He finds me gathered in a ball and frowns.
“I’m s-s-sorry,” I manage to say in a shuttered exhale. “I—” There’s not enough air to speak and my eyes sting.
Carter crouches in front of me and wordlessly wraps his palm gently around my wrist and plants my palm on his chest.
“Count to five in,” he inhales deeply, warm fingers still anchoring me to him. “And five out,” he says firmly after a long exhale.
Tears fill my vision and it’s impossible to keep the panic at bay.
“Eliza, just breathe with me. Let’s do it together.”
My name on his lips helps me focus on what he’s asking me to do. Breathing. I should be able to do that, right? I take a deep breath in to check.
“Good girl,” he says, and I heat up under his praise. “Now let it out slowly.”
Breathing in sync slowly grounds me. When my heartbeat slows to a steady thump and the fog drowning my mind lifts, I’m hit with the awareness of how close we are, my fingers clutching his crisp shirt.
“Better?”
“Yeah,” I rasp out. “Thank you.”
Carter must register the closeness too because he quickly springs up. “I’ll give you a minute. Come have some water when you’re ready,” he says evenly before leaving me in a room that smells like him.
I almost don’t want to leave.
Carter went for a jog this morning and skipped breakfast. It’s the first time since he got here, and you don’t have to be a genius to know he’s avoiding me. Of course this mess is unpleasant for him.
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do either. The comfortable life I thought I had is gone. I’m in unknown territory.
I’m so lost in my thoughts the loud knock paralyzes me. Has Jared returned to yell some sense into me? I’m alone and scared of what he might say, or even worse, what I might do.
A big surprise is swaying on the balls of her feet on my porch with a coffee cup in one hand and a paper bag in the other.
“Hi! I know we’ve never hung out outside the coffee shop but the whole town is talking about you, and I was worried. Is that alright?” She rushes the words out.
Quinn owns and runs my favorite coffee shop. She’s a cute blonde with no filter. We started chatting a couple of years ago when I went in for my sadness-relief—her perfectly thickened hot chocolate. It became my way of decompressing before heading back home.
“I found out from the town’s gossip mill where you live now. I come in peace with caramel coffee and cake.” She grins at me, shaking the bag again, and I snap out of my shock.
“You’re so sweet, you didn’t have to.”
“I know,” she says simply. “You going to letme in or what?”
Quinn makes herself comfortable on the couch and I take her lead. That ugly suspicion is showing its head again. Is she here to dig for gossip?
“I had a feeling something was wrong when you didn’t pick up your coffees on two Fridays in a row.”
It had become such a regular thing for me to bring coffees to the office that Quinn would have them ready so I wouldn’t be late for work. Now that I think about it, the girls never thanked me or offered to get it once in a while.
“I’ll be getting coffee for one, for the foreseeable future.” I wait for her to ask about the juicy details. To confirm the wild stories in the aftermath of the night at the bar. That the people living in quiet Silver Lake Falls are having a field day with this. But Quinn surprises me.
“Can I be honest?”
“Of—”
“It’s better this way,” she prattles on. “I noticed some things that really bothered me when you came in.” Quinn leans forward. “If you had an argument with him, those airheads never defended you. They sided with him.” She uses her fingers to keep score of their offenses. “If he made fun of you, they laughed like a bunch of hyenas.” Finally, she looks me dead in the eyes and with a straight face says, “And the dude was not funny.”
I blink slowly. Martha was the only other friend who disapproved of Jared, but at least she voiced her opinion loud and clear like a foghorn.
