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I don’t even know if she’s going to answer me or not. I look down at the phone, willing her to pick up and then making a plan for going over to her house. I’m almost going to hang up when the phone connects. “Hello,” she breathes heavily, as if she ran to the phone.
“Hey,” I say softly, my heart feels like it’s beating normal for the first time this week, “it’s me.”
“Hey.” Her voice stays neutral.
“I was wondering if I could come over and we could talk.” I look down at the phone, wishing I would have FaceTimed her so I could have seen her face.
I wait for what feels like an eternity, waiting for her to tell me to go fuck myself, but instead, her words shock me. “We’re gone.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
dakota
Talking to Christopher was not on my agenda today, but if I didn’t answer the phone, I would have to tell my mother why I wasn’t answering it. So now I am here in my teenage bedroom on my bed, talking to the man I’ve been thinking about obsessively. “We’re gone.”
“Where are you?” he asks so quickly.
“The girls were off this week, so I decided to come up to my parents’ house for the week.” I close my eyes, hoping he doesn’t think I ran away from him, which I did, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“Oh,” he says softly, and I close my eyes. “Okay, when are you going to be back?”
“Sunday night,” I tell him.
“Can you call me when you get back?” The question doesn’t surprise me. I knew we would have to talk, but I didn’t know when it would be. I also didn’t think it would have been this long before we talked. But I know he’s been on the road traveling because we’ve been watching his games with the girls.
“Yeah,” I give in.
“Give the girls a kiss for me,” he urges, sounding so defeated, and even though I hate it, it serves him right.
“I will,” I reply and then just hang up. I fall back on my bed and close my eyes, wishing I was home so we could have this talk and get it over with. I don’t know what the talk is going to do exactly, but I know I want it out of the way. For both our sakes.
The phone rings again on my chest, and I pick it up, seeing he’s calling me back. “Hello,” I answer right away.
“Hey.” He sounds nervous. “I was wondering if you would go on a date with me?”
I swallow the golf ball that was stuck in my throat before that now feels like a baseball. “No.” I close my eyes when I say the word. “I don’t have the time when I get back.” I give him some bullshit excuse. “I’ll be swamped with work emails since I’m not really working this week.”
“Okay,” he stumbles, “yeah, of course. Call me when you get back.” He disconnects first this time, not giving me a chance to say anything else.
“What the fuck was that all about?” I look at the phone that has the lock screen of me and the girls on their first day of school. “Why the hell did you say no? This is literally what you’ve wanted.”
I swipe up and go to my call list, seeing his name and calling him back. I sit up on my bed, waiting for him to answer. Even though he answers after one ring and a half, I have to think he didn’t want to answer. “Hey,” I say before he can even say hello, “I’m coming back this afternoon.” I shock myself at this decision because I was supposed to be here for the next four days. “So if you want to go out and get that talk out of the way tonight, we can do that.”
“Yeah,” he agrees right away. “Yeah, let’s do that. I’ll pick you up at seven. Is that good?”
“Works for me,” I confirm, looking at my watch. If I leave now, I’ll get home by four thirty, which would still give me enough time to get ready.
“I’ll see you then,” I say, hanging up the phone before either of us changes our minds. I run down the stairs toward the kitchen to find my mother, who is cleaning the lunch dishes. “Hey,” I start, walking in, “I’m going to head back home.”
I look around, wondering where the girls are. “What?” my mother asks, shocked. “Why?”
“I just—” I start to say and then stop. I haven’t really told anyone but Dr. Mendes about Christopher. “Thought I would get back home and?—”
“If you have to go home for work, then you should go,” she says, drying her hands. “Would it be okay if we kept the girls here?”
“I don’t want to do that to you.”
“Oh, please, it’s been so fun having them here.” She smiles at me. “Why don’t you go home and, I don’t know, go out.”
