“Are you sure this isn’t just an excuse to get me to stay with you because you want me close?”
“Not completely.”
She lets out a long sigh. “Well, at least you’re honest now.”
Ouch.
She makes a show of looking at her watch and then the door. I’m not sure why, but she looks back at me slowly.
“I can easily just wake you up when it’s time for your medicine, and I’m a text or call away. I don’t need to be in here the entire night.”
“Please, Calla.”
“Beck, don’t do this to me, please.”
Her pleading tone breaks me, and the last thing I want to do is make her hurt again.
“Alright. Good night, Calla.”
“Good night,” she says and hightails it from my room.
For the next ten days, I try to talk to her every chance I get, but she evades every topic. The book, kids, marriage… all of it.
All the things we clearly need to talk about.
For once in my life, I might not have the words to fix this.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CALLA
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I confess as soon as the door to my room is closed. Yep, I’m back in the basement. Which makes sense, but everything about it feels wrong.
“Okay, we’ll circle back to what you’re doing after you tell us how you’re doing,” Greer says. She starts unloading a bag of snacks and drinks. It’s nothing healthy. Cookies and chips and dip and black cherry Fresca.
“I don’t even know how to answer that.” I grab the package of Chewy Chips Ahoy and then spot the red velvet Oreos and grab that instead. I jerk the back open, ripping it down the middle, and chomp on a cookie. With a mouthful, I say, “Fine. I think.”
“Yeah, I don’t believe you.” Willa steals a cookie for herself. She glances at the broken-down boxes and packing tape that sits on top of them, but she doesn’t say a word.
“I don’t either.” I close my eyes on a sigh and lean against my headboard. Then I burst into tears.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Greer says, coming to my side and rubbing my back.
“Don’t cry, hun, everything is okay,” Willa adds.
“I know.” I take a breath. “And Beck is going to be just fine, but I… what if that had been our last conversation? What if he hadn’t been okay?”
The days have been long since Beck came home from the hospital. After I told him that I forgave him about the book, he never mentioned it again. He’s tried to bring up the kids thing and me not moving out, but I’ve shut him down every single time.
There isn’t much to say.
If we stay together, I take away his dream for kids. I care about his future. The future we were both so easily reminded can be taken from us at any moment. No matter what he says, he’s a mix of emotions and painkillers right now, and he’s clinging to the idea of me. That’s all. He’s just living on that “I almost died and should live life to the fullest” high. He isn’t thinking clearly.
He thinks he’ll be happy with just the two of us.
“Stop, you can’t think like that. I know it’s hard, but you have to try. He’s fine. You’re fine. He’s home.”
The sobs rack through me, and my friend just lets me cry. It’s like they sense that I need to let it out.
