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It still feels as if he’s who I was meant for, and maybe it would have worked out if my life had gone a different way. But it didn’t, and I have two children who need to come first.
My chin lifts and I swallow hard. “I’ve loved you since I was six. I used to watch out that back window for you and only you, dreaming up these crazy scenarios that would make you see me.” My voice cracks and I have to stop talking.
“Lucie—” he begins. “I’m sorry. I just can’t be respons—”
I hold up a hand because if I don’t say this now, I never will. And because if he’s about to offer yet another fake apology, I’m going to lose it.
“You’ve got a company to run that comes first for you. Maybe I didn’t want to accept that, or maybe I thought once you fell in love with us, you’d choose to change. But I spent my entire life as the kid no one wanted, and I’m not doing that to my own children. For their sake, Caleb, I need to stop waiting on you to figure it out.”
His eyes are wide, his mouth is ajar, and I don’t give him a chance to reply as I turn to walk into the house.
There was no point in waiting—he wasn’t going to promise to change. He was just going to apologize and continue proving with his inaction and his defensiveness that he doesn’t feel the same way I do.
I’m someone no one has ever wanted quite enough and I put my kids in the same position.
But at least I know how to make sure it stops happening.
IWAKEon the floor between the twins’ beds. I tried to sleep in my own room, but I couldn’t do it. I needed to be able to hear them breathing.
I sneak out to go in search of my cell phone, which I left downstairs last night after the conversation with Caleb.
My stomach sinks, remembering how it ended. But it had already ended for me, in a way, the second Henry admitted he’d been looking for Caleb when he got lost. I wanted to save Caleb from himself. I wanted my fairy tale. But those are goals for someone who doesn’t have two children depending on her.
The phone shows that I already have a missed call from Molly—at six in the morning.
I dial her back immediately. “Hey, is everything okay?”
“Michael asked me out!” she screams so loudly I have to hold the phone away from my ear. “Oh, wait. Henry’s okay, yeah? I guess I should have asked that first.”
I smile. “He’s fine. So how did this happen?” I think I’ll keep our potential role in this to myself for the time being.
Molly goes on to describe how she completely lost it as he drove her home and couldn’t stop crying. “And so he hugged me and somehow we were kissing and then, you know—”
“You slept with him?”
“No, Michael was all annoyingly honorable about it and saying he didn’t want to take advantage of me in a vulnerable state, which goes to show that a lot of my plans that involved him rescuing me from traumatic situations would not have ended as sexily as I thought. But anyway, he said he’s had a crush on me since the day I interviewed but never wanted to put me in a weird position and we’re going out tomorrow night!”
I tell her how happy I am for her and agree to help her shop for lingerie for their date, though she’s been buying lingerie for this date for years now.
“Now he won’t have to punch one of Caleb’s friends at your wedding,” she replies with a laugh.
It stings—because yes, there was a ridiculous part of me that really believed there’d be a wedding—but I don’t correct her. What happened between me and Caleb can wait.
This is Molly’s moment. I got my moment too. I just hope hers lasts a little longer than mine did.
I call in sick and keep the kids home from school too. Henry’s teacher phones later in the morning to tell me she feels awful about what happened yesterday and wants to give him another chance to demonstrate the robotic arm. Kindergartners aren’t normally a part of the school-wide end-of-year show on Friday, but she’s convinced them to make an exception for him. To my utter shock, he agrees, though I doubt he’ll go through with it.
There are other calls too, because the whole world, it seems, has heard about Henry going missing. Even the moms at St. Ignatius, women who’ve never said a word to me, call or text.“God, you must have been so scared,”I hear again and again. As different as we are, there’s one thing we have in common: the terror of loving someone so much—someone we could lose.
The one person I don’t hear from all day long is Caleb. He’s already back at work and moving forward, while I’m the one with this wound in my chest reopening every time I look at his house.I’mthe one fighting this childish hope that we can be salvaged, when the sight of Henry looking out our window for him should be enough to remind me it can’t.
I did this to myself, and I did this to my kids, and now I’m going to undo all of it. The sooner we get out of here, the better.
36
CALEB
Ido what I’ve always done when shit’s gone wrong: I head to the office and bury myself in work, and then I get on another goddamn plane and travel back to the east coast.
