I drove around collecting my dog and my kids, the car getting louder with every pickup. Chelsea was grumpy and whining, probably because she was overly tired and sore. She looked like she’d spent the whole four days on the back of a pony, which she probably had. She had dirt under her nails and was sunburnt and needed a bath.
While I appreciated that Leigh took her, I wasn’t sure the trade-off was worth it if this was how I was going to get her back, and realizing that gave me a whole second wave of defeat because it meant I had one less viable option for overnight help.
Alex was going on animatedly about Leigh’s and I was trying to act interested, but the whole thing just felt overstimulating and exhausting.
I came home to laundry and a mailbox full of bills and a long list of back-to-school bullshit. By the time I got Chelsea cleaned up, I had to make dinner. I wanted to DoorDash something, but then I remembered I was back in the real world and needed to start tightening my belt, which only put me in a worse mood. I was days behind at work, Alex was on me to get his school supplies and he wanted to go to Target, Brad was scratching again and probably needed a medicated bath and to go to the vet for another allergy shot, Sarah wasn’t even back from Josie’s family’s cabin, so the stress wasn’t even at full steam yet.
This was the price I paid for those four days. And I wouldn’t have changed it for anything. Well, I might have changed the puking part. But not the rest of it.
I wanted to go back to the island.
I wanted to pretend to be young and child-free with a girl I was falling in love with, in a place where we could imagine it was all possible, because the further I got from those four days on the island, the more I realized it wasn’t. And the reality check was sobering.
She could never meet me here.
Who would want to? Why would she give up a lucrative career and traveling the world with her best friend for this? Dinners of frozen dino nuggets, corn that tastes like the can it comes out of, soggy Band-Aids in the bathtub drain, and all the mundane shit that my life consisted of now.
I wasn’t worth it. I didn’t even blame her.
Maybe that’s why she was crying. She liked me, but she didn’t want everything that came with me, so she felt torn. I was the right guy at the wrong time.
And maybe she was the right girl at the wrong time for me too.
I couldn’t think of a worse period in my life for this to be happening.
By 10:00 Emma didn’t text, and it didn’t even surprise me.
I got Chelsea in bed and I sat down at the desk in my room to try to get some work done. An hour into it she finally called.
I watched the phone ring for a few seconds. She was going to break things off with me. I knew it in my soul. I could feel it.
I hit the answer button. “Hey.”
“Hey,” she said. Her tone was apologetic. I pinched the bridge of my nose and braced for it.
“I was wondering if you wanted some company,” she said.
I raised my head. “Huh?”
“I’m outside.”
I froze for a solid five seconds. Then I bolted up and ran to the window. She was standing with an umbrella on the sidewalk under the streetlamp. She had the rosebush with her, sitting at her feet. The rain was falling softly and she peered up at me. I put my fingers on the glass.
“We’ll try it,” she said, into the phone. “I’ll stay.”
CHAPTER 37 EMMA
I woke up to my alarm at 5:30 in Justin’s dark room.
He pulled me into a warm sleepy hug. “Don’t go.”
“I have to,” I said quietly. “I don’t want the kids to know I stayed the night.”
He groaned and nuzzled into my neck.
This is how we’d been doing it for the last two weeks. Me, sneaking in after the kids went to bed and getting up to leave before they woke up. It was very exhausting and extremely inconvenient.
It was totally worth it.
Maddy and I extended our contract another six weeks at Royaume. Maddy said it was technically still my turn since I’d only asked for six weeks to begin with and a turn is usually three months long. So we were here now until late October.
We hadn’t talked about what would happen next. Me and Maddy or me and Justin. I was a little afraid to.
I was already extremely outside my comfort zone. But at least I had six more weeks to feel this all out.
In the meantime, Maddy and I did need to decide on a new living situation. It was September now and we were officially over the island. Justin had offered his apartment for free for the few months he still had it. Maddy liked free, so we packed up and vacated the cottage, but the studio was unfurnished with only enough room for the one air mattress that Maddy and I had to share—and it had a giant toilet bowl outside. So we’d been looking at other rentals but hadn’t found one we liked yet.
Mom hadn’t even noticed I’d left. But then she’d barely cared when I was there, so that made sense.
Something was starting to shift inside of me with Mom. Maybe because I hadn’t spent this much time adjacent to her in almost fifteen years, but I was realizing that even though I loved her, I wasn’t sure I liked her.
Even thinking this felt wrong. She was my mom. But I didn’t like what she did to Neil that day in the driveway. It put such a bad taste in my mouth, and she hadn’t made any attempts to see me since then so the feeling lingered.
She never replied to any of my texts from the days I was sick. Didn’t return one call. Never circled back to check on me. Even Maria had texted to ask how I was.
I looked at my watch.
Justin hugged me tighter. “Staaaaaay.”
