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“Just…don’t bug me right now. Okay? It’s complicated.”

He studied me for a moment, but he let it go.

I guess I should be happy that my brother was enough of himself again that he gave a crap about what I was doing.

God.

I set up Benny’s dialysis, doing my best not to cry in front of him or Justin, who was still sitting there with him watching TV. When I was done, I went to my room and called Alexis.

“Hey,” she answered on the first ring.

I sniffed. “Can I come over?”

She was doing dishes. “Sure. When?”

“Tonight.”

I could picture her looking at her watch. “You won’t get here until midnight.”

“One. Maybe one-thirty. I have to finish Benny’s dialysis. You don’t have to stay up. Just leave a blanket on the porch swing and let me in when you get up in the morning.”

“What happened?”

I pulled the phone away from my mouth for a second while I choked down the lump in my throat. “I can’t tell you now or I’m gonna cry. I can ask Benny to go to the dialysis center for a few days. I have two more days off work. I just need to get out of here and be somewhere else.”

I heard her shut off the water. “Okay. But I’m waiting up.”

“No, seriously. Don’t. Just leave the door unlocked.”

We hung up. I packed my bag, finished Benny’s dialysis, and left.

Jacob didn’t text or call me like he usually did at night. It made my stomach hurt. I felt like I’d just gone through a breakup.

Up until now I’d been able to pretend that maybe Jacob had spent so much time with me because he was actually a little interested in me.

And maybe he was. I believed that feelings could overlap. That he could be in love with Amy and maybe also have a crush on me.

But that wasn’t enough.

I didn’t want to share space with another woman inside of the man I loved. I’d done it one too many times. I was tired of making excuses for why it was okay to accept less than I deserved. At the very least I deserved to be with someone who had worked through their own shit. And Jacob hadn’t. Clearly.

I got to the Grant House around one-fifteen in the morning—and Alexis opened the door before I got up the front steps.

“Ugh. I told you not to wait,” I groaned.

She hugged me against her baby bump. “I’m a wartime consigliere. We don’t sleep on the job.”

Daniel greeted me with the dog when I got in the door. He’d waited up too. Now I felt even worse. He hugged me. Then he kissed his wife on the side of her head and went to bed.

I wanted her to go to sleep, but she hustled me into one of the guest rooms, lit a candle, settled onto the mattress next to me, and punched a pillow under her head. “Tell me.”

And I did.

I told her everything. And I cried like a baby.

“I really liked him,” I said, sniffling, wiping under my eyes.

“And now you don’t?” she asked.