour.
Or maybe it’s been an hour?
Time feels wrong tonight. Everything feels wrong.
I’m grieving already, and that’s the most humiliating part.
Nothing has technically ended.
Jake and I haven’t broken up. There hasn’t been a fight. He hasn’t looked at me with disappointment yet. He hasn’t said any of the things I’m terrified he’ll say.
