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“I’m sorry,” Nola said. “You must think I’m an emotional wreck. Honestly,” she said, taking a quick breath and seeming to calm her emotions. “Most days I’m fine. I just take all the anxiety and sadness and put it into trying to take care of Griff. He’s all I have now.”
Maybe that was why I’d seen Nola as untouched, not untouchable. She’d walled herself off to prioritize her brother. Taking care of him was her world, and she didn’t have the time or energy for dating. For flings. For parties.
I looked down and saw our hands were still wound together. I thought about pulling mine away but decided it would only draw attention to the fact we both seemed to have forgotten.
Then Nola rested her head on my shoulder, hand still on mine.
I stared straight ahead, wondering how something so innocent could feel so good. And then wondering how it didn’t seem to matter what I tried. Every choice drew Nola and I into a less and less professional entanglement. It made me think of two coins circling one of those drain-like objects I used to see at museums and zoos. Those things where you could put a couple pennies in and watch them race around in circles, both moving at their own pace and seemingly independently, but ultimately rushing toward the same destination.
I looked at how her small hand was enveloped by mine and thought about the feeling of warmth against my skin from her leg.
Maybe I was already screwed. Maybe hiring her had been the moment both our coins were tossed into the same circular inevitability.
The moment we both started to fall together. To circle the drain. Except I guessed the real question was what lay at the bottom of our journey? A messy, dramatic break-up that would leave Ben in shambles? Or something else I was too cynical to imagine?10NolaGriff was finally asleep, which meant I had about an hour to myself with my laptop. I curled up on the couch and typed one letter before the search engine knew exactly what I was looking for.
South Palm Beach, Florida Business Park, Unit 4.
I clicked the suggestion and checked the status of the unit. The property manager was tech savvy and had the whole thing linked up to the internet so anyone could click on his website and see if a unit was currently under lease. Ever since the accident, I’d made a sort of ritual out of doing this every night. Type the words. Click to the site. Scroll down and find the same, familiar red letters. Under Lease.
In my head, I stupidly thought I’d know how it would play out. Years would pass and the building my parents had dreamed of renting would never become available. I’d dutifully check every night, and it would always be the same. Then some day when I had my life together and I wasn’t rationing the portion of cereal Griff and I had in the morning, it’d become available.
I’d move down to Florida with Griff and we’d start up the restaurant my parents had dreamed of. There’d be a handsome, mentally stable man driving the truck we arrived in. A little French bulldog breathing noisily in my lap, and a pair of sunglasses on my face. Happily ever after.
Except, like just about everything else in my life so far, it just couldn’t be easy like that, could it?
That little space where I’d read the words “Under Lease” a few hundred times had changed.
The letters were green. For a few seconds, I stared blankly, realization flittering on the edge of my awareness.
Available.
My mouth felt dry, and three years of half-formed plans seemed to smack into me like a bag of bricks.
I heard shuffling feet and snapped the laptop closed.
Griff was rubbing his eyes. He saw me, then suddenly stopped pretending to be half-asleep. I took a wild guess and figured he had probably been about to try to play one of his usual pranks on me. A spider was under his bed, or there was a sound coming from his window, or something was in his closet. Inevitably, he’d try to scare the ever-living hell out of me when I was at my most freaked out.
Instead, he studied me. “What are you doing?”
“Sitting.”
“You were on your computer.”
“Okay?”
Griff sighed, then shuffled back to his room.
I pushed the computer away and then leaned over, resting my head in my hands. Just a few weeks ago, Florida had been one of those dreams that exists on a poster. Like a little crumbled print-out of some beach in Bali tucked into the corner of a cubicle. Almost more alluring because I knew it was impossible. It was a safe dream.
I laid back on the couch, staring at the ceiling. I could still remember the faint conversations I’d eavesdropped on when my parents thought I was asleep. Whispered words about the weather by the coast. About maybe starting a food truck if the restaurant picked up and did well. About how fun it’d be to have Griff and I growing up in the kitchens, learning to help out.
