Page 14 of Healer’s Betrayal

“It’s totally fine. Seriously.”

“Okay.”

Butch turns to me. “You can take off then.”

“Thanks, Butch.”

Jessie’s already at a table when I come back out, and I make my way over to where Noah’s sitting and slide in next to him. “Hey, we’re going to catch an Uber. Jessie's going to work some extra hours.” He nods and looks back down at his book again. Guilt churns in my gut, but I choose not to think about it.

“Here,” Butch says, sliding a white box to me.

“Butch,” I start. He walks away without another word. “Thank you,” I call out after him. I glance at my phone. “He’s here. Let’s go. I had him park out back.” Noah follows me through the kitchen and out the back. I call out my goodbyes to the staff as we leave. A few minutes later, we’re on our way. Noah looks up at me. “You told Jessie we were going to the auto shop to check on the car.”

“You heard that?” I smile. “I told her I need to check on my car, and I do. But we’re not going there. I’ll call and check on it sometime soon.” He gives me a look. “What? I wasn’t lying...exactly.” He continues to stare at me. “Fine. I lied, kind of. I didn’t want her to worry about us.”

He looks away, seemingly satisfied; and I stare out the window. It doesn’t take long for us to get to the address I gave the driver. “Ready?” I ask Noah. We climb out and double check that we have our belongings. “Thank you,” I call out to our driver and close the door. We start the walk home. “How was your schoolwork today? Any questions or problems?”

“No.”

And that’s that, but I don’t mind. My mind is busy anyway. Thankfully, nobody bothers us on our way across the parking lot and up the two flights of stairs to our apartment. I close and lock the door behind us and drop wearily into one of the two chairs at our small table. “You hungry?” He drops off his bag and comes to join me at the table. I open the white box and groan. “BBQ chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans.” Without me asking him to, Noah grabs two forks. “Thanks, Bud.” We eat in silence, enjoying the yummy food. Somebody starts up their music somewhere in our building, and the walls seem to vibrate with the bass. But we ignore it; we’re used to it by now. When we eat every last bite, I push the box away. “Want to watch a movie tonight?”

Noah’s eyes brighten. “Really?”

That guilt that’s been dogging me lately rears its ugly head. “Really.”

The weekend passes too quickly. I’m off on Saturday, and the café is closed on Sundays. I spend the weekend doing laundry, cleaning, getting a few groceries, and then searching for another place to live. There’s no way I can afford an extra three hundred a month for this apartment; it’s insane. I put in a few calls to a couple of different apartments, but I only hear back from one so far. They have no available apartments currently, but they said they’d put me on the waiting list.

Monday morning comes fast. “Ready, Noah?”

He finishes his last bite of toast, drops the plate in the sink and grabs his bag. We’re out the door a minute later. “I’m going to call the shop after work today to check on the car.”

“Okay.”

Jessie’s waiting for us when we get there, and I absently hope she didn’t see where we came from. “Were you waiting long?” I ask as soon as I’m inside.

“No, no. I just got here. How was your weekend?” she asks as she drives.

I sit back against the seat. “Good. How was yours?”

“Weeeelllll, I met this guy.”

I turn towards her. “Yeah? Tell me about him.”

“Oh, Kayla, he is just the sweetest guy you’ll ever meet. He was polite; he opened the door for me and didn’t order for me.”

I frown. “Do guys do that on dates?”

She sighs in exasperation. “They do. It is so annoying. Anyway, Mark didn’t.”

“Mark,” I repeat, committing it to memory. “So, are you guys going to go on another date?”

“I hope so. I invited him to check out the café this week.” She holds up her hand with fingers crossed. “Here’s to hoping.”

“He’ll come,” I tell her confidently.

“You think? How can you be so sure?”

“Because you’re amazing. Any guy would be lucky to date you.”