“Where are you going to go?”
“Anywhere but here.”
It’s the only answer I have right now.
Keir didn’t come that night. I’m glad, but to say I didn’t stay up waiting for him to turn up would be a lie. I even had Ellie sleep next to me just in case.
My father is up and moving around in the kitchen, while my mother is still asleep in the living room on the pull-out couch.
“Coffee?” he asks. I shake my head and grab a bottle of water. “The real estate agent left a message. Seems you’ve got a buyer.” He nods to my phone. Picking it up, I see she tried calling a few times before my father must have answered it. “Now you can get that man out of your life for good.”
“I hope so.” I call the agent straight back.
“Sailor, we got an offer. It’s just below asking price, but they want a fast move-in date, which is what you were after, right? So let me know what you want to do.”
“Take it.”
“I thought you might say that. Come into my office today if you could. I can get all the paperwork started.”
I hang up, and when I raise my head, my father is watching me. “How did it go so wrong with Dillan?”
“How did it not, you mean?” I shake my head and glance down at my phone. My screen saver is a picture of Dillan and me when we looked happy. We weren’t. “Maybe after the first miscarriage I saw a different side of him.” I shrug. “I tried fixing it, but it just never worked. He wasn’t as invested in the marriage as I was.”
“Dillan never wanted you for you, it was the appearance he liked the most.” I fix my eyes on my father’s. “You are a beautiful young woman, and he was an average man. You were out of his league, and he liked the power he held by having you on his arm.”
“He was a fuckhead.” My mother enters the kitchen behind us. She leans in and kisses my head before going to my father. “Just don’t go back to where you were. You’ve done so well up to this point. Remember how bad it was and how far you have come since those days.”
“I won’t. I wouldn’t even recognize that person if I saw her today.” I shrug. I did love a part of the old me, the part that took no shit. And I suppose I haven’t with Keir, but with Dillan, I did. For some reason I let him walk all over me, and that’s never happening again.
“Real estate today?” my father asks.
“Yep! And applying for apartments. Fingers crossed I get one soon.”
“You can always stay in the camper van, if need be,” my father offers.
I shake my head at his words. “I’ll be okay.”
And I think I may be now.
Hopefully.
“I feel like you should put ‘stalker’ on your resume,” I say to Joey as I step off the train. He smirks and shakes his head but says nothing. “I’m clearly not going to run.” I sigh. “And hopefully soon the apartment will be sold, then we can be out of each other’s lives.” Joey shakes his head at me again. “What?” He says nothing. “What?” I ask him again.
“It’s funny you think you can just walk away. As if he will let you.”
His words make my face drop and I sigh.
Did he …
“Sailor.” I turn to see Keir standing out the front of the real estate office. He’s wearing sunglasses and a look that tells me he won’t leave me alone anytime soon. Out of the corner of my eye I see Joey walking away. I sigh again. I think I would prefer Joey over him. I don’t like what he does to me, who he turns me into when he touches me.
“Lollipop.”
Goddammit! It would be bad manners to smack him, right?
I choose to ignore him and walk straight to the office door. When I’m next to him, his hand wraps around my arm. It isn’t painful, just a slight grasp, then he leans in and whispers in my ear, “I’ve come to accompany you.”
“What a lucky girl I am.” His mouth moves at my words, but he chooses not to say anything else. “If you must, try to remember your manners.” His teeth scrape over his lip, but that’s all he gives me. Huh. Interesting. As soon as I walk in, the real estate agent who I’ve been dealing with spots and waves me through. I feel Keir’s closeness as he follows behind me, so close it feels like we are moving in unison. She pulls a tight smile, then looks over my shoulder at Keir.
“This is Keir, he’s been helping me deal with everything since Dillan,” I try to explain.