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“Not far at all,” she tells me and offers a small smile as she touches her lower stomach. “We only just found out.”
With a nod, I acknowledge what she said, but new words fail me.
“You okay?” she asks with hesitancy.
“I just wish Sebastian would tell me why we’re here,” I blurt out the truth. “Why now?” I don’t bother keeping my voice low as I spill the truth to a perfect stranger.
“It’s funny how they keep things from us,” she says a bit lower, a bit more serious than she’s been, “as if we aren’t going to find out.” The small eye roll and shake of the head are meant to add humor, but I can see how she really feels in her eyes, in the way her smile struggles to stay where it is.
“Carter too, then?” I ask her, feeling the race in my pulse.
“He tried; I think he knows better now.” The moment the words leave her, she bites down on her lower lip and peeks over her shoulder at the door, as if he could come in any second. For a moment I think she’s worried he’d come here, worried he’d see her talking to me about him. But then she mutters, “He better know better now,” in a tone not meant to be negotiated.
“He’s an asshole sometimes,” she tells me, playing with the nonexistent ring missing from her finger. “He’s rough around the edges and difficult at times. But he loves me, and I told him I want to know what’s going on. Even if he thinks I shouldn’t know, not knowing makes it harder on me, you know? Which makes it harder on us.”
She’s saying every single thing that I could say right back to her.
“I told him, I’d let him know if I didn’t want to hear.” Again she looks over her shoulder, this time as if summoning him, but the man doesn’t show himself. “And if I want to know something, he answers. And I do the same for him.”
“Right.” I nod in agreement.
Her last sentence is spoken with finality. “Being raw and open is scary as fuck, especially in this life, but it’s the only way I know how to survive.”
Those words, each and every one, settle into the very marrow of my bones. “I don’t think I can stay here if Sebastian doesn’t tell me what’s going on,” I confess to her. Bastian isn’t anywhere to be seen or heard; I have no idea what he’s doing, but he needs to hear those words. “I’m afraid he’s going to choose this place over me, to be honest.” There’s the truth. The heart of the matter. He’s wanted to come back since the day we left, and now he’s done it, without my permission. If I say I don’t want this, I am certain he’s not going to choose me.
“Why would you say that? You’re all he talks about.”
“Because he’s been waiting for me to leave him for years. He’d let me walk away if he thought it was the right thing to do by me.”
“Do you want to walk away?” she asks.
“No,” I say, and the answer is easy. “I don’t even mind this place. It’s not what I was thinking when I told him I’d never come back. This isn’t Crescent Hills and I could be happy here. The only thing I really care about is that he’s not telling me what’s going on. And with the history of what happened before, I want to know. I don’t want to go crazy worrying.”
“I know that feeling,” she mutters beneath her breath. “What did he tell you?” she asks me, and I shake my head along with giving her a shrug.
Swallowing and feeling my dry throat tighten, I answer, “He said he wanted to come home. He said Carter needed him.” Every word feels drier and drier in the back of my throat. Like it’s suffocating me to tell this woman and admit how little he tells me. “I know something’s wrong,” I confess to her.
She only nods her head in response, her eyes darting behind me, but when I look she finally speaks. “He’s not there, I was just checking.”
Feeling an oncoming chill from the draft of the front door, my right hand absently rubs my opposite forearm.
“Do you know why he came back now?” I ask her and again, she nods and answers, “Yes.”
“Is it bad?” I question.
“The bad just passed, now it’s just waiting for things to settle, I think. There are some loose ends, but they’ll be tied up shortly.”
A beat passes, and the ticking in my chest speeds up, feeling each second slip by me faster and faster.
“I’m sorry, I’m a little guilty. Carter asked Sebastian to come back because of things with me, I would think. Things were the worst…” She trails off as her bottom lip wobbles, but she catches it between her teeth and swallows her words.
“Are you okay?” I ask her, feeling for the first time that she’s more like me than I could have ever known.
“I am. I am now,” she adds.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Maybe one day, but I don’t think today is a good time. I’m grateful Bastian came back. I’ll tell you that much. And if you’re worried, I wouldn’t be. But I really think you two should talk.” Her gaze again moves behind me, and this time I know he’s there. She lets her gaze linger and the floor softly creaks behind me.
