“What?” Maddy asked, noticing I’d gone quiet.
“Nothing.”
She eyed me from the side. I glanced over at her and something moved across her face, like she could read my mind.
Maybe she could. Maddy knew Emma inside and out. She probably knew exactly how Emma felt about me—or didn’t feel. And she seemed to know that I knew it now too.
“Did something happen?” she asked.
I peered at her quietly. “Just tell me if there’s any chance,” I said.
I didn’t have to explain it.
She looked away from me, like she was trying to figure out how to say what she wanted to say. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Her gaze came back to mine. “Justin, you will never get her to love you. You can’t. My parents tried with her. For years. They still try.”
“She loves you.”
“That’s because I got in before the doors closed.”
I dragged a hand down my mouth. “She said it’s because of the kids. That I’m in a different place than she is—”
She shook her head. “It’s not because of the kids. I mean it is, but it isn’t. If it wasn’t that, she would have found something else to be the reason.” She held my eyes. “She’s not capable of falling in love. Things happened to her and she’s…” She blew a breath through her nose. “You seem like a really nice guy, and I genuinely like you. I do. But you should prepare yourself for what’s going to happen when it’s time for her to go. Because she will go.”
I had to look away. “I don’t think I can give up.”
When she didn’t reply, I glanced back to her. I couldn’t help but notice that she looked sorry for me.
“I thought you might say that.” She breathed in deep and looked out over the lake. “Justin, for what it’s worth, I really hope this curse thing is real.” She peered back at me. “Because I think you deserve your happy ever after when it’s over.”
The soulmate I’d get once Emma and I broke up. So that was Maddy’s prediction: There was no hope.
But my foolish heart would hope anyway. It didn’t know how not to.
CHAPTER 30 EMMA
Mom was a mess.
She had glass in her foot. I got her to the bathroom and pulled it out with tweezers, then cleaned and wrapped her wound while she sat at the vanity.
She looked like she hadn’t been sleeping. She had circles under her eyes and the robe she was in was stained.
Neil wasn’t cheating or lying to her. I knew how busy he’d been at the hospital over the past few days because for the most part I had been with him. But Mom didn’t do well with abandonment—even the perceived kind. Which was funny, because it’s the very thing she’d subjected me to for most of my life.
Neil brought in a change of clothes, set them on the counter, and bent to kiss her gently on the top of her head. She leaned into it, and I figured the chaos was over for the moment, so I took that as my cue to leave. I left the house to find Maddy waiting and Justin gone.
For the next few days I was small.
Maddy knew it and gave me my space. Justin was also giving me my space, but not for the same reason.
I couldn’t even think about what had happened with him by the garage. My brain was too exhausted to revisit it. I didn’t have the bandwidth.
I texted him the once-a-day obligatory text to meet the requirements of our curse-breaking agreement, and he matched my energy with a single line back.
Our fourth date was coming up in a few days. Our last date.
I don’t know why, but I wasn’t looking forward to it. Not because I didn’t want to see him, because I did. I just… I didn’t know.
Five days after Mom’s incident in the driveway, Neil surprised her with a little getaway to Mexico, trying to make up for his long hours at work. They’d left yesterday. Maddy had also left yesterday to her parents’ for their anniversary. So I was alone.
I planted the rock cress and hostas I’d recommended to Neil. I didn’t plant the rosebush. I couldn’t bring myself to leave it on this island where no one would see it or take care of it, but I didn’t know what else to do with it. It wasn’t like the other plants I’d left behind. This one meant something. I wanted it to be loved and safe. But where?
My mind kept going to Justin’s. That’s where everything was loved and safe. But would I ever go to Justin’s again to put it there?
I couldn’t deal with thinking about it. So I just left it, sitting on the end of the dock in its pot like it was watching for its lover to come home from a journey at sea.
I navigated the pontoon twice through a miserable rainstorm by myself just to get to work and home. Somewhere in there my DNA test came back. I’d opened the email and looked at the results. I was Irish and German. Lots of other stuff, but mostly that. It’s funny because when I asked Mom what I was, she said she didn’t know.
It was always like that with her. Didn’t remember, couldn’t recall. Like everything’s a secret, like my whole past had been smudged with an eraser. She took a broom and brushed the sand behind us so I could never look back and see where I’d been or where I came from. All I had was where I was going and I could never stop moving forward because of it.
I thought for a split second about changing my privacy settings on 23andMe to see if I had family. Then I immediately decided against it. I was feeling too small to handle it right now. Maybe when Maddy came back, I’d let her do it. She could sift through the information for me, tell me if anyone was out there, happy to know I existed.
Sarah had been snapping me. Pictures of her hair, and one with her friend Josie. A few of Chelsea and several of Brad. I guess the Dahl kids had never had a dog before. They were very excited.
I liked the messages. I messaged her back to ask about Alex and Chelsea. Never about her oldest brother though. It was so strange to be barely speaking to Justin but to have a running conversation with someone in the same house.
