Page 56 of Found in Wild Sage

I nod, my feeble attempt to show him I hear him, and he backs away, tipping his chin up in farewell. I’m two blocks from home and I need every second of the walk to comb through the tangle of thoughts buzzing in my head.

He’s wrong about me and Evie. But he’s not wrong about me. I’ve known it for years, and it’s one of the reasons I tried to make myself believe I didn’t want this. I don’t know how to give myself to someone else, not the way others seem to innately. It’s undoubtedly why I failed with Mallory—though I have had enough distance from it to accept she had her own work to do after treating our relationship the way she did. Me, though? This distance I set between me and possibility? That firm grasp on self-preservation I cling to? It’s the root of why I didn’t try for so long.

And yet, I’ve never wanted to the way I want to with Evie.

Second, I can’t unhear the raw edge to Finn’s words. He’s talking about me and what I do have, but I can’t ignore the other side—what he doesn’t have, and apparently desperately wants.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Evie

Monday morning dawns after I sleep like a dead woman, then wake feeling like one, too.

Charlie is chipper and smiley and still a bit drooly, but he eats breakfast and he’s been fever-free for more than twenty-four hours. Declan agreed he could go back today if he still seemed to feel good, so off he goes.

It’s odd walking to work from his house. It’s even stranger to walk past my own apartment—or at least the street I would’ve walked from. A note of alarm sounds in the back of my mind when I register I haven’t even been back to my place. I didn’t plan on moving into Declan’s and simply abandoning my home. I have plants that need watering and I still need to clean out the fridge, to name a few items on the list. With Charlie sick and the strange new world of being at Declan’s, I completely forgot.

I’ll have to come on my lunch break or slip over this evening.

“Bye bye, Mama!” Charlie’s sweet little voice interrupts my mental list-making.

“I’ll take you, sweetie,” I say, hoisting him into my arms. Did he get heavier since last I lifted him? Declan carried him when we left, then let him walk for a block or so. It’s slow going, but he loves it.

“Are you sure? I can drop him off.” Declan studies me like he can peel back my scalp and see the thoughts running around in my head.

Also ew. What an unpleasant thought.

“No, it’s fine. I want to catch Clementine up and I’ll be over.” I reach for the bag I’m always carrying, then realize he’s already got it slung over his shoulder. It’s so like our normal routine, my next moments feel surreal. We’ve come from the same house. I’ve slept in his bed. We’re married. And yet here we are, and it could be almost any other day.

I can’t process it, so I focus on the task at hand.

A few minutes later, I’ve updated the preschool staff and waved goodbye to my adorable baby. Toddler. Whatever. He’s still my baby, even if he’s getting big.

The morning passes in a blur. My best-laid plans to run to my house during lunch get crushed under the weight of my severe exhaustion. I promise myself I’ll go to bed early tonight. Leaving the peanut butter and jelly I packed with zero enthusiasm earlier largely untouched, I rest my head on my arms at one of the small break room tables.

“Evie.”

The sound comes from another planet.

“Evie, wake up.”

Maybe this planet, but the other end of a football field.

“Evie.” This time, the voice is accompanied by something warm and firm on my shoulder. It feels nice, until it shakes me.

One of my eyes cracks open and I see a blurry version of Declan.

“There you are. Open your eyes for me.”

There’s a lurch in my chest, my heart dragging itself toward him, and my mind screams, I’ll do anything you say.

I blink him into focus and sit up. My lower back aches from how I was curved over the table, and my butt is nearly numb from sitting on the hard plastic.

“Are you sick?”

He’s assessing in his medical professional way, not asking as a friend. I see the slight narrowing of his lusciously blue eyes, the firm set of his jaw, the way he’s, at some point, taken my wrist and is sneakily taking my pulse.

“No.” It’s probably wrong. I maybe am sick. But I don’t think I have a fever, and it’s just as likely I’m tired.