AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It only took a moment for his three dots to appear.
Cole: I’m so sorry, Mira. How’s Linda taking it? How are you holding up?
Mira: She’s okay. I’m less okay.
Cole: Do you want to talk about it?
Slowly, one deliberate letter at a time, she let herself type out,
Mira: I’m scared.
His response was immediate.
Cole: I’m here.
A soft breeze carried her curtain away from the window, brushing the gauzy fabric over her bare toes.
Mira: I’m drowning in what-ifs. What if she gets worse? What if I can’t take care of her? What if something happens and I’m not there?
She didn’t tell him all the other what-ifs, the ones that kept her up more often than her weird menopause shit, the ones that drilled themselves into her brain, intruding relentlessly on her only moments of peace and quiet night after night.What if she forgets me? What if she forgets Ian? What if she becomes someone different? What if it’s already happening? What if she leaves me too?
Mira: I’m trying to keep my head above water, but I’m kicking so hard under the surface right now my legs are giving out. I can’t breathe.
Cole: Do you feel like you’re going through this all by yourself?
She clutched her phone. He’d cut into her, straight past her skin and her bones into her softest parts, the vulnerable parts she hid so carefully from everyone else. The thoughts that made her feel weak and selfish. The worries that hurt so much to say out loud, she never did.
Her eyes stung, because maybe she didn’t have to hide these softest parts from him. Maybe he wouldn’t judge her. Maybe he was safe.
Mira: It’s so lonely. I try not to involve Ian too much because I want him to have a normal, happy childhood. I try not to show how worried I am all the time because I don’t want Mom to feel like she’s a burden. I try to keep the bakery running so we can pay our bills. I try to make all the appointments and the lessons and help with homework and piano practice and therapy exercises. I try to hold it all together, and I just feel like I’m falling the fuck apart. Like I’m failing at all of it. Like no matter what I do, our lives getting harder and harder is just…inevitable.
She hit send, then waited. One second became two, then five, then thirty, but her screen only stared back up at her, her text sitting there in the void, unanswered, all alone, just like she was. She bit her cheek. Did she say too much? Was he judging her? Why wasn’t he responding? Where were the dots? Where were thegoddamned dots?
Her heart plummeted, falling like a stone kicked off a bridge, landing hard somewhere deep in her stomach.
And then her phone started ringing.
CHAPTERNINETEEN
COLE
He’d beenthe first to text, and he’d wanted to let her decide when they’d progress to calling. But she was hurting. He had to talk to her.
“Don’t say anything,” he said when she accepted the call. “You don’t have to say a single word if you don’t want to. I can do all the talking. But I didn’t want you to feel like you were alone anymore.”
“Cole. That’s so…sweet.” Her voice was quiet, thick with emotion, and finally hearing it again made him rub at the sudden ache in his chest.
“Well, I’m a sweet guy,” he said, pretending he was cool, pretending the small sniff she took across the line didn’t make him desperate to hold her, to beg Benji to let him borrow his private jet so he could race to see her. “Do you want to know what Ruby learned to do today?” he asked. Cute baby stories were always good for a distraction.
“I’d actually love that,” she said softly.
“I was hanging with her while she did tummy time on her play mat, and all the sudden, she pushed her chubby little body up onto her hands and knees, crawled forward one step, and fell flat on her face.”
“So relatable,” she said with a laugh. “Is she okay?”
“She is. But she cried for ten minutes straight. You know, that type of crying where they start turning redder and redder, and you’re like, ‘Breathe, baby. Breathe!’”
“The kind that makes you cover your ears, because you know the post-cry scream will be deafening.”
