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“Yeah.” She sniffled. “We do.”
We moved over to the couch, and Elodie rested her head on my chest. I wrapped my arm around her as we sat in silence. I didn’t want her to leave tonight. I wanted to sleep next to her and bury myself inside her to forget about the pain of this day.
But I wanted those things to comfort myself.
I still didn’t feel right about jumping back into things with Elodie until I was ready to give her everything she deserved. Just when I’d started to think I might be able to try again to pick up my life where it had left off, this new bomb had dropped. Even though it had brought me some peace, it also brought new emotions that had to be dealt with, namely grappling with the realization that Anna never stopped loving me. She’d died knowing I loved someone else. Despite the fact that she’d orchestrated that, I knew it had to be painful for her.
Hailey walked out into the living room. “Are you two okay?”
“Yeah, we’re fine,” I told her.
Her face said she knew that was bullshit.
“No more secrets, guys, remember?”
Elodie looked up at me and mouthed, “Can we tell her?”
I nodded.
“Sit down, Hailey,” Elodie said.
She took a seat on the chair across from us.
Elodie sat up. “Today we both received letters from our friend Brianna.”
“She wrote you from heaven?”
Elodie shook her head. “No. She wrote us before she died.”
“Oh. What did she say?”
“She admitted something neither of us ever knew.”
“What?”
I spoke before Elodie had to explain it. “Apparently, she found out about her illness just before she ended things with me all those years ago. And so the reason I believed we’d broken up all these years wasn’t true.”
“She lied?”
“It’s complicated, but she didn’t want me to have to suffer knowing she was sick and watching her die, the way I’d had to with my mother. So she pretended to choose to leave so I…wouldn’t love her anymore.”
Hailey looked down at the floor. “That’s so sad.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s a prime example of selflessness.”
“What did she write to you, Elodie?”
“Well, she actually told us both something that’s really pretty unbelievable. She was the one who set me up to apply for this job. She somehow knew it was your uncle’s listing and planned the whole thing so I would meet him. She hoped we would fall for each other.”
Hailey’s eyes moved back and forth as she processed that information. “I always thought God sent you. But it was Anna? She’s better than God.”
Elodie smiled. “She’s basically an angel, both while she was here and beyond.”
“So if she wants you guys together, why are you so sad?” Hailey asked.
Elodie looked at me. That answer wasn’t a simple one.
“I guess we’re still trying to accept how hard it must’ve been for her,” I said.
Hailey got up from her seat and gave me a hug, which was rare. “Thank you for telling me.” Then she hugged Elodie, too.
Talking it out with Hailey had actually helped lessen the tension a bit.
Yet as much as I wanted Elodie to stay the night, I let her walk out the door—again.Chapter 47* * *HollisIn the weeks that followed, I did something I’d never done in my entire career: I took actual time off. The only thing was, no one knew about it—besides Addison.
I needed the time to myself, to think and let everything that had happened in the past month sink in.
So, I’d leave for “work” in the morning, letting Elodie think I was going to the office. Meanwhile, I’d wander the city, eating in various diners or buying meals for the homeless. One afternoon, I went to a Yankees game. Another day, I visited Anna’s grave to give her a piece of my mind for ever believing it was better for me to spend those years without her. Then I bent down and kissed the gravestone, making sure she knew I understood the decision she ultimately made.
As I got to the end of my self-imposed hiatus, I found myself longing for Elodie more and more. Given that school had started again for Hailey, there was no reason Elodie couldn’t have been by my side during this time off.
My last stop on Friday afternoon felt like the right place to end my “staycation.”
When I entered the pediatric oncology unit of the hospital, I went straight to Sean’s room. I’d been visiting him every day since I started playing hooky from work. So when I walked in today and his belongings were gone, the walls bare, I froze.
A woman came up behind me. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I was looking for Sean.”
“He changed rooms, but he’s still here. He’s meeting with his therapist right now. I’m his mother.”
Relief washed over me. “Ah. I see.”
I’d nearly had a heart attack thinking that something had happened to him; I couldn’t take another goddamn loss.
