“He’ll come around.” She offers me an unconvinced smile. “How about you call me over the break so we can get your housing sorted?”
“Actually, I—thank you, Syd. Really. It means a lot that you were willing to help, but I’m applying for a three-person shared dorm room with two of my friends. It should be more affordable, so I won’t need to take you up on your offer.”
“Oh, sweetie, I’m so glad you’ve found some girls to room with you, but I’d still like to—”
“No.” It comes out firmer than I mean for it to, but in the case of Sydney, that’s probably for the best. “I… it’s important to me that I do this on my own.”
She studies me for a moment, and I can practically see the opinions forming in her head. “I told Julian to make sure you get home okay.”
“Thank you.” I have the distinct feeling that I am being dismissed, though she probably thinks of it as being relieved.
I take my bag from where I left it on the counter next to the sink and turn back to Bennett. There is so much I need to say, but he is asleep, and needing to say something isn’t the same as knowing how to say it.
“You’ll tell him I said bye?”
She pulls me to her for a hug and a kiss on the head. “Of course, Clo. Go get some sleep.”
Bennett is still wedged against the bed rail, maintaining the space I left empty. “Okay.”
When I step out into the hallway, I stand there for a moment, my back pressed against the wall, trying to find the courage to walk back in there so that I will be the first thing he sees when he wakes up.
But Sydney is here now. He doesn’t need me, especially when he might not even remember me being here in the first place.
CHAPTER 35
Bennett
Today is my fifth day home and my only visitor has been Julian on Monday when he dropped my car off along with a half-eaten Edible Arrangement.
He plopped down on the guest room bed. (I hadn’t wanted to go back to the guesthouse. I couldn’t see it and not think of her.)
“I got hungry,” he said with a shrug.
In exchange for eating half of my get-well Edible Arrangement, I grilled him over and over again about what Clover seemed like after she left my room.
When I woke up, she was gone from my bed and the lights in the room were low, the TV still on as my mother dozed in the chair beside me. For a moment, I thought I’d dreamed up the whole thing, but when I finally charged my phone I saw her texts.
CLO
hope you’re feeling better.
CLO
I gave your stuff to Julian, but I still have our rings.
I didn’t want to tell her I would come get them from her. It felt too much like admitting defeat, so I told her thank you and decided to follow her lead. In response, I got radio silence.
On Thanksgiving, it’s just Mom and me. Despite being in the same house for the last week, my mother and I have managed to give each other a wide berth, but today—one of the few days that Sydney Graves actually cooks—that is less possible.
There was a time when this holiday always meant me, Clover, Beth, Mom, and Grandpa Dean eating in sweatpants and nibbling on these little frozen quiches Beth bought every year that I loved. We ate cranberry sauce from a can and bought pumpkin pies from the grocery store. It always felt like the most normal day of the year. But now with just the two of us, it almost feels lonelier to observe the holiday at all.
My mother seems to feel the same way because she picked up a rotisserie chicken for us to share and is making two baked potatoes and green beans in addition to a pistachio dessert salad that Beth used to make and a small pumpkin pie. And all the other hallmarks of the holiday without it feeling like too much for only two place settings.
“I had hoped Clover might join us,” she says as I pass through the kitchen. “Maybe even Beth.”
I grip the edge of the countertop until my knuckles turn white to stop myself from saying something truly shitty.
She turns off the faucet and glances back at me. “Did you hear me?”
