Her mouth opened and closed. “I’m still getting used to that fact,” she said cautiously. “My whole life after I moved in with Grandma El, I was invisible. No friends, no cliques. Just thechubby, weird kid who knitted with her grandma after school. Kids senseothernessbetter than most. They avoided me. But I wasn’t bullied. That’s not why ...” She shook her head and trailed off. “It’s so complicated. I’ve talked about it with my doctor. That could be part of my issues but probably not entirely why. Trauma, family history, genetic predisposition. We just don’t know enough of the why. You don’t need to know all this. I’m just trying to explain that my grandma and her friends loved me and raised me without judgment, and I felt safe at home.”
“At home,” I repeated after her torrent. It made sense, like Levi, that home was a safe space. Free from the eyes of the town.
She lifted her shoulders and dropped them, pinching her mouth to the side before saying, “Exactly.” Her eyes left mine again. She wrapped her arms tight around herself. “But if you are looking for a simple reason to explain why I’m wired this way, to help you understand it and wrap it all up neatly, you’re not going to find it. I’m extremely ordinary, as is my very common anxiety issue.” Her head was turned away, nostrils flared as she spoke.
I wanted to say that there was nothing about her that was ordinary. I longed to hold her in my arms and squeeze her anxiety out of her like toothpaste from a tube. But with every passing second, I understood less of what she needed for comfort. The desire to hold her took me so strongly, I had to ball my fists to keep from reaching for her.
“I didn’t—” I started.
“I know it sucks. It’s humiliating to be an adult going on thirty who finds one errand a day to be so depleting that I need to go lie down. But that’s the reality of what you’re dealing with here.”
“I’m sorry, Sophie,” I said, knowing it wasn’t enough to undo my screwup.
“If this is some game to you or a way of being a Good Samaritan so you can get all your fireman badges, then you don’t have to bother.”
“No, that’s not?—”
“I’m a big girl. I’ve been dealing with this my entire life. But if you think that one outing is going to fix me and I’m suddenly going to be okay, I’m just going to disappoint you, Pace.” Her voice broke. “I’m constantly disappointing myself. I don’t want to add anybody else to the list.”
I stood there shell-shocked and embarrassed. I couldn’t even apologize again, it would sound too hollow, a mockery of the depth of my shame. She thought that I always knew what to say and how to act around others, but when it really mattered, when I really cared about the person, I always came up short.
She lifted her eyes heavenward, tears balanced. “I know you were trying. I know. But some things are just too broken to fix.”
She turned and left me standing there.
How did I ever think I could be enough for her?
14
Sophie
I creptin the back door of the shop, the old wood floors loudly announcing my return home.
Thankfully, Grandma was helping a customer, so I was able to sneak upstairs and into my room.
I drew the blackout curtains closed, watching my toes before the last rays of the sun were swallowed up by the darkness. I turned on the noise machine and climbed under my weighted blanket with a sigh.
I didn’t cry. Distantly, I was proud of that fact. I was so tired. Too tired to do anything but let the darkness swallow me up whole. I let my muscles relax, and a deep sigh escaped me as I instantly fell asleep.
I had no idea how much time had passed when a gentle knocking woke me up. It felt like I had just barely lain down.
I sat up and rubbed sleep from my eyes.
“Come in,” I said with a jaw-cracking yawn.
“Hey, doll. Doing okay?” Grandma’s voice was too gentle. I shouldn’t be surprised by how fast gossip works.
“Yeah. Just sleepy.”
“It’s dinnertime. Have you eaten anything?”
“Oh, wow.” I tapped the screen of my phone. It read almost seven, and no new notifications.
I thought of how I’d been too anxious to eat before meeting Pace, and then after that, there was only sleep.
I shook my head.
“You know, not eating makes it all so much worse,” she said softly.
