“For starters, yes.” She sat down on her bed and looked at me with eyes too wise for an eighteen-year-old. “You need friends, G. I mean, I love that we’re close and can talk about stuff, but you need people your own age, with a little more life experience, to give you advice.”
Truly. The psychology course she was taking was already paying for itself.
“Yeah well… I’m not sure he’d be excited to hear from me at this point. It’s been a long time.”
“I think you should give yourself more credit and give him the chance to make his own decisions.”
“I thought you were supposed to get less annoying the older you got,” I said, running a hand over my face.
“Once again, you were wrong.” She gave me a toothy grin and I laughed. “Call him. Apologize. And then put your stupid house up for sale and move here. You don’t have to stay forever. It might just be good for you to have a change of scenery for a while. You can decide what you want to do next after that.”
There was a burst of noise on her end as her roommate and two other young women came into the room.
“I have to go,” Marley said, leaning closer to the microphone. “I love you, G. Call Cooper!” she yelled, and then she was gone.
Before I had a chance to overthink it or talk myself out of it, I was scrolling through my contacts to Cooper’s number. I hesitated for only a second before I hit the call button. He answered on the second ring.
Chapter 36
Lior
The house was a disaster of boxes and booby traps.
I tripped over the rug I’d rolled and slid under the coffee table the night before, the end of it sticking out just a little too far. Coffee splashed onto my Adidas joggers and I stared down at the wet spot on the taupe-colored fabric, then kept moving toward the kitchen.
Glancing around at the happy space, my chest ached. I had loved this house for so long, it was hard to say goodbye. Part of me wanted to hang onto it. I could come here in the winters… spend Christmas… put my tree in the main floor window like I always had, and like my father had done before me. I could rent it out. Maybe I’d have kids one day and they’d want to live here.
I recalled the many long weekends Addie had spent here before she’d opened her clinic and got so busy. How we’d take the subway into Manhattan and shop all day, and then come back and order take-out and watch movies until we passed out on the couch covered in bits of popcorn and Sweetarts. She was the only person I had let into this space. Well, her and Graham.
My breath hitched, caught on a memory of him in my kitchen giving me that smile of his.
Goddamn that smile.
I felt my wall going up, trying to shut the pain out. “Up here” I heard my mother’s voice call from the deep recesses of my mind.
I shook my head, pushing her voice and the wall away and letting the pain rush through me. It was okay to hurt, Hestia had told me. Hurt leads to healing.
“Pain is how the injury lets itself be known. Tears are it being cleansed. And then the tender scab will cover it and it will slowly begin to heal. Don’t pick at it, don’t cover it up. Let it breathe and do its thing. It will heal quicker that way.”
Tears slid down my cheeks and I let them drip onto my t-shirt. I hated how much I still missed him. He’d barely been in my life, only present for a moment, but he’d made his mark.
“Maybe he was the thing you needed,” Addie had said the week before when she’d called to ask for a grocery list of items she could put in my kitchen before I arrived – so I didn’t have to immediately run to the store and shop.
“What do you mean?” I’d asked.
“To break through these walls you’ve had up for so long. Maybe he was the impetus to a better quality of life. He opened you up and?—”
“Well, that’s a bit personal don’t you think?” I’d said, cutting her off.
She snorted loudly in my ear. “You’re disgusting.” She snickered some more. “And stop trying to distract me. Look, maybe thinking of him in those terms is a good way to help you get over him.”
“I thought you were still holding out hope for us.” Even though I’d told her not to. Repeatedly. And she’d ignored me. Repeatedly. Telling me she knew better.
“Oh, I am. I have a bet going with Alexandra.”
At the mention of her much more austere partner at the clinic, I laughed.
“Alex is too classy to bet on my love life,” I said.
