I made an aggrieved scoffing noise before bursting into laughter. Only Hudson and I could joke so darkly about our deepest wounds. I would’ve flown home with him like he’d begged me to in a heartbeat if I hadn’t been so strapped for cash.
“Go on…” I said.
“You of all people know what it’s like to hate where you come from,” he said. “Believe me when I say it pains me to stick up for a straight man, but it sounds like Wes kept his family from you because he’s estranged from them, and for good reason. Just like you. And I can’t blame him for not wanting you to associatehimwith his dickhead family who is accelerating the destruction of our society’s entire sociocultural, economic, and environmental fabric.”
All the humor drained from my face.
“Maybe I’m off base. Maybe I was right about him from the start, and he has me fooled too. But if there’s even a small part of you open to hearing what he has to say, I think you should. I don’t know, Nova. I hate seeing you suffer like this, and something about it all just hasn’t sat right with me. I don’t want you going back to the cult, or to Lorelei after how she treated you—though I know you still care about her deep down too. But people can’t help who their parents are, and Wes seems to have done a lot of work building himself into something completely different.Just like you.”
I shook my head. “It’s not the same.Wearen’t the same,” I said. “He hasn’t even tried to reach out to me.”
“Didn’t you tell him to never contact you again?”
“Well, yeah, but what man ever listens to an angry woman when she says shit like that!”
“Wes,” Hudson said softly. “Wes does.”
45
WES
I’d wanted to message or call Nova every day for the past seven weeks. No amount of building furniture for neighbors in crisis or meetings or talks with my sponsor or time with friends at Third House or music shows or books or anything else I could busy myself with could rid me of that urge.
But I rode it out, every single time, to protect her. From Roman and from myself.
It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and I arrived to Third House’s Friendsgiving with a homemade pumpkin lasagna and apple pie.
Half-way through cooking, I’d had to turn off my record player and cook in silence, because any music reminded me of her, and I was already a fucking wreck as it was. I caught myself staring at the empty barstools with levels of yearning and self-hatred that concerned me.
Ruby and Sienna greeted me with big smiles that were quick to fall.
“Oh, Wes,” Ruby said, quickly pulling me into a hug as Sienna gingerly took the pie and lasagna to place on a nearbytable. The other three baristas, Ralph, Jenni, and Camellia, joined the huddle.
“She should be here,” I said softly, my voice on the verge of cracking. “She should fucking be here. But she can’t be, so she’s going to spend the holiday alone instead.”
“I’m so sorry. I wish she was here too,” Ruby said.
“Come on, let me give you a reading,” Sienna offered. “Everyone else won’t start arriving for at least another hour.”
“No, let me help you all set up?—”
“You’ve done enough for us, Wes,” Ruby said. “Sit down.”
I smiled sadly, unable to say no to her. The café had gone through a rough patch its third year in business, and I’d helped out. I couldn’t let something this special die and allow another build-your-own salad bowl chain to be erected in its place.
I sat with Sienna at a small table while the others busied themselves creating a mega table by pushing the other tables together, along with continuing to prep food in the back.Starsby Nina Simone played softly through the speakers. A slight drizzle fell outside the shop windows, and the various mismatched lamps inside were warm and dim.
Third House was a holy space, a sanctuary, a magical hub. I’d watched people stumble inside the shop on a random weekday, perplexed and dazed, as if they had no idea why or how they’d been led here. But everyone found Third House for a reason, even if that reason was simplycommunity, the most basic human need of all.
Sienna placed a cloth on the table and a collection of crystals in a grid before she gave her tarot deck three knocks. “Before I draw cards, I need to ask you this again, and I promise it will be the last time.”
“Go ahead,” I said with a sigh, knowing what was coming.
“Are you sure you can’t just talk to her, Wes?”
I paused. I thought of Roman’s bloody, psychopathic smile. I thought of the day I found Kallie in her apartment, lifeless.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I said. “I wish things were different, but they aren’t. I have to accept life on life’s terms.”
