I need to get out of this kitchen. Away from the smell of peanut butter that normally comforts me but is now turning my stomach. I give Devon a stiff nod and turn my back on her, the buzzing in my ears so loud that I can barely hear my heart yelling at me to fight while my mind says let her go.
Five minutes ago, everything was falling into place. And yet here I am, striding out of the house and then letting the front door shut with a bang, leaving a huge chunk of my heart shattered on my mother’s kitchen floor.
Sometimes the scars are so thick that there’s no way around. And if you press too hard, you could end up doing more harm than good.
Chapter Forty-Four
Devon
Lesson 45: Eat your meatballs before TSA.
Why does hugging Jenny and Donna goodbye feel as awful as holding on to the back of Tara’s cashmere sweater when I dropped her at JFK to fly across the world to her new home? And why the hell does the pressure of Sammy’s arms around my back—her face pressed into my chest in a way that normally would be uncomfortable—make me want to yank her through airport security and face criminal charges?
Jeff is last. And if I hadn’t sobbed through the entire night in his bed, clutching his sheets like a stalker under the watchful eye of Bayside’s most popular girl while Jeff slept downstairs on the heaven couch, so close but a world away, I’d probably break down in tears just looking at him. But I’m all dried up. Empty and brittle. One little poke could crack me open.
This hurts like a bitch. But I’d take it over the inevitability of Jeff giving up on us a year from now, when he realizes that the distance could never work. That the flights are affecting his performance as a surgeon and I’m to blame. That he barely has time with his family because of me. Or worse than all of these combined, the unthinkable could happen. Like it has before.
I meet Jeff’s gaze and put a hand on my chest to keep from splitting in two.
Jenny tugs Sammy toward an airport souvenir shop, pointing toward some sort of chocolate sculpture of Wrigley Field and Donna puts her hand over her heart then passes me a vat of meatballs before following after her daughter. I hug it to my chest like it’s a stuffed animal. There’s nothing but silence between Jeff and me, and it’s not the comfortable kind we’re used to. I keep thinking about his back when he walked away from me yesterday. The set of his shoulders. Better now than later—my new mantra to get me through this. All I have to do is remember my mother’s empty stare as I drove her to the police station from the restaurant that night—my sister sobbing silently in the back seat. Things would only hurt more down the line—with more history and memories—more to lose.
“You’ll text me when you land?” he asks. His eyes are bloodshot, and I’d almost consider taking it all back just to see him smile. To see that dimple.
“I’ll text Jenny.”
He shuts his eyes and lets out a breath.
“Right. No contact,” he says with an exhausted shake of his head.
“It’ll make it easier,” I say.
But I’m talking out of my ass. Nothing will make this easier. Not even the soft, rolling fog of too much wine. I tried that last night. Jenny kept it flowing for me, even sat beside me andrubbed my back while I drunk cried on her and ate five bars of Cracker Barrel.
“Nothing will make this easier,” he says, and I want to laugh. He’s still reading my mind even when I’m pushing him away with all my might.
“We’re doing the right thing.”
He stares at me like I’m standing on a soapbox screaming that the world is flat.
“If this is the right thing, Devon, why does it feel so damn wrong?”
I look over my shoulder at the insanely long line through security. Christmas Eve flight was a poor choice. I just need to get through those metal detectors, then I can’t turn back. And he can’t follow me without inciting the wrath of TSA.
“Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same,” I say.
“Isn’t that a poster in your classroom?”
I smile. He doesn’t.
I don’t look up at him when I put down the meatballs and rush him like a linebacker, wrapping my arms around his waist to hug him tight. I can’t not hug him goodbye. I put everything I have into that hug. Leave it all there for him to soak up and hold onto as he presses his face into my hair.
“Devon—”
Oh god, Jeff. Please don’t. I slip from his grip and hurry away. I don’t dare to look back as I dip in between the crowd, hurrying away from the soul-crushing pain like it’s stuck to that place. It’s not.
The pain shuffles beside me as I make my way around the three hundred turns of the security-check line. I cling to my meatballs. Maybe, I’ll freeze them. Keep them forever.
“Ma’am, is there liquid in that container?”
