He ran his palm over my hair, from the crown of my head to the spot between my shoulder blades, before stepping back. He looked at my forehead and bit the inside of his cheek. If that meant he wanted to kiss it, I wished he would.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Don’t mention it. Least we could do. Is your appetite back at all?”
I looked down at my stomach, waiting for it to tell me. The sound of Luna reading her book out loud to Mimi floated out the open door. “Maybe?”
He nodded to the row of chairs and sat down, then handed me a fork and a Tupperware container filled with rice, beans, peppers, and grilled chicken he’d sliced and placed on top. The scent of cumin and chili powder wafted up to my nose, and my stomach grumbled.
“This smells really good.”
He did a mock bow, twirling his hand and dropping his head.
I took a bite, consciously chewing. “Max and I broke up,” I blurted.
Cool, Val. Way to ease into it.
I checked his face for his reaction. He pressed his lips together like he was fighting a smile, but the little crinkles around his eyes gave him away. I didn’t know what I expected, but my stomach somersaulted nonetheless. Then he schooled his expression to neutrality and cleared his throat.
“Are you…upset?”
So diplomatic.
“No, I’m relieved. It was enjoyable for a while, and I kept waiting for it to grow, but it never did. We didn’t really click, you know?”
Not like I do with you.
He nodded and didn’t say anything for a moment. His eyes followed a nurse that strode by in front of us in a blur of lavender scrubs.
“That makes sense,” he said finally. His brown eyes met mine, but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
I wanted to say more, but it wasn’t the right time or the right setting. He seemed to tacitly agree. “Want to bring this in to Mimi? See if she’s hungry?” He gestured to the other Tupperware he had in the cooler.
“Yes. Thank you so much for doing that.”
He squeezed my knee for a millisecond before I stood. “Of course. We wanted to.”
I believed him.
By noon the following day, Mimi was at home, released with a clean bill of health and a daily water intake requirement. By 2:00 p.m., I’d picked my mom up from the boat. Luke had insisted Itake the day off, saying he had a light day and could take care of Luna’s drop-offs and lunch hour.
After Mom’s arrival, the three of us went to the beach in the early evening with our books and beach chairs, letting the wind and salt and indirect evening sunlight seep into our souls.
The following morning, I had my session with Wendy. Even though my mom was here and my dad and brother were arriving that evening, I decided not to reschedule.
“How do you feel about the decision to leave, now that it has been a little while? Did writing about it help?” Wendy asked.
“Relieved, I think. And yes, writing about it helped me feel confident that quitting was the right decision. But for some reason, I still feel unsteady. I spent so long focused on being super successful… Making peace with giving up is hard.”
“I wouldn’t call it giving up.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“What does success mean to you, personally?” she asked.
I looked out the window above my laptop screen, rolling my lips in between my teeth. I’d grown pretty fond of Wendy the last few months, but sometimes it drove me crazy that most of what she said during these sessions were questions back to me. This one in particular gave me pause.
Wasn’t success just an objective goal? That was how I’d always thought about it. But Wendy’s leading question suggested she thought otherwise.
