Page 113 of Solo

He tries to sit next to me, pushing me up against the bedrail.

“Move. Over.”

“Go to hell.”

And then he’s shoehorning himself into the small hospital bed.

“Get out!” I object, wheezing with the effort. “No, I don’t want you here!”

But he doesn’t listen. He nudges me to the right, situates himself to the left on his back and pulls me against him until my head is nestled in the crook of his arm, my casted arm draped over his chest. I’m enraged and I push at him, trying to force him out, but he is as immoveable as a mountain.

“Drew, I don’t want you here!”

“It’s okay, Katherine,” he says in a soothing tone. But it doesn’t soothe. It enrages me.

“Get the fuck out!” I say louder. He just holds me tighter.

“You’re going to be okay,” he says in that same manner that makes me want to strangle him.

“No!” I shriek, if you can call a loud, hoarse croak a shriek. “I don’t want you here, you son of a bitch! You said you loved me and then you threw me away!”

Whoa. Where the hell did that come from? Wherever it is, Drew just pulls me tighter to him.

“It’s all right,” he says in a voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve got you now. I’m not going to let you go again. Not ever, Katherine.”

I open my mouth to spit venom at him, but that’s not what happens. Against all fury, against all rage and determination, a strangled, deep-seated wail emerges from some dark place within me. I don’t even recognize myself as I gasp in as much oxygen as my pained lungs will allow and release it in a sobbing rush.

Drew puts his free hand, the one that isn’t wrapped around my side, on my forehead and strokes my hair back off my face. “It’s okay, Katherine,” he repeats again and again until I am clinging to him, face buried in the safety of his chest, tears cascading and dampening his shirt underneath where my cheek rests. He shushes me, holding me firmly against him, gently stroking my hair, and catching my falling tears with his thumb.

I don’t know how much time has passed when my sobs peter out into their hiccupping, shuddering aftermath. Drew just holds me.

“Never,” he whispers. “I will never let you down again. I swear to God, Katherine. I swear it.”

Epilogue

Drew

No one is more surprised than Barry Green when the tenure committee awards the new position to him. And with it came a nice bump in salary. So nice, that he asked if he could rent my “cabin.” Seemed like the perfect solution to me after I’d made the decision to leave town. Why stay? There’s nothing for me there now.

I resigned in order to spare Maureen from having to fire me. Tessa, on the other hand, did not. Big mistake. Convinced she was in the right, she stood firm until the bitter end when she was dismissed for breaking the university’s privacy policy, endangering the well-being of a student, and willfully disobeying a directive from her superior.

It got ugly. Very, very ugly.

And, while Maureen was far from pleased with my professional behavior, she generously forgave my personal behavior, supporting me in my decision to leave North Carolina to pursue other opportunities. And to put a little distance between myself and the past.

When I was packing everything up, she and Russ came to the house to help me go through the last of Casey’s things that I’d tucked away in the attic. I didn’t keep much. I couldn’t keep much. Just a few small mementos and our engagement picture. I pulled the back off the frame and slipped the tiny black-and-white sonogram photo inside for safekeeping. It seemed only right to have the two together.

I sold the truck and gave my neighbor Joe my snowblower, along with a very fine selection of spirits from my basement bottle collection. The contents of the house were divided up between Barry, a storage locker, and the moving truck. All the books and my favorite pieces of furniture. My kitchen supplies. And, of course the piano. It’s all already waiting for me in my new apartment in New York City.

New city. New apartment. New job. New life.

“Thank you for flying Atlantic Air,” the pretty flight attendant says as I file past her and out onto the Jetway.

JFK is busier than I remember. After the slow, comfortable pace of rural North Carolina, I’m not certain how long it’ll take me to get used to this faster speed of life. It’s loud, and bright, and everywhere around me, people are moving with purpose and determination. In a small way, I envy them—having a tangible place to go and be and do. Even as I pull my rollerbag down the escalator to baggage claim, I have no idea what awaits me outside these walls.

Though, I know exactly what awaits me inside of them.

I don’t see her at first, in the mob of people waiting to greet the newly arrived passengers such as myself. Mothers are crying tears of joy, children are jumping up and down excitedly. Boyfriends and husbands and fiancés are holding bouquets of flowers.