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She cringes. “And you don’t know when he’s getting back?”
I shake my head.
“Maybe you should call him. Straighten this out.”
Inhaling deeply, I nod. She’s right. No more ruminating over three or four text messages. No more being stuck in my own head. I raised Bailey on my own, damn it. Pushed her out of my body and got my vagina cut open in the process. I am strong. I can’t let the fear of being rejected hold me back from knowing the truth. Time to put my big girl pants on and have this out with Des, once and for all.
There’s no time like the present—if I wait until I’m alone, I’ll lose my nerve. A quick glance at Maude tells me she’s on her way back to her seat, so I pull out my phone and dial.
It rings…and rings…and rings…and rings…
When it finally disconnects, with no option to leave a message, I frown at my phone. “No answer.”
Fiona plants her fists on her hips. “That’s odd. You didn’t want to leave a message?”
“There was no voicemail.”
“Huh.”
The young lady behind the register calls Fiona’s name, so she squeezes my arm and hurries away. I’m left standing on my own, utterly confused, when my name is called and my coffee is ready.
I wave at the Thomases, intending to avoid them as I walk out of the coffee shop, but Maude calls me over to her table with a smile and a wave. “Mia!”
Forcing my lips to curl, I grit my teeth and cross over to where she and Arthur are sitting.
“Arthur and I were just talking, and we want to have you and Bailey over for dinner this week. How’s tomorrow night for you?”
Suddenly, I’m weary. I don’t want to spend an evening with Maude and Arthur, pretending that Des has some amazing, romantic surprise for me. I don’t want to confuse Bailey any more than she already is. I need to start planning an exit. All signs point to this whirlwind romance being over already. Real, lasting relationships can’t be built on shaky foundations like the one Des and I have. Maybe it’s time for me to face the music: Des doesn’t have feelings for me the way I have for him. If he did, he would’ve reached out by now. He would’ve stayed. He would’ve told me how he felt.
“Tomorrow isn’t great,” I start gently, then stop.
How do I tell this sweet old lady that her grandson doesn’t actually care about me?
“Sunday. I’ll make a roast,” Maude says with a decisive nod. “If Des isn’t back by then, we can all video call him. I’m sure he’s desperate to hear your voice. He must miss you something awful, our Desmond.”
I can’t take this anymore. My filter dissolves to nothing and I blurt, “Desmond doesn’t care about me, Maude.”
She looks at me like I’m insane. “Mia! Don’t say that.”
“Maude, he doesn’t.”
“Stop it.” Her lips pinch. “You stop that right now. I saw the way he looked at you at Thanksgiving. That boy is in love with you.”
Oh my God. I’m going to explode. Between her insistence, Des’s disappearance, and Colin sticking around like a bad smell, trying to turn my own daughter against me, I feel like I’m losing my fucking mind. My body is a pressure cooker with a broken valve, and I’m going to explode.
“Now, don’t be ridiculous. You’ll come to dinner, we’ll call Des and put him on video, and you two lovebirds will be able to speak. Really, he should have called you already. I don’t understand what goes through that boy’s head sometimes. So moody! You’d swear he never grew out of his teen years, and—”
“Maude,it was fake!” The words blow out of me like bullets, echoing around the room at the exact moment the espresso machine stops whistling. All heads turn toward me, but I can’t stop myself. “It was all fake! He told me he’d give me free rent for three months to go to Thanksgiving with him and try to win that stupid race. None of it was real. He doesn’t care about me. He doesn’t care about Bailey! He never did! He doesn’t want to talk to me. He doesn’t want to do a video. He hasn’t called becausehe doesn’t care.”
Maude’s mouth opens and closes. Her hand presses against her chest, kneading gently at the soft pink knit of her top. She gasps, blinking—then goes limp and keels out of her chair.
I leap, catching the old woman around the shoulders and bringing her to the floor as gently as I can. She lands on top of me, her mouth open, her eyes closed. Arthur cries, and chairs all around us push back as people react with shock and dismay.
I blink, confused, as my swirling world comes into focus again. Maude is completely still in my arms. I’m lying on the floor, holding her to my chest—and, oh my God, I think I just killed Desmond’s grandmother.
36
DES
