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“For real,” Janessa said with a nod.
“But what about her patients?”
“Mom is going to take over until we find a new doctor.”
Aria’s already nervous stomach twisted. “Does your mom know that I’m working here again?”
“Yep, and she was glad to hear that you had agreed to come back.”
Aria had a hard time believing that. But just in case Janessa’s parents weren’t entirely convinced that her being there was a good idea, she planned to work hard and give them no reason to regret her return.
“I can’t believe she’s gone,” Aria said. Her emotions in that moment were a mess. She was happy and relieved that Nora was gone, but that didn’t ease the anxiety and nerves still inside her.
“We’ll celebrate later,” Janessa promised, and though Aria didn’t feel much like celebrating, she nodded.
It didn’t take long for Aria to fall back into her role at the front desk. People greeted her with smiles, many not even realizing that she’d been missing for a week.
Their friendliness went a long way toward calming her nerves, though she remained on edge, waiting for that first time her path crossed Gareth’s. She was going to do what she could to postpone that inevitability.
“You’re going home?” Janessa asked when noon rolled around.
“I think that would be for the best.”
Janessa looked like she was going to argue, but then she just nodded. “I think Gareth is in his office at the moment.”
Aria appreciated the head’s up and quickly made her way to the break room to grab her jacket and purse, then left through the back door. When she got to the house, she went to the kitchen, but wasn’t sure what to eat given that she had absolutely no appetite.
Her anxiety always stole her appetite, and it had been particularly bad following the death of her mom, which had made her drinking that much worse. There had been plenty of times when she’d wished that her way of coping was to eat her feelings, but the opposite had always been true. Her feelings had eaten her, and she’d done her best to drown them in alcohol.
Aria knew that if she didn’t want Janessa to become overly worried about her, she needed to eat. With that in mind, she pulled out some bread and put it in the toaster. When all else failed, she fell back on the meal she and her mom had shared plenty of times. Thankfully, Charli kept them well stocked in peanut butter and a variety of jams.
Once she’d spread peanut butter and raspberry jam on two slices of toast, she poured herself a glass of milk, then sat down at the counter to eat. Eating wasn’t easy when she felt like anxiety was choking her, but she managed to get both slices down with the help of the milk.
After going upstairs to wash her hands and brush her teeth, Aria took a minute to sit on her bed and just… breathe. In her room, there was no chance of running into Gareth nor was there a need to keep up the façade that she was fine.
She was becoming less convinced that staying in Serenity was a good idea. It seemed that hanging around would feed into a hope that would never be realized. She hated to disappoint Janessa, but if Gareth wasn’t ever going to forgive her, sticking around was just putting off the inevitable.
His reaction to everything—though expected, at first—made her wonder if she’d been more emotionally invested in their relationship than he’d been. All she knew was that if he’d apologized to her for a similar situation, she’d like to think she’d have accepted that apology.
While there were clearly some issues that would be deal-breakers for her in a relationship, she didn’t think that if the roles were reversed, she would toss away what she had with Gareth. Especially given how she felt about him.
Aria decided she’d give the situation another week before deciding whether she could handle working alongside Gareth if he never forgave her. And in the meantime, she’d start looking at options for where to go next.
Unfortunately, it turned out that Aria didn’t need to wait a full week to realize that the situation was untenable. It wasn’t fair to anyone working at the clinic to have to tiptoe around her and Gareth, and her anxiety while in the building spiked. It was so unlike how things had been prior to her running away.
By Wednesday afternoon, Aria knew she needed to move on, but she also didn’t want to leave them in a lurch. Even though things weren’t working out, the Halversons had been good to her, and she didn’t want to leave them without someone to fill the vacancy she’d leave behind.
Once the clinic closed on Wednesday, Aria made her way to Jay’s office. Now that the basketball season was over, he didn’t leave the office as early, so he was still there.
She knocked on the door to get his attention. When he looked up from his computer, he smiled and motioned for her to come in.
After a moment’s hesitation, she closed the door behind her. Jay’s smile faded as she sat in the chair across from him.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“I want to give my notice,” she said. “I don’t think it’s going to work out for me to keep working here.”
Jay sighed as he nodded. “I wasn’t sure that it would, but I wanted to give it a chance.”
