You said it yourself, Greer. You’re the tough one. You always have been.
A fat tear splashes onto the tabletop in front of me. “Alex,” I say, speaking over him, stopping him from finishing what I know is coming after theI’mhe’s started with. Another tear, this one hitting the knuckles of the hand I have raised to my face. Everyone will see, I’m sure. Everyone will wonder what’swrong with me.
You’re the tough one,I hear Zoe say. I hearmyselfsay.
I take a deep breath. I tell him the hardest thing. Thetoughest thing.
“I miss you.” My voice cracks at the end, but I keep going. “I shouldn’t have sent you away. I’m hurting, and—” I break off, sucking in the gulp of air I need for the sob I can’t stop. The man at the table closest to me shifts uncomfortably in his seat, pulls headphones from his pockets.You’re so weak,I think, but what’s funny is—for once, I realize I’m not thinking it to myself. I watch the man stuff the earbuds in, watch him hunch forward in his seat. He’d move tables if it weren’t so obvious, I’m sure.It’s only a few tears.“I can’t believe I sent you away. I’m so sorry Isent you away.”
“Don’t—”
I cut him off again, before the crying gets so I can’t say anything at all. “I know you’re gone. You’re probably a million miles away, and that’s okay. That’s your job, and I don’t ever want to get in the way of your job. ButI wondered if—”
“I’m not a million miles away.”
“Okay, I know that it’s an exaggeration, but—”
“I’m at a hotel out by the airport. Byyour airport.”
“You—what?” I should be crying less, but I’m pretty sure I’m cryingmorenow. The barista just gave athis is awkwardlook to the guy withthe headphones.
“I just ate a bowl of dry cereal and I’m on my third straight episode ofBarefoot Contessa. She’s making an anniversary cake for Jeffrey. Guess whatshe’s wearing.”
“Is—” Something like a laugh emerges. Sort of a phlegmy snort. “Is ita blue shirt?”
“Got it in one.”
The barista comes over and sets a stack of napkins on the table and gives me a slightly quelling look. I blot my face, which is wet enough that I’m reasonably sure a piece of the cheap brown paper has torn off and is sticking to my cheek, like how my dad used to come to breakfast after shaving, a red circle of blood gluing toilet paper to his chin.
“Greer,” Alex says quietly, so quietly that I almost don’t hear him through my sniffling. “I didn’t want to be so far from you. I tried to go, but I didn’t make it very far. I wanted to make sure you were okay. I know you don’t need—”
“I love you.” There’s a sort of—wet hiccup after that. I am the least invisible person in this café right now. I’m pretty sure there’s someone watching from the street, actually. If I weren’t so busy blotting I’d wave at her, a small social gesture of the hysteria that’s taken over. I take a shaky breath, the deepest one I can manage, and say it again. “I love you. I don’t need you, but I want you, and that’s—that’s even better. For me, that’s—that’s the best thing.”
As soon as I’ve said it, I feel something loosen inside of my body—this body that I know so well, that I’ve been doing inventory on every day of my adult life, every hour of it—sometimes, during the worst times, everyminute. I go still in my seat; I make myself a statue, and now I must look even stranger to everyone around me. But I’m searching for the source of that loosening. I’m scanning myself from top to bottom. My neck and shoulders where I always hold so much tension, where I’ve been extra sore since the accident? My lower back, which ached enough two nights ago that I’d slept on my stomach, a hot water bottle—a poor substitute for Alex’s big, warm hand—resting there, my pillow wet with tears? The space behind my right eye, where a migraine willusually start?
But no.
It’s none of that—it’s the same body, the same one I’ll always have. The same one that’s betrayed me and bolstered me in a thousand tiny ways. This loosening is different.
This is head, heart, gut. This is my soul.
There’s a rustle on the end of the phone, bedsheets or clothes or I don’t know what. “Where are you?”
I wipe my face again. Excellent decision, not bothering with makeup, or else this would be a real sad clown situation. “I’m at Boneshaker’s.”Where I’ve made things very uncomfortable for everyone. “But I should probably—”
“Stay where you are. I’ll come to you.”
He hangs up, and for a second I only sit there, the phone pressed to my ear and another cheap napkin pressed to my face.
Then I set my head down on the table and let out a laughing, sighingsob of relief.
And I don’t care who sees or hears me.
Chapter 20
Alex
It’s the longest car ride of my life.
