“Did you really sleep okay?” she asks. “I can sleep on the couch tonight. I should, actually. It’s your bed.”
“I slept fine. Like a baby.”
“Sure you did,” she says, mocking me.
The coffee machine sputters the conclusion of the cycle, and I hand her the filled mug. Our fingers brush together, and a jolt of energy passes from her into me.
She grins. “Thanks.”
“Not a problem at all.” I pop another pod into the machine. “How are you feeling about all of this? It’s got to be messing with you a little bit.”
She grips the mug with both hands. The playfulness from a moment ago is gone, and I feel bad about that. But I also want her to talk to me if she needs to. It’s a double-edged sword.
“It is messing with me a little,” she admits. “I laid awake all night just thinking about my life and what I thought it would be and what it’s become.” She looks up at me. “I’m not upset about it. It just … it shined a light on my life in a way I didn’t expect.”
“As in …?”
We stand in the kitchen, each of us holding our mugs of coffee. The sun streaks into the room and gives things a cheery tint that probably isn’t representative of the conversation. What strikes me more is how real this conversation is. Two days ago, I could barely get a word out of her about who she was, why she left Columbus, and why she was heading to an island in the Pacific.
And now?
It’s as though she’s peeled away the reticence and is letting me see her soul. It makes things easier, and I’m happy she seems to trust me enough to share with me. But I’m not sure I deserve it. I know I’m not equipped enough to handle it.
“When I was a little girl, I thought I would grow up and have a couple of kids of my own and be this famous realtor, of all things.” She laughs. “In high school, I used to go to all of the model home centers and look at the new homes. And you have no idea how many hours I’ve spent on Zillow, just looking at the houses and imagining what I would do to the spaces or who I could see living there. It’s a weird hobby.”
“A little bit.”
She grins. “But then …” The smile falters. “But then my family fell apart. Nettie left. I left the day after I graduated high school with Shawn. I thought we were so in love and that it was going to be the start of my life, but it was a survival mechanism. I just had to get away from my mom and stepdad.”
I press my lips together and try to think my thoughts through before I say anything. But what can I say?
“Shawn and I tried to have a baby a couple of times, but it didn’t work out.” She looks at the floor. “My mom was calling and asking for money. She blamed her husband’s alcoholism on me because I left. Said he missed me so much.” She looks up. “He didn’t miss me. He was a bitter, nasty alcoholic, and had been every day that we lived with him. Yet she said I was his excuse. She didn’t just let him blame me, which would’ve been fine. She blamed me too.”
My chest tightens. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
She looks resolved. I hate it.
“At least you know it wasn’t your fault,” I say.
“Yeah …” She takes a drink. “I got out of my relationship with Shawn a while back because he actually got someone else pregnant. Blamed that on me too—if I could’ve given him a child, he wouldn’t have had to look elsewhere.”
My jaw drops. Anger bubbles inside me.
“He said that? To you?” I ask.
She nods. “It’s fine. I left him. I knew I’d be okay. But then the thing with Chuck and then the Hawaii offer and I really thought I was finally getting to start with my two feet on the ground for once …” She sighs. “And now all of this. I’m still batting from a deficit.”
“That depends on how you look at it. I’m here to help you.”
Her shoulders slump. “And I’m eternally grateful to you. I just don’t want to be the girl who burdens everyone in yet another chapter of my life. It’s a load to carry around. It’s … depressing.”
I set my cup down. I face her shoulder to shoulder and look at her until she looks at me.
I’m not sure what to do with all of this either. I’m a little messed up about it too. But I’m not going to be the guy who lets her feel bad and dicks her over like the rest of the men in her life—if you can call them that.