Page 76 of Wreckage and Rain

"That's the least smooth thing anyone's ever said in my hoodie eating noodles."

"I mean it."

"When's the last time you were that safe with someone and didn't have to hand them something for it?"

"It's been a while."

"Same."

We're quiet. The city hums outside.

"For the record," Sam says. "You're going to wreck that man when he finally finds you."

"If."

"When."

"You sound sure."

"I am sure. Men like Colt don't let go. Especially when they realize what they had."

He says it without jealousy.

"I don't know if I want him to find me."

"You don't have to know yet."

I drive home at three AM. I sit in my dark apartment with my swollen eyes and my aching ribs and a head that is, for the first time in months, quiet. I didn't disappear into anyone to earn it. Icame apart in the arms of a man who wanted nothing back, and I felt the whole ugly truth, and the world stayed exactly where it was. I chose that. I sit here and I notice that I chose it. Sam didn't do the rebuilding for me. He kept the wind off the flame while I did it myself.

I think about what Sam said. When he finds you. Not if.

For the first time, the thought doesn't make me want to run.

It makes me want to be ready.

Chapter 20: Boundaries

Sam

Two weeks since Summer came apart at my bar and let me hold her up.

She still takes the same stool. She still drinks the bourbon. She still talks until two AM. Some nights I lock up early and we go upstairs. Some nights she falls asleep on my couch after a game or movie night and I cover her with the blanket from behind the bar and she doesn't wake up.

She falls asleep on my couch.

I watch her in Reclamation from the bar, through the open door to the studio. The woman who walked into the first class was arms-crossed-shoulders-hunched. The woman in the mirror now rolls her hips like they belong to her and makes eye contact with her own reflection.

I keep wiping the same glass.

***

For the third time this month Marisol's babysitter cancels. I find myself in the dressing room at four PM with a toddler on my lap and a coloring book and the growing realization that I am not qualified for this.

"Sam, hold still." Marisol is doing her stage makeup in the mirror. "She's coloring your arm."

I look down. Lucia has abandoned the coloring book and is applying a green crayon to my forearm with the artistic vision of someone who has never encountered the concept of boundaries.

"Lucia. That's my arm."