Page 29 of The Quiet Rebuild

“Tell me about yourself,” Jake said.

“You know so much already,” Lindsey said. “Remember? Scuba diving instructor. Runner.”

“Yeah, but Costa Rica! How did you end up there?”

Lindsey grew flustered. She remembered how, when she’d first met Jake (two days ago, now!), she’d told him almost immediately that she’d gone to Costa Rica. She’d revealed things that she hadn’t been brave enough to tell Candice, nor her brother, Henry. Why was that? Did Jake make her feel particularly safe? Did he make her want to open her heart?

A voice in the back of her mind reminded her to remember that all men would wrong her. Remember that all men would leave her. Remember, remember.

“I don’t know,” Lindsey said, trying to laugh. “There isn’t that much to tell.”

Jake leaned back in his chair, his smile melting.

“What about you?” she asked. “Like, where did you grow up?”

“Indiana,” he said. “A small town, not far from Muncie, if you know where that is.”

“I don’t,” Lindsey said.

Jake laughed. “No, I imagine you don’t. Why would you, when you grew up here?”

“What were you like as a kid?” Lindsey asked.

“This shouldn’t be rapid-fire interview questions,” Jake said. “I reserve the right to ask you some questions, too.”

Lindsey rolled her eyes.

“What were you like? Not as a kid, but in Costa Rica. I’m sorry. I’m fixated on that.” Jake smiled. “I can’t help but think that I might have seen you down there. Maybe I was running around, looking at birds, and you were coming up from one of your scuba diving expeditions. Maybe we passed by one another. Although, to tell you the truth, I can’t imagine it.”

“Why not? I look like everyone else,” Lindsey said.

“No, Lindsey. You really don’t.” Jake spread his hands on the table between them.

Lindsey felt as though they’d hit a wall of sorts. This wall—which she’d constructed over the years of heartache and being alone—was one she hadn’t allowed anyone past in years. She could tell that Jake felt that wall. She could tell that he wanted to push it down but didn’t know how. He wanted to be respectful. He wanted to show her he was safe.

But Lindsey wasn’t sure if she could ever think anyone was safe again.

Soon enough, the conversation flattened out the slightest bit, and Lindsey could breathe again. She could see and feel that Jake was mystified, but that he’d known to step back. They spoke of easy things, of Jake’s current article, of Jake’s work in the birding communities of various regions in the United States and Europe. Lindsey spoke about her mother, about the secrets she’d left behind, of how essential those secrets had been in drawing Lindsey and Candice closer together.

“But don’t you think that’s the thing?” Jake interrupted now, his eyes alight.

“The thing? What thing?” she asked.

“The telling of secrets, the sharing of stories, the imparting of the heart,” Jake said. “It all brings us closer. As humans. As friends. As…” He trailed off, then added, “Lovers. As cringe as that sounds.”

Lindsey couldn’t look him in the eye any longer. She had a sudden, desperate desire to go back to her apartment and draw the blankets over her head. I can’t do this, she wanted to tell him.

But she liked him too much to go home.

That night, after a relatively tame dinner, he walked her back to her apartment, where he brushed a few strands of hair behind her ear and gazed into her eyes. Lindsey’s heart screamed with its desire for him to kiss her. But instead, he whispered, “I hope you can let me in, Lindsey. I want to let you in, too. But it has to be equal. Good night.”

Lindsey watched from behind the curtain as Jake walked slowly through the night, back toward his rental house with its enormous porch and its grand windows and its fifty-plus birding books, all of which he had shipped from place to place, wherever he went.

14

At twelve fifteen the following afternoon, Lindsey drove herself to the Nantucket Airport. Wheeling her suitcase to the double-wide glass door, she watched as a taxi pulled up and deposited the iconic Taylor Charron on the sidewalk. Taylor was wearing a chic black dress and a pair of enormous sunglasses that basically screamed, "I am a celebrity."

“Lindsey, hi.” Taylor’s voice shook with nerves. She wheeled two suitcases behind her and ushered her inside. “The plane’s already on the tarmac. You ready to go?”