“I mean, I went home first, but I just couldn’t settle. I pulled up find my friends and yeah, I followed you. But I wouldn’t have had to follow you if you hadn’t been so damn stubborn and just let me come with you MoMo. You don’t have to face the world alone, you know.”
“Cleo came with me.”
He gestured up and down the street. “Where is she then?”
“In the car.”
“Then she didn’t come with you, MoMo. She dropped you off. It’s not the same thing.” He stepped toward her and she froze. Was he going to touch her in the street? She wouldn’t be able to keep her shit together if he took her hand or hugged her.
She’d pressed it all down – her feelings for Finn, bitterness at seeing him with another woman, his mother making her way back into his life and asking him for a huge favor, uncertainty over her own future… both with her career and her health… everything. But it wasn’t far below the surface, bubbling and spitting in her gut.
If Finn touched her, if he showed her affection, if he kept being nice to her, if he kept showing up places and being supportive and dependable, it would break the dam inside her she’d spent years building and keeping strong.
His everyday paleness was worse than usual. His shoulders sagged and his eyes and lips were downturned. “Please tell me you’re okay. Then I’ll leave if that’s what you really want.” His hands trembled as he jammed them into the front pockets of his jeans.
“I’m okay.” She shifted her weight and pain radiated from the side of her boob. She hissed. “Fine. I hurt like hell. But I’m okay.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded. He stepped toward her. “The fact that you’re in pain is the only thing keeping me from wrapping you in my arms right now. But I need you to know it’s taking all I have not to do it anyway.”
She nodded again. Her mind buzzed.
“You applied for the internship yet? You know it’s closing soon, right?”
“I…”
“Don’t BS me, MoMo. I’ve seen that BS face before and I’m not buying it. Carpe the shit out of that Diem. Shoot your shot.”
Uncertainty swelled inside her, creeping through every cell in her body. Did she have a chance of landing the internship? Did it matter as long as she pursued it with all she had? Nobody had to know.
“Coffee?”
“Cleo is in the car.”
“Tell her you’re having coffee with me. I’ll make sure you get home safely.”
He wasn’t playing fair. He knew she’d need to be cold in the ground before she’d say no to coffee. But she had to. He deserved better than she had to offer and she didn’t want to be the reason Finn got murdered by her brother, either. She had no time for coffee and complications with a man she couldn’t really have. Her heart screamed in her chest. She’d been scared to face her mortality, scared of dying, she’d been even more afraid of losing Finn.
Her stomach sank. If she couldn’t find it inside herself to pursue Finn after the life-changing, terrifying thing she’d just faced, would she ever?
***
“I need batteries.”
Cleo’s bedroom door smacked against the wall with a thud as Molly burst into her room, her phone light illuminating the way. Molly pulled open the top drawer of Cleo’s bedside chest. “ChoCho, where are your batteries?”
“Molly? What the fuck?”
“Oh, were you sleeping?”
“It’s the middle of the night, of course I was sleeping!” Cleo smacked the duvet in the darkness.
Molly paced.
“Are you on drugs? You seem kinda… manic. Are you going to tell me what the hell’s going on with you?”
“My vibrator died.”
