He did not look back.
Chapter Thirty-Three
He did not look back, but he did look down—at his phone to buy a plane ticket, and then again, minutes later, at the nail in his now-flat front tire.
“Dammit,” he shouted, in a voice that echoed across the parking lot, drawing looks from a group of moms unloading Valentine’s Day decorations from a Yukon XL.
Whit’s hands were on top of his head as he turned back and forth, cursing himself for cutting through that construction zone. He already had his phone out, having called Willa to ask if she could pick up Annie after school and let her spend the night. When she’d asked why, he’d simply answered “Merritt—” and Willa had said, “Say no more.”
But now this. He dialed Merritt’s number again, thinking perhaps she’d landed by now and he could talk to her about, well,somethingrather than behaving in this reckless way. Once again his call went straight to voicemail. He checked how long it would take a Lyft to pick him up, and at the sight of “30minutes,” the electric charge that had animated him from the inception of this plan (talk to Merritt, fix things) faltered.
For the first time that morning he paused to think about what he was chasing. What did he mean byfix things?
He had to tell Merritt he’d been wrong. That was part of it. She was right about the book. The book was incredible. And she’d been right about Helen—how could she not be right? How could Helen, had she been able to read this thing he and Merritt made,want the story to go any other way, to be handed off to some stranger? This was the only way things could go, in the end, it justwas, and—
A sigh overtook Whit. He placed his hands on the car and lowered his head to the cold metal of its roof.
All of that was true, but what he was really chasing was Merritt. He had lost her, and over what? A mistake. A misguided belief. Fear and grief. Merritt had been an antidote to that fear and a reprieve from grief. She had liked him, perhaps even loved him, despite his sorry state, and she had helped him break the terrarium that housed his feelings—the good ones, the bad ones, the mourning, the joy. He wanted to be close to her all the time. He wanted to kiss her, to hold her, to sit with her at dinner while they asked Annie how her day was. He wanted Merritt in his space, to take up her space. He wanted to hold her hand.
He tapped his forehead against the car, just once, holding back the urge to cry.
“Whit? Are you all right?”
Oh no. Oh no, no, no.
Whit waited, closing his eyes as he considered his options, which, it turned out, were either speak to this person or duck into his immobilized jeep and hide like a kid behind a too-narrow tree.
He sighed.
“Hi, Noel. I’m fine.”
Noel Pendergrass chuckled. (The nerve.)
“Oh, ha-ha, Whit. You are clearlynotfine.”
Whit finally looked at the man, opening his mouth to speak but at a loss for how to explain himself. He raised his hands weakly and then gave a wild shrug.
“I’m not, no, you’re right.”
Noel nodded.
“Rowan forgot his lunch,” Noel said. “So that’s whyI’mhere...”
The man waited, his eyes magnified slightly by his hexagonalglasses. He pulled a handkerchief from the front pocket on his Patagonia vest and wiped his runny nose, but still he waited.
“Um,” Whit said. He gestured to the flat tire to stall for time.
“Ah,” Noel said. “Need help putting on the spare?”
Whit balked at the suggestion that he might not know how to change a flat, then shook his head.
“No, I can do it, I just don’t have time if I’m going to make my flight.”
A light flicked to life in Noel’s eyes, and the genuine compassion that had shaped his face curled just a fraction into something more complicated.
Noel smiled. “I could take you...”
Whit felt dread well up in him like water seeping through the sole of a worn-out boot.
