But now I think of the way Colton changed when we walked through the hospital doors. How it must’ve all come rushing back at him, and I think I get it. Knowing what was coming would have been much worse.
For a moment I almost understand him not wanting any contact with Trent’s family. Or with me, after I wrote him. Maybe I wouldn’t want it either if I were him. Maybe I’d want to leave that whole part of my life behind too so I could get on with living the one I didn’t think I was going to have.
All of a sudden it seems so selfish for me to have come looking for him. A tiny, uncomfortable question, one I’m almost scared to ask myself, tugs at the edge of my thoughts. What if I haven’t been completely honest with myself about why I wanted to find him? I justified trying to find him with the idea that I needed to in order to move on. To find closure, say good-bye, all those things. But what if all I’ve really been trying to find is a way to hold on to a part of Trent? This piece I’ve given more meaning to than the rest, because maybe a tiny part of me feels like some essential part of him might still be there, in his heart.
It’s why, an hour later, when I walk out and find Colton still in the waiting room, I steel myself against the warmth of his smile and ignore the tiny flutter it causes in my chest. It’s why, when he stands without saying anything and looks at my lip and raises his hand again like he might reach out and touch it, I back away fast, put as much distance between us as possible. And it’s why, when we pull up in front of his parents’ shop, I don’t turn off the car and I don’t dare look at him. I focus only on the steering wheel in front of me.
“So we’re back to where we started,” he says. His words hang there between us, a flash of the morning and a beginning that shouldn’t have been. All I can do now is end it.
“I’m sorry I took up your whole day with this,” I say. “Thank you. For everything.” I sound stiff, cold. He doesn’t say anything, but I can feel his eyes trying to catch mine, and it takes everything in me not to let them. “I need to go,” I say, as firmly as I can. “I’ve been gone for too long, and my parents are going to freak out, and I really just . . .” Don’t look at him, don’t look at him, don’t—
“You wanna get something to eat?” he asks. “Before you go?”
I look at him. Wish I didn’t, because his smile is all full of hope and possibility.
“I . . . no. Thank you, but I need to go.”
“Oh.” His smile tumbles. “Okay.”
“Okay,” I echo.
Neither one of us moves. Or speaks. And then we do, at the same time.
“So maybe another time?”
“It was nice to meet you.”
He sits back in his seat. “I take that as a no.”
“Yes. I mean, no. I can’t—shouldn’t.”
I don’t even try to explain, because I know that if I do, I’ll make a bigger mess than I already have. I hate the look on his face, like I’ve just broken his heart. But I’m trying to be careful with it, like that nurse said, and that means ending this feeling before it has a chance to begin.
CHAPTER SIX
“Of all heart stories, tales of grief are most deeply etched into patients’ psyches. But these losses are often buried—wounds that patients are unwilling to [fully] reveal.”
—Dr. Mimi Guarneri, The Heart Speaks: A Cardiologist Reveals the Secret Language of Healing
I’M DISORIENTED WHEN I pull into my driveway, because I don’t remember the drive home. I reach back in my mind for some concrete proof that I actually just drove back, but the only things I can think of are Colton’s face when he bent down to the passenger window and said good-bye one last time, and the way he looked in the rearview mirror, standing in the middle of the empty street, watching my car go, one hand half raised in the air. I must’ve replayed an endless loop of the day all the way home—him walking into the café, his eyes and the way he looked at me. The way he sounded when he said good-bye, like he couldn’t quite believe it.
The dull ache of my lip is the only thing that keeps me from feeling like the entire day was a dream. And now I’m back. Back where I belong, and where I know my mom will be waiting, anxious and worried about where I’ve been. Angry when she finds out what happened. I turn off the car and sit listening to the engine settle in the otherwise still night until I’m ready to face her.
“Where have you been?” my mom says, rounding the corner into the entryway as soon as I walk in. “Do you know how many times I called you today?”
I don’t. I’ve gotten out of the habit of checking my phone, or even turning it on.
I close the door softly behind me and set my purse on the entry table. “I know; I’m sorry.”
Her eyes zero in on my swollen lip and the stitches, and she crosses the space between us in two steps, and she’s right there, her hands on my cheeks, tilting my head back to see better, just like the nurse did. It only takes a second for her voice to go from angry to concerned. “My god, Quinn, what happened?”
I tear up instantly in response to the worry in her voice. “Nothing, I . . .” I take a deep breath, try to keep my voice steady, but the way she’s looking at me does me in. I crumble completely, tears and all. “I ran into a car, and my face hit the steering wheel, and—”
“You were in an accident?” She pulls me back by my shoulders, eyes scanning the rest of me for damage. “Why on earth didn’t you call me? Was anyone else hurt?”
“No, nobody else got hurt. It was a parked car, and nobody was there, so I left a note, and—”
“Where did this happen?”
I hesitate for a moment, not wanting to have to explain why I was in Shelter Cove. But there’s no way around the truth on this, not between the bus I hit and the trip to the hospital. “Shelter Cove,” I say. I shrug. Teary. Pathetic.