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“I think I just want to do something that makes a difference.”
There’s a hint of anxiety in his voice, and I know why. We’ve talked about this before. About how absurd it is that, at eighteen, we’re supposed to decide how to spend the rest of our lives. As if there’s a straight path to walk and not twisting, turning, forked roads that sometimes go back and rejoin.
Sneakily, I shift closer until our arms are touching. Then I reach out and mirror his movements, dragging my fingertips up his jeans, grazing the skin of his side where his shirt rides up. He shivers underneath my touch and I’m drunk on that feeling.
“I think I just want to be happy,” I confess. It’s the only thing I can come up with when I think about the future. It’s the only thing I want, and right now, in bed with Jenson Sharpe, whispering with him as Harwinton sleeps around us, it’s exactly what I am.
* * *
A trillingsound pulls me out of sleep.
A deep, comforting sleep. Sleep I want to sink back into. Get lost in. Use as an escape from reality.
But the trilling is relentless, and I turn over, groping blindly and finding—not my nightstand.
My eyes shoot open. The ceiling above is popcorned and stark white, a triangle of light coming in from an odd angle. I sit up in a queen-sized bed.
A hotel room.
A sigh of relief escapes and everything floods back. The long drive to the city, finding Jodie stable but tired, my own exhaustion setting in as I tried to find a last-minute hotel room that wouldn’t break the bank or give me bedbugs.
And here I am.
Glancing around, I find my phone discarded in the duvet with me. Without thinking, I answer, and the first words I hear are:
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“W-what?”
It comes out as a stutter. I glance at the clock; it’s just after 7 a.m. According to Dr. Salazar, they’ll be moving Jodie to the dialysis center today before one more day at the specialty hospital. Then she can go home, on bed rest, until her heart is stronger.
Jenson speaks again, his voice hard, as cold as it was that first day in Boston. “You ran out on me. On the plan. So it’s a little worse than last time, you know, since several hundred people were waiting on you as well. But I shouldn’t be surprised.”
A lump forms in my throat. It’s made of anger, guilt, and fear. I’m not sure which is more appropriate.
“Jenson, if this is about last night—”
“What else would it be about, Melanie?”
Back to Melanie.The harsh way he says it makes my heart ache.
“What else but the fact that you didn’t show up to our engagement party? To the very public event where everyone was expecting to see us together, and where I had to explain that you weren’t coming. Thankfully, your assistant gave me a heads-up—”
Adrian. I don’t interrupt him as he continues to rant.
“—just figured you’d take two-thirds of the money and disappear? As if none of this ever mattered,” he scoffs.
My phone buzzes and I pull it away from my ear to see a voicemail from Dr. Salazar’s facility. Probably just letting me know that Jodie has been moved, but anxiety swells in my chest.
“Jenson, I can’t.”
“What?”
I’ve obviously caught him by surprise with the interjection, and even over the hundreds of miles, I can feel his anger building.
“Do what you have to do, okay? I wouldn’t blame you. But I can’t deal with this right now. I can’t do this with you right now.”
The declaration is met with silence. I’m slumped forward in the bed, tangled hair blocking my vision and exhaustion still lingering despite a night of sleep. Or an attempt to sleep.
