Page 117 of In Somnis

“Ridge.” She says my name the way she’s been saying it for thirty-eight years. Two soft syllables that mean I love you. I’m worried. Please let me keep loving you.

And she does mean it, which is the problem.

I love my parents. I really do. But they poured everything they had into me, and the weight of being loved that completely is something I could never explain to them without it sounding like an accusation.

When my grandfather died, my dad inherited the house in Sweden and started talking about moving back, and I encouraged it so I could finally breathe without someone measuring the rhythm of it. They didn’t always look at me like I might break.

But now, they always do.

They gave the apartment building to Derek to look after, a task he somehow interpreted as looking after me as well.

Almost no one to measure my breathing, I correct.

I practically packed their bags for them because I needed to prove something, and I did. But it still costs me every single day in ways I don’t have words for yet.

Story of my life.

Turns out, you can be right about needing something and grieve it at the same time.

“I’m doing fine, Mom.”

They call Derek because I only pick up about every third call, more or less, which I know makes me terrible. But if I answered each and every one, I’d spend the rest of my life being loved from a distance without ever figuring out how to stand without it. Metaphorically.

“How’s Sweden?” I ask, trying to make her talk, and she does.

She tells us at length about the neighbors, a new walking route, and a restaurant that reminded her of somewhere we went when I was nine. I listen and turn the pebble between my fingers, letting her talk because it costs me nothing, and she needs it.

When she finally says goodbye, it’s full of enough declarations of love to warm the car.

“Grandma Vera talks a lot,” Melanie mumbles from the back seat the moment Derek ends the call.

“Yes,” I agree.

“I like her.”

“Me, too, Princess.”

My phone buzzes in my pocket, so I pull it out, already ready to ask my mother what she could possibly have forgotten to tell me in the last four minutes, when I see Miller’s name lighting up the screen instead.

“F-U-C-K,” I spell under my breath.

“What’s that spell, Uncle Ridge?”

“I spelled nothing. Mind your stone.”

“What’s wrong?” Derek asks.

Ah, fuck it.

“My agent.” I decline the call and put the phone face down on my knee. “Again.”

“What’s going on with Miller?”

“He wants an outline.”

“And you don’t have one.”

I look out the window at the dark street sliding past.