“There it is.” Adrian grins, going back to wrapping glasses in newspaper like he just won something. “Knew you had it in you.”
“How’s Mom?” I ask Marcus over the phone, leaning against the wall just outside the staff locker room. I’d clocked out at three after a long shift, still in my scrubs, the faint smell of antiseptic clinging to the fabric. The hallway is quiet now, the afternoonrounds mostly wrapped up, a few patients shuffling past with their IV poles.
“She’s better this week. The last round is rough, but she’s responding. When you see her, she'll insist she's fine. I wouldn't put too much weight on that.”
He pauses, then says what I think he really wants to say. “I’m glad you’re coming home, Lance. I truly am.” His voice warms the way it always does when he thinks things are going his way. “People tend to re-establish themselves more quickly than they expect. You already have a support system. You're not walking into unfamiliar ground.”
“Sure,” I say, though the word comes out thin.
“I'm saying the comparison isn't entirely fair. You're not returning to an empty life. It's not like San Diego, where you built everything from scratch with—” He stops, but not quite fast enough.
Everything inside me goes still.
“With what, Marcus?” I say, letting the edge show.
“Lance.”
“No, please. Finish the sentence, Marcus.”
He takes a moment before he answers. “I'm saying your circumstances here are materially different. You'll be surrounded by people who've known you your entire life.”
I let out a short breath.
“What you’re really saying is that everything I built in San Diego will just disappear,” I say, the words tasting hollow. “I’ll come back there, settle back in, and before long George will just become some story I tell people about those few years I spent on the coast, like he was a fun little detour.”
Marcus doesn’t answer right away. The silence stretches, like he’s waiting for me to back down or make a joke so he can pretend this conversation never happened.
I don’t. I keep going before he can twist it into something smaller.
“You think eventually all this just…” I gesture helplessly around the empty apartment even though he can’t see it. “Fades out. That George turns into some meaningful chapter of my twenties I look back on fondly while I’m dating someone ‘acceptable’ at family dinners.”
“Lance—”
“He’s not some fucking phase I can just grow out of.”
The words come out harsher than I mean them to, but once they’re out, I can’t stuff them back in.
“I’ve never suggested otherwise.”
“Then explain to me why acknowledging that doesn’t change the outcome.” I tighten my grip on the phone until my knuckles ache.
A long pause fills the line.
“You’re right,” Marcus finally says. “That was an unfair inference. I shouldn't have invited it.”
I say nothing, just hold the anger, the loss, and the frustration inside me without letting any of it spill over.
We hang up after a while. I stare at the scuffed linoleum floor for a long moment, the distant beep of monitors and low chatter of the nurses’ station filtering in. The apartment is the last place I want to be in right now—too empty, too full of packed boxes and memories I’m not ready to face.
I push off the wall, grab my keys from my locker, and head out to the parking lot. The late afternoon sun hits me as I step outside. I get in the car without a second thought and drive up to the ridge, our spot for the last eight years.
George used to call it the best thinking spot in the county. I’m not here to think. I’m here because I need a place where the hurt can actually get to me instead of bouncing off all the denial I’ve been stacking up.
I park the car and step out, then lean back against the hood. The sky hangs low and gray, heavy with rain that hasn’t started yet. Wind rolls up from the valley and cuts straight through my jacket. I should’ve grabbed something warmer, but I didn’t think that far ahead. I cross my arms tight over my chest and let the cold bite.
I look out over the city and let my brain wander wherever it wants. San Diego stretches below me, lights scattered across the hills and the bay, endless and indifferent. Traffic hums somewhere below, mixed with the distant clatter from the harbor.
I think about Mom, and the guilt creeps back in. Maybe if I’d been there more, things wouldn’t have gotten this far before someone noticed. Maybe I could’ve done something sooner, like with Aunt Matilda. The thought turns my stomach. I’m supposed to be there with her, not sitting up here realizing all of this too fucking late.
