“Okay. Love you, too.” Adam sighed heavily, running a hand over his face. “Just make sure she knows we’re here if she wants to come home.”
I stilled.
Adam hung up the phone and slid it in his pocket before nodding toward the living room. When I didn’t immediately move, he nudged me out of the doorway and walked inside.
“What’s going on?” I asked as he sat on the couch, rested his elbows on his knees, and hung his head. “Adam…what’s wrong? Where’s Addie?”
“She left.”
“What?” My forehead creased. “What do you mean she left?”
I ran through the possibilities of where she could’ve gone, low on options that would have Adam worried she might not come home.
The main one sank like lead in my gut. “Please don’t tell me she went back to that asshole’s place on her own.”
“No. She promised me she wouldn’t do that.” He scrubbed at his jawline. “After you left for your meeting this morning, I went downstairs to check on her. She was packing. Not just a suitcase, but…she was packing everything. I didn’t know what to do. She was just throwing stuff in suitcases. Crying.”
I shook my head. “But why would she leave? Was it the guy? Did he call or something? Adam, I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either, man. She just said she needed to get out of here. Tessa lives outside Mosaic Falls, and from what Mom said, she invited Addie to stay for the summer.” He threw his hands up, sinking back into the couch cushions. “Addie wouldn’t tell me anything when she was here. She just decided to go.”
“Okay.” I rubbed my forehead, trying to reason why Addie would want to get away. “I can see needing a little break after what happened. But when is she coming back?”
Adam’s grim expression gave my answer, but he said the words anyway, unknowingly driving a stake into my chest. “She’s not.”
“What?” My head pounded. “She’s moving out?”
“Mom and Dad are coming with her at the end of summer to pack her things.”
“When?”
But Adam didn’t need to say it. When he shook his head and stared up at me, I picked up on what he hadn’t said. They’d come when she wouldn’t have to see me.
It was happening again.
“This isn’t about her breakup. Is it?”
“I don’t—” Adam sighed. “Mom said it’s about a lot of things, man. She’s just having a hard time right now. Maybe it was all too much.”
“No.” I shook my head, the fear of losing her again—of not seeing or speaking to her for months—after what happened last night lodging in my throat. “That’s not—Your mom is being nice. But I don’t understand. After last night, she’s still mad at me? She’s moving out because of me?” My hand ran wildly through my hair, and I couldn’t control the sound of my voice, or the way it broke. “Adam, I don’t even know what I did.”
I turned away from him, fists pulling on my scalp as if that could distract me from what was happening. Adam stood from the couch and came up beside me. He rested his hand on my shoulder but didn’t say anything.
“I thought—After last night, I thought?—”
“I know, man. Me too.” He squeezed my shoulder. “I thought we’d fixed it, too.”
“I need to call her.” I dug into my pants for my phone. “If she just tells me what I did, if she just tells me what’s wrong, I can explain. I can fix it.”
I pressed the button to call her, putting the phone on speaker.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to fix it. You know that, right? You know I didn’t mean to?—”
Adam nodded. “Yeah, man. I know.”
Each ring echoed through the room, bouncing off the vaulted ceilings and making every one sound more and more final. When I finally heard her voice, it was her voicemail. The one I’d called far too many times after she first left, until she finally met Adam for Sunday dinner.
Without me.
