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“What do you mean?”
“To you, Caleb. What am I?”
“Someone I enjoy spending time with.”
I nodded. “Same.”
He smiled and started to walk again, but I kept my feet firmly on the sidewalk. After a few steps, he turned to face me.
“My old company offered me a job,” I said. “A promotion really. They fired my ex and my boss, then offered me her job.”
Several emotions flashed across his face before he settled on a huge smile. “That’s great.”
“Is it?”
“Well, it means you can stop job hunting, right?”
“It also means I’d be moving back to DC.”
“Yeah,” he said, staring down at his shoes. “I figured that.”
“I’m not sure if it’s what I want. The job or living in DC. I’m curious what you think about it.”
He looked at me, his expression suddenly blank. “Why would you care what I think?”
I felt the words like a punch to the chest, but still I drew myself up as tall as I could and said, “Because I care about you.”
He shook his head and stared past my shoulder down Broad Street toward Sullivan, as though he wanted to rewind the conversation to a point in the walk before it began and steer it, and us, in a different direction.
“Rowan,” he said, and in my name I heard everything he was about to say. He didn’t feel the same. He didn’t want a relationship, at least not with me. We would never be anything more.
I held up my hands to stop him. “It’s ok. You were very clear. If you don’t mind, though, I think I’ll head back. If I’m moving to DC in a week, I have a lot to do. I’ll finish my last two PT sessions up there. Thank you,” I said as though we were wrapping up an unsuccessful job interview. “You really helped my back. I know whatever pain I still have isn’t something you can fix. I’ll be sure to write a glowing review. Good luck with Avery.”
I turned and started back toward Sullivan Street. He called my name twice, each time a hint of something painful growing, but didn’t follow. Before I turned the corner, I looked back to the stretch of sidewalk where I’d left him. He was already gone.
Chapter twenty-five
Rowan
At three am, Igave up falling asleep and went down to the kitchen. Luckily, everyone was out when I returned home last night, so I grabbed a box of tissues and shut myself in the room I shared with Poppy. After a couple hours, I sent Lauren an image of a monkey because, despite her belief that I introverted when I should extrovert, I wanted to be alone. I turned off all the lights around nine, before Mom and Chris came home. When Mom cracked open the door and peeked into the room, I pretended to sleep. Poppy didn’t sneak in until after one. I know because I’d been staring at the ceiling for hours before I heard her hearse pull into the driveway. I rolled over to face the wall, and I listened for her breaths to even before I returned to my back to stare at the ceiling again, silent tears dripping from my eyes into my ears.
It shouldn’t hurt this much. Five weeks shouldn’t be enough for anyone to break my heart, especially someone who told me he could never love me. Sometime in the night, I decided there must be something seriously wrong with me for falling in lovewith men who were incapable of loving me back. Sure, Brad said he loved me. Early in our relationship he said it first and kept right on saying it, including the day I caught him with Kelli. The words were empty, and a part of me wondered if I meant them either. I had nothing to compare how I felt about Brad until Cal.
The way Cal treated me sometimes, like I was the most precious person in the world, had whittled through the walls I’d built around my heart. In the short time we were together, I’d never felt so interesting or beautiful. As much as it hurt, I wasn’t even mad at him. He’d flat-out told me not to get attached. Every tear I’d cried was my own fault.
It’d taken me five minutes to drag myself out of bed and downstairs. I went slow so I wouldn’t make noise and wake Mom, but it didn’t help that my feet felt like twenty-pound weights and my legs wobbled like overcooked spaghetti. Once I finally reached the kitchen, I pulled the flour and sugar from the pantry and got to work, grateful Lauren needed me to bake, so I had something to do other than wallow in self-pity. I’d knocked out three dozen cookies and was sliding a pan of jumbo blueberry muffins into the oven when Mom shuffled into the kitchen.
“I guess you’re on baker’s hours now,” she said, pouring herself a mug of coffee from the pot I’d brewed.
“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
Mom shook her head. “No, I was up there debating whether I should talk to you or let you work through whatever is wrong while you baked.”
“I’m not angst baking, Mom. I’m helping Lauren. She fired her baker.”
Mom nodded. “So I heard. I was talking about the fact you were in your room with the lights out when I got home instead of spending the night at Cal’s.”
“I was tired,” I said, dumping a measuring cup of batter into a fresh muffin pan.
