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“Thanks, as always,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”
“Absolutely,” Flora said. “Call me anytime.” She sat up and reached for the plates on the table. “I was going to get this cleaned up before you got back.”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”
She smiled and stepped into her shoes. Grabbing her bag, she said good night and left. I walked down the hallway and stopped at the door to the smaller of the two bedrooms. Carefully pushing open the slightly cracked door, I peeked in at Willa. She was sound asleep, her little face looking sweet and peaceful through the mesh of the bedrails set up on the side of her mattress. I wanted to go in and kiss her but didn’t want to disturb her, so I backed out carefully. My room was at the end of the hall, and I walked inside feeling suddenly drained.
I took the folded napkin out of my pocket and looked at it again for a few seconds before setting it down on the bedside table. I flopped facedown on the bed and groaned into the pillow. I didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t how I’d planned any of this to happen. Now that it had, I had to decide what I was going to do about it. Darren had given me his phone number and asked me to call him. Obviously, he wanted to talk to me. He likely wanted to talk about what happened between us and maybe even what could happen moving forward. But if I did that, if I picked up the phone and called him, I would have to be honest with him. I’d have to tell him my secret, and I just wasn’t ready for that. There was more that needed to be done first before I could put myself in the place to handle that.
I needed to give myself a couple of days to really think about it. I needed to decide whether I wanted to talk to him again at all, much less when. Seeing him again hit me harder than I ever could have expected it to. Not that I thought it would be easy or that I would be able to just sail through it without any emotional reaction at all. Obviously, it was going to be difficult. There were going to be emotions I was going to have to deal with. But I wasn’t expecting them to be that intense that fast. I had been thinking about him for three years, and there were many times when I’d tried to imagine what it would be like to be in the same room with him again. What I would say to him when I saw him face-to-face. I needed some time to really let it all sink in and come to terms with what was right for my daughter and me.
As much as I wanted to just lie there, I didn’t want to face the uncomfortable aftermath of waking up from sleeping in my clothes and my makeup. I dragged myself up out of the bed and went into the bathroom across the hall from Willa’s room to take a shower. The hot water was soothing, and I stood beneath it for as long as I dared. I was back in my bedroom getting into my pajamas when my phone pinged, alerting me to a new text message. My heart leapt into my throat, and for a second, I was admittedly freaking out. Then my mind settled down as I remembered Darren had given me his phone number, but I hadn’t given him mine. There would be no way for him to text me.
I scooped up the phone and saw Kira’s name on the screen. Of course it was my sister. She checked in with me every night, maintaining a connection with me even while we were far apart. My twin was older than me by only five minutes, but she took those five minutes very seriously. There were times when she acted more like my mother than my sister, wanting to take care of me and sometimes drifting close to meddling in my life. She had only loving intentions and really wanted what was best for me. And I couldn’t really fault her for getting involved. It wasn’t like I did anything to keep her out of it. In fact, I made sure she was kept up to date with every detail of my life. It was hard not to. She’d been right by my side during everything and talking to her was what got me through.
That also meant she already knew what was happening that night. She knew I’d gone to the bar that night and exactly why. While she didn’t quite understand my compulsion to toast Darren on his birthday, she respected it and supported me in doing whatever I needed to help me cope. It wasn’t that she thought I shouldn’t be thinking about Darren or that he should be totally out of my mind. Quite the opposite. In my sister’s mind, there was much more I should be doing than just privately honoring Darren on his birthday. She was fully of the belief I needed to tell him my secret. In fact, she believed I should have a long time ago.
