I’d managed not to think about this for the last six months and now that she was here in front of me this question felt like a swarm of hornets buzzing in my rib cage. The idea made me want to claw my chest open. I was so jealous at the thought of it, it felt cruel that she came here to remind me this possibility existed. Because if she did date, that meant someone else got the Emma who stayed still when she wouldn’t stay still for me.

“How’s your mom?” she asked.

I felt ill.

I gave her a one-shoulder shrug. “Fine. She’s adjusted now. Has a few friends. We go see her once a month.”

“I see you didn’t rename the dog,” she said.

“Nope.”

Silence.

She cleared her throat. “So are you seeing anyone?” she asked out of nowhere. Her voice was a touch too high.

I glanced up at her to catch the tentative gaze she was giving me. My heart leapt at the question. Like maybe it was a sign she still cared.

I shook my head. “No. I haven’t dated at all.”

Something flickered across her expression.

“Are… are you?” I asked, terrified for the answer.

It was an excruciating moment before she replied. “No. I haven’t.”

There was a second of… something. But it didn’t last. The conversation ended and we just sat there, quiet.

It was amazing how much this hurt.

It was like the universe wanted to let me know that no, I wasn’t over it, and no, I didn’t have it under control. No systems I could put in place could make this better. Nothing I did could change how absolutely shitty this felt.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

I scoffed dryly. “Are you sure you want to know?”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

I took in a deep breath. “I’m thinking that I’m happy to see you, but this just stirs up a lot for me.”

She nodded slowly. “And?”

“And I kind of wish you didn’t come.”

I watched this hit her.

But I meant it. What was the point? I didn’t want to catch up. I wanted what I couldn’t have. What she wasn’t capable of giving me. I didn’t want her here on a technicality, I wanted everything.

She apologized. Then she got up to leave.

CHAPTER 47 EMMA

I came knowing he probably didn’t want to see me, knowing I might not like what I found when I got here. I came knowing a door could be slammed in my face or not opened at all.

But I came anyway.

And now Justin was sitting back in his chair across from me, staring at the baseboards and he’d just told me he wished I hadn’t come.

He was in a hoodie. His hair was messy, the way I liked. I’d almost forgotten how much I missed looking at him. How handsome he was. But his gentle brown eyes weren’t happy to see me.

When I pulled up across the street from his house with Sarah, I sat there for a moment. I could see his bedroom window from where I was parked. The one he’d peered out at me from once when I showed up in the rain the night I’d decided to stay.

Home is something that’s always there, I realized. No matter where you are in the world, you know it’s where you left it, unchanged and waiting. Only now that I was here, I saw Justin was neither unchanged or waiting.

He was cold. Short with me. And not glad at all that I was here.

I’d planned to go right into what I’d come to say, but now I didn’t even know how to start or even if I should.

It’s one thing to go to therapy and learn skills. It’s very different to have to use them in real life. And I did need to use them.

I’d felt myself start to get small the second I got here. My old coping mechanism triggered by his obvious unhappiness at seeing me. The plucking at the edges and the need to withdraw and turn inward. My old knee-jerk reaction begged me to get up and go before this did any more damage.

But I’d held my ground. I held it for as long as I needed to, right up until he told me he wished I hadn’t come. And now it was time to go.

I wish I would have known that the last time he’d looked at me with love in his eyes was the last time. I would have savored it. It was so hard to see what I’d lost.

I missed everything.

The tender way he always touched me. My fingers circling the hair on his chest as I lay with my head on his shoulder while we talked. Hearing the rumbling of his voice under my ear. The way he’d wake up in the middle of the night and feel for me and pull me in. How his eyes used to light up when he saw me.

There was something faded there now.

All of what was good was gone.

My heart broke.

This was the price. The price of being better.

Because the old me would never have come here. The old me would have left Minnesota six months ago, been in a different state by now. The old me wouldn’t have gotten close enough to see if the love had disappeared from his eyes.

I was going to cry. And now I really did need to go. Not because I was running, but because this visit was over. I was sorry I’d come. I didn’t want to stir anything up or hurt him or remind him of something he’d already put away. He clearly didn’t want me here and there was nothing for me here either.

“I’m sorry. I’ll go.” I stood up and set the dog on the floor.

Justin looked at me but didn’t say a word. A second later his chair scraped against the tile and he got up and started walking me out.

Brad was running at my feet, yipping and crying.

We got to the door and Justin opened it for me to a blast of chilly air. I saw the nose of my car across the street through the screen. Pictured the drive back to Wakan. The Toilet King billboards along the freeway until I got far enough outside of Justin’s world that they disappeared. I would exit onto the windy road back to my side of Minnesota. Take the two-lane highway past the sign welcoming me to Wakan. Through Main Street, along the river. Back to Grant House.