Her glare is oddly refreshing. “I wasn’t going to do either of those things. Hyperventilate? Maybe. Start going to church to repent my sins and ask for forgiveness? Perhaps.”
I huff out a laugh. “And now?”
She’s staring at the menu on the table between us, reading the words upside down. “I don’t know,” she admits, lifting a shoulder. “You asked why I didn’t stop you. Why I didn’t tell you to stop. And the truth is…”
Winter pauses, her words fading before she closes her eyes. “The truth is, I don’t know why I allowed that to happen. I don’t know why I let myself enjoy something that I knew was wrong. The only explanation I can come up with is that I’m lonely. And I needed…something to make me forget that I’m sad for once. And to answer your other question, yes.”
My eyes scan her face. “Yes, what?”
“Yes, I’m mad at myself,” she confesses, her throat bobbing as she moves her eyes away from me once more. “But I’m always mad at myself, so what’s new?”
I watch her for the longest time before accepting her answer for what it is. Because I know exactly where she’s coming from, which is why Emaly brought her to me.
So we both can be a little less lonely together.
So we can both take a break from hating ourselves, even if it’s a temporary fix.
We are two halves of a broken whole, with a crack down the middle that nobody may be able to repair.
But what a journey to try.
“You’re too young to be this mad at yourself,” I tell her delicately. How did she get here at twenty-five?
Her eyes trail over my face for a moment as if she’s looking for something specific. “I could say the same about you.”
“I’m thirty-five,” I point out. “Not exactly the poster child for the fountain of youth. I have plenty of reasons to be mad at the world. It’s no way to live.”
Her eyes go down to her drink. “Anger doesn’t have an age limit. Neither does grief.”
Grief.
She lost someone, but who?
I want to ask, but I know she won’t tell me.
So, I pop a straw into my soda, take a long sip, and say, “I’m thinking about adopting a dog.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Winter
Ishould haveknown Monday was cursed the second I got into my car and heard a new noise under the hood. My typical reaction is to turn up the radio so I can drown out the sound. Unfortunately, my radio stopped working too.
When I got to work, there were no parking spaces anywhere near the front entrance. Which meant walking in the pouring rain without a rain jacket or umbrella because I’m dumb and left mine at home. By the time I made it to my cubicle, I looked like a drowned rat undergoing cosmetic testing. Because yes, I choose to believe testing makeup on animals involves putting the actual product on cute little mice until they’re dolled up to the nines with false lashes and rouge. It makes me happier than accepting the alternative that usually involves—
Nope.I will not think about it.
It isn’t until I’m sitting down after attempting to dry myself off and fix my running mascara that things get extra sucky.
“What is wrong with you?” Farrah asks, standing with her hands on her hips.
It’s not even nine in the morning, so I have no energy to have a conversation like this. Because there’s a lot wrong with me.
For instance, I haven’t done laundry in a week and a half and ran out of clean underwear. And instead of simply throwing a load in like a logical person would, I opted to go commando today.
Or maybe she’s referring to the fact that I didn’t tip the woman at Starbucks this morning. I felt bad about it, but all she did was take a croissant out of the display case and put it in a to-go bag. I’m pretty sure it was an old pastry anyway, because they gave it to me for a discount.
She could be referencing my unethical behavior over the weekend, which had me anxious from the moment Moskins dropped me off in front of my apartment. I think he wanted to come inside, but I wasnotabout to let that happen. What we’d done was bad enough. My limbs are still weak from the intense orgasm I had just from rubbing on his leg.
