Chapter 42

Elle

Madden is sleeping at Jonah’s and Sawyer’s. And, well, I’m not.

It’s Friday night, five days after the book slide and breakup. Since Sunday, Madden and Jonah have zigzagged back and forth between the two houses as usual. I’ve kept myself busy with writing. I haven’t seen Sawyer.

It seems ridiculous that anyone can get under your skin that fast, that you can go in a matter of weeks from barely knowing someone at all to wanting to tell him every little thought that crosses your mind…

It feels the loneliest at night. That’s when I miss him the most, when the urge to text him or, worse, to run over and ring his doorbell is so strong I almost can’t resist it. But so far I have managed not to give in to weakness. Each time, I remind myself how strong and self-reliant I’ve been since Trevor left. I was fine without Trevor, and I’m fine without Sawyer.

The tough love seems to be working. Each time I’ve felt close to spiraling into self-pity, I’ve watched a few hundred episodes of old television shows, deliberately filling my head so it can’t be swamped with memories of Sawyer—smiling, laughing, raising an eyebrow at the sight of me in my pajamas and apron, pinning me with a dark look that promises pleasure.

Tonight, though, I can’t settle. I try to do some work, but I can’t write. I start washing dishes, then flit to the laundry, which needs folding, then find myself back at the sink (the dishes still only partially done). I feel aimless and twitchy. I try the usual medicine of bad TV, but that, too, fails me. I change into exercise clothes and go for a run, but I come back just as jumpy, and the hot shower doesn’t help, either.

It just makes me think of Sawyer.

Lavishing attention on my body, washing me, making love to me with an intensity I’ve never known before.

Building a fence, thinking of me, wanting to please me with it.

Watching me at Trevor’s wedding, knowing the best man’s speech would crack me open, protecting me.

So, so good to me, but still not mine.

A dead woman’s.

I blot my tears with my towel and run a comb through my wet hair.

I’ve just finished blowing my hair dry when Hattie and Capria text to see if I want to go to a late show with them.

No thanks.

Getting it on with the neighbor?

The words kick me in the chest, and I have to catch my breath before I can respond.

The neighbor and I broke up Sunday.

Forty-five minutes later, Hattie and Capria show up with supplies.

“Madden here?” Hattie demands, when I open the door.

“Next door.”

“Red wine,” Hattie says, pushing efficiently past me into the kitchen, setting two bottles down on the table. “You should have told us you broke up with him. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I was doing okay.”

She eyes me suspiciously.

“No, really, I’m fine.”

I’m not sure why I lie. Maybe because I feel so foolish for having deceived myself, yet again, into believing a man was emotionally available when he wasn’t. I couldn’t keep myself out of trouble even though I already knew what trouble looked like.

Capria opens a paper grocery bag. “We weren’t sure, so we brought options. Peanut butter”—she puts a jumbo jar of Skippy beside the wine—“dark chocolate, marshmallows, Ben and Jerry’s, Oreos.”

I grab for the Oreos.

“Ha!” Hattie says. Capria, grudgingly, reaches into her pocket, withdraws a twenty, and slaps it into Hattie’s hand.

“I guessed you’d want the ice cream,” Capria says sadly, reaching for the Ben and Jerry’s.

Hattie moves briskly around my kitchen, gathering tools. Bowls, spoons, a carton of milk, glasses…I pour myself a glass of milk and begin dipping cookies one by one, like a chain smoker, barely pausing between them. Hattie scoops peanut butter out of the jar with a square of chocolate. Capria doesn’t bother with a bowl, just spoons Ben and Jerry’s straight out of the carton. I would give them both a hard time about eating my feelings, but I don’t have the energy for teasing. Besides, it feels so good to have them here.

“I’m going to eat all the Oreos first,” I tell them, “and then I’ll drink wine until I pass out.”

“Before you get too blotto,” Hattie says, biting her lip, “um, I talked to Eve today.”

“Yeah?” I say, like a dope walking into an ambush.

“I wasn’t sure if I should mention this—”

My heart picks up, catching danger before my brain does.

“But I thought maybe it would be better for you to hear it from me. She told me she’s renting the house next door to you to someone new. I guess Sawyer’s renting something on the other side of town.”

“Oh,” I say. “He didn’t tell me.”

Hattie’s eyes are soft.

I bite my lip. “Of course he didn’t tell me. Why would he?”

I’m not aware I’m crying until Hattie and Capria move in, surrounding me with hugs and comfort and lots and lots of tissues.

“Oh, honey,” Hattie says, giving me a huge lemon-scented hug.

“Group hug,” Capria says, and contributes coconut scent and a boa-constrictor squeeze.

When I get ahold of myself, Hattie asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”

I tell them what happened, how the journal fell off the nightstand, how I didn’t mean to read it but did, how I flipped forward to find that the most recent entry was just days earlier. I love you. I will probably always love you.

“And you can’t even hate him,” Capria says sympathetically. “Because he’s actually kind of a decent guy. I mean, any guy that would love his wife that much, and write her all those nice letters.”

“Shhh,” Hattie says, but it’s too late—I’m crying a fresh flood.

“He can’t be such a good guy if he’s breaking your heart like this,” Hattie points out. “I mean, he let you think he was ready to move on when he wasn’t. That’s not such a good-guy thing to do.”

“He was ready to move on. Just not to let go. And he shouldn’t have to let her go. She’s not his ex-girlfriend. She’s his dead wife. He’s allowed to hold on if he wants to hold on. It’s just—”

“It’s just that you don’t want to share him with her,” Hattie says gently.

Despite her kindness, her way of putting it rubs me the wrong way. “It’s not a matter of sharing or not sharing, it’s knowing that I’m his second choice.”

“Of course you don’t want that!” Capria cries. “She deserves better.” She aims this at Hattie as if delivering the zinger in an argument. “He had every chance in the world to tell her he was madly in love with her, and he didn’t.” Capria turns to me, all righteous rage. “You deserve better than that.”

Hattie has a funny expression on her face. I know she’s thinking about the demise of her own marriage. In her case, it wasn’t that her husband preferred someone else to her—it was that he preferred anyone and everyone else to her, a fact that she found out by contracting HPV.

“Hattie?”

“Fuck him,” Hattie says, her gaze snapping back to us. “Maybe that should be our motto? Fuck him.”

“Do you mean Sawyer? Or Rob?” That’s Hattie’s ex.

“Or Trevor,” Cap suggests. “Because none of this would be happening if it weren’t for Trevor.”

“All of them. Fuck ’em.”

“Can we drink to that?” Cap asks. She raises her glass. “Fuck ’em!”

We toast, drink, and resume our attack on the innocent snacks.