While I wait, I think about calling Lauren, who’s still on the West Coast. But it’s only five there, and she’ll be working for hours before she can call back. Even if I did text or call Lauren, it doesn’t feel right to bring up my mommy problems to someone who’s had to say goodbye to hers.
My phone buzzes in my lap, and my gaze snaps down to the screen. It’s Sue.
Hi, Thea. Of course. I have about 15-20 minutes now, if that works for you. I’m ready when you are. Just let me know when to call.
I stumble upright, hiking my bag onto my shoulder as I text Sue, thanking her and telling her that I’m ready to talk.
She calls a minute later, as I’m starting my walk to Alex’s, her voice warm and familiar and, I’m not ashamed to admit, comfortingly maternal. Tears fill my eyes, and my throat thickens. I don’t know that I’m going to be able to talk to my therapist so much as cry at her.
Like always, Sue asks me how I’m doing, what I need to talk about.
This time, for the first time, I tell her what I need even though Ireallydon’t want to need it. My voice wobbles, but I don’t wait until it’s steady or hold back what might unsteady it again. I don’t keep a single thing inside.
I tell her everything.
CHAPTER 15THEN
August 2, two summers ago
I’m sitting at Alex’s kitchen table, sipping a very good, very strong cup of coffee as Friday morning sun spills in, warm and buttery, through the windows. Alex sips his coffee, then sets it down, turning back to the stove, where he’s making the breakfast he invited me over for. He’s moving around… stiffly.
“Something hurting?” I ask.
“Better question would be, is anythingnothurting.”
“What happened?”
He seems to hesitate, then says, “A cascade of events.”
“Beginning with?” I watch him wince as he shifts his weight, tensing his shoulders, his lower back arching in.
“Ah. Well.” He leans over the pot on the stove and winces again. “Your floor.”
My mind flashes back to the other night, the two of us lying on the floor, Alex’s arm still curled around me. My eyelids growing heavy, telling Alex,we should go to bed, immediately realizing howthat sounded, about to clarify what I meant, then being answered with a snore, his heavy arm curling tighter around my shoulders. Then early the next morning, when I woke up the moment the sun hit my eyes, like I always do. For a few minutes, I watched him sleep, cataloged his features. The tips of his dark, thick lashes burnished bronze by the morning light. His bittersweet-cocoa bed-head hair, indecisive curl-waves stuck out in every direction. The stubble darkening his jaw right up to his cheekbones. How beautiful I thought he looked. And thought about kissing him again.
Heat rolls through me.
I clear my throat. “Next time,” I tell Alex, “you should definitely try the dog bed.”
A soft laugh rumbles out of him. “My back still would’ve been fucked up. I went too hard on the rowing machine, trying to work out the knot. Then I overdid it on the stationary bike.”
“I’m sensing a theme,” I tell him.
He sips his coffee. “Yes. I can get a little… overzealous with things, including, but not limited to, workout machinery, but it’s that or smoke to deal with stress, and we have an agreement, don’t we?”
“Haven’t even looked at a gas station hot dog stand in weeks.”
He grins. “Look at us, staying strong.”
“Does anything help?” I ask. “With the pain.”
“Nah, I just have to wait it out. Stay active and do my stretches. Sleep on my absurdly posh ergonomic mattress and take ibuprofen and look forward to waking up not feeling like I’m eighty.”
“How old are you, actually?”
“Fifty,” he throws over his shoulder.
I nearly spit out my coffee. “You arenot.”