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“Like...” I dropped my head into my hands. I was pathetic. “Like I can’t wait to see him again. Like when he’s next to me, the world feels complete somehow. Like when we’re apart I’m actually...pining for him? I’m dying for any reason to say his name, to talk about him. Like, could I love him, maybe?” What should have been a happy realization felt like one more weight lumped on the pile pressing down on me.
“You’re asking?”
I lifted my head and looked at my friend. “You’re an expert in love. You tell me. Is it even possible to fall in love that fast?”
Christine laughed gleefully. “Oh god, that’s hilarious. Em, if I was an expert in love, would I be preparing to return to my one-bedroom apartment and my three guinea pigs, or would I be returning to a significant relationship?”
“Psychiatrists are experts in all kinds of disorders they do not themselves have,” I pointed out.
She made a face at me. “Nice comparison.”
“You know what I mean.”
She stood and went to the windows, staring out at the snowy hillside behind the resort. “You can definitely be in love this quickly,” she said, her voice slow and thoughtful. “But in this case, I wonder if it’s just the fascination with the guy because of all the circumstantial stuff. The hunt, his involvement with your family history.”
“He’s hot too.” I was trying to lighten the mood, but the joke felt flat, superficial.
“People don’t fall in love with people because they’re hot.”
“I know.”
She turned to face me. “You have to tell him.”
“I know.” Misery felt like it was making itself right at home inside me, like it was picking out curtains and choosing furniture, preparing to stay there forever.
As Christine and I got ready to go down for dinner with our fellow conference goers, I practiced turning words over in my mind. I needed to figure out how I was going to confess the truth to Archie, but nothing felt right.
I was in too deep now, and there were no good answers. If I told Archie about my family now, about my relationship to his worst moment, he’d think I’d manipulated him. And if I waited, it would get worse when I finally came clean. Was there, I wondered, any way I could just not tell him? Like...ever?
“You have to tell him,” Christine said again as we left the room.
“I know.” And I did. I just didn’t know when or how.
Chapter Eighteen
Roscoe the Driving Dog
GHOST
I’d dropped Emily off, my heart fuller than it had been in years. And then I took Aubrey and her little family down to the staff housing on the property. There, the front yard of their cozy three-bedroom house had been decorated with signs welcoming the baby home, and balloons were tied to the door, while numerous packages were tucked to one side on the doorstep.
Once I’d walked the new family inside, it had been hard not to linger. Phineas was quiet, content. Aubrey and Wiley, though clearly tired, gave off the same air of fulfillment. And together, the three of them seemed complete in a way that made me so happy for my sister, and also doubled the loneliness I’d been feeling the past few years.
Meeting Emily had cast a light on the life I’d had before she’d walked into that elevator with me. I hadn’t recognized the darkness I held onto, how much it had widened and grownto shadow every part of me. I’d been thinking for a while that when the hunt concluded I would need to find something else to occupy my time. Now I was certain it was a different place altogether.
Of course I wanted to stay here, to be close to my sister and the family she was building.
But it wasn’t mine.
I was on the outside—now more than ever. And the recognition of that fact had things shifting around inside me, looking for a new way to fit.
“Thanks for everything, Ghost,” Wiley said, walking me out and shaking my hand as he pulled me in for a quick hug.
“Of course. Congratulations, man. I’m so happy for you guys.”
Wiley’s smile was all the answer I needed to know that they were ready for whatever adventure life and little Phineas had in store for them.
“I’m right up the hill. Just reach out for whatever,” I told him, heading back out down the snow-covered walkway to the SUV.
