“Do what?”
“Tell me you’re fine when you’re not.”
I look down at my hands. “You don’t get to ask for honesty from me when you won’t give it back.”
He sighs loudly. “I deserve that,” he says.
I don’t argue.
He leans forward, his forearms braced on the table. “Are you okay?”
I almost laugh again, but I’m afraid it will turn into something else. “Not really.”
His face tightens, and for a second, I think he’s going to reach for me, but he doesn’t. “Are you safe?”
My forehead creases. “At Cathy’s? She lives in Whiskey Run. It’s all safe.”
He nods. “And you’re okay?”
I pop a shoulder. “I mean, yeah. I’m sleeping on her couch and sharing it with her fifteen-pound Siamese, but I’m okay.”
His eyes widen. “You should go home. I’m not staying there, so you wouldn’t have to worry about seeing me.”
My heart literally feels like it does a flip-flop in my chest. “Oh.”
I want to ask him where he’s been staying, but I’m not sure I can handle his answer. He must see it on my face because he’s quick to assure me, “I’ve been sleeping in my office here at the hospital. By myself,” he adds.
He closes his eyes tightly and then opens them. “I just don’t want you to think there’s someone else. There’s not, and there never will be.”
I open my mouth but quickly close it.
We sit here in silence, and everything between us feels too big for a hospital cafeteria. People are walking by, and there are trays clattering and people talking. But Penn gestures to my phone. The screen is black now, but obviously he saw it. “Are you looking at apartments?”
I swallow hard. “I don’t know.”
His face goes pale. “I haven’t signed anything,” I add quickly, and I hate that I feel the need to reassure him when he’s the one who pushed me to this place.
He nods, but he looks like I’ve gutted him.
“I was thinking about coming home,” I admit.
His eyes snap to mine, and I shake my head. “But then I read your text again,” I say.
His brows pull together. “My text?”
“‘You deserve happiness, Aria. I hope you find it.’”
He goes still.
I push my sandwich away because there’s no chance I can eat now. “That doesn’t sound like a husband asking his wife to come home, Penn.”
He drags a hand over his jaw. “That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
He doesn’t answer fast enough.
My chest aches, and I shake my head. “See? This is what I’m talking about.”
