Page 20 of Here We Go Again

“What?”

“That’s when Rebecca is leaving Atlanta. October seventh.”

Great. Now I’m going to have a ticking alarm clock in my brain. It’ll fit right in with all the other Becca-shaped thoughts I can’t seem to shake.

The light changes, and I slowly ease forward. “Mom, do you understand what I’m asking? Please. Just don’t talk about me, all right? Not about me, definitely not about me and Becca.”

She takes an audible breath. “Ohhhh,” she finally says. “Got it. Absolutely. I understand.”

I frown. Does she understand? Or did I just overshoot the mark? Did I protest so much, I basically admitted to having feelings by being overly insistent that I don’t?

I grip the steering wheel a little tighter. The next time I see my brother, I’m going to punch him right in his stupid face. Or at least push him into his pool.

“Listen, Mom, I’m almost home, and I’ll lose you when I pull into the parking garage. But I need you to promise me, okay? No meddling.”

“When have I ever meddled?”

“You just offered to have your new pickleball partner nudge her daughter to text me. That would be meddling.”

“Okay, true,” Mom says. “I see your point. But if you like her, a little meddling might do you good.”

I tug at my collar, suddenly feeling weirdly sweaty. Is my A/C not working? I reach forward and crank the temperature all the way down. “Promise me, Mom.”

“Fine,” she says. “No meddling. I promise.”

I say goodbye, then end the call right before turning into the garage attached to my building.

Truly, what are the odds that after all this time, Becca’s mother and mine would wind up in the same pickleball league? After eight years of never seeing her anywhere but in my dreams, suddenly, Becca is everywhere.

Well—everywhere but in my text messages.

Except when I turn off my car and grab my phone out of the center console, I do have a new message.

I stare at the screen, wondering for a split second if Mom ignored my request and messaged Cassie anyway, asking her to tell Becca to text me already.

But the timestamp on the message is more than fifteen minutes ago.

She sent it right after I left the Vortex, which means she did it all on her own.

Becca

Hey. Sorry it’s taken so long to reach out. Do you have a second to talk? I need a favor.

6

BECCA

I wait for Theo in the first-floor lobby of Atlanta General. I am weirdly sweaty, and it’s making me wish my scrubs were a darker shade of blue. The last thing I want to do is greet him with sweaty armpits.

There’s a small grouping of chairs around a low coffee table just past the welcome desk. At first, I sit in the chair facing the door. But I’m too jittery to sit still, so I stand and straighten the magazines on the table and throw away a couple of discarded cups from the coffee shop on the other end of the lobby.

There. That feels better, at least.

But seriously, what is up with my nervous sweating? I grab the closest magazine, one titled Local Atlanta, and use it to fan myself.

It’s fine. I’m fine.

There is absolutely zero reason to be stressed about seeing Theo again.