Page 47

TWENTY-FIVE
Cari
I left.
Left him sleeping while I took everything I could stuff into the trunk of my car and ran away.
But before I did, I cleaned up my mess. Stuffed charred canvas and melted plastic into a garbage bag and hauled it downstairs. Somewhere in there was a check for a million dollars.
I tried not to think about it. What I could’ve done with that kind of money. Pay off my student loans. My parents' house. Send my little sister to college.
Stay.
Because that’s what I wanted to do. When I woke up in the dark, Patrick wrapped around me—his soft, even breath against my neck. His arm hooked around my waist—I wanted to stay. More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.
And if I didn’t leave before he woke up, that’s exactly what I would’ve done.
So, I cleaned up my mess and packed my car. I stood in the doorway and watched him sleep for as long as I could.
The last thing I did was hang that painting. The first one I ever did of him. The night we met.
The moment I fell in love with him.
I tucked the note behind the wood-stretched canvas—it said what I couldn’t.
I love you, too.
I hope it’s enough, and then I walk away.
When I pull intotheir driveway, my parents rush out to meet me. I called them from the road as planned, telling them that I’m moving back for a while and that I’ll explain when I get there.
Now that I’m here, they want their explanation.
My sister stands on the front porch. Grace is four years younger and at least a decade older than I am. The reason is soon to be three-years-old and currently pealing across the patchy front yard, screeching my name. Gracie was eighteen when she got pregnant, nineteen when she had Molly. Everything she’s been through since floors me, every time I think about it.
“AUNT CAAARRRRI!” Molly flings herself at me, and I drop my bag and crouch, just in time to catch her. On the porch, Grace smiles at me before going back into the house. She’s just as anxious as our parents to know why I’m back. Unlike them, she can wait.
“Hey, monkey-face,” I say, covering Molly’s face with noisy kisses, loving the way she dissolves into a helpless giggle fit against me. I avoid looking at my parents. They’re hovering over us, waiting for me to tell them why I left Boston. My face and neck are a mess from what happened with James, both last night and the day in his office. I don’t want them to see me. Don’t want them to worry about things that can’t be changed.
Unable to stall any longer I stand up, letting Molly climb me like a jungle gym. “It looks a lot worse than it actually is,” I say over my mom’s audible gasp and my father’s outraged roar.
“Who?” He’s rooted in place, anger rolling off him in waves while my mother clucks and flutters around me like a mother hen. “Who was it?”
I give them a sanitized version of the truth. That an ex-boyfriend, who wasn’t so happy about being an ex, started making trouble. Showed up at the apartment and attacked me. I didn’t tell them about the video. That James had tried to blackmail me. Stalked me.
“Where was Patrick while all of this was happening?” my father demanded.
“Doug.” My mom admonishes him quietly.
“Don’t Doug me, Ellen,” he tells her. “What’s the use of having a male roommate if he can’t stop things like this from happening?”
“He was at work, Dad.” I smile. “I broke James’s nose all by myself—and then Patrick came home, beat the snot out of him some more and threw him down the stairs.”
“Patrick threw him down the stairs?” My mom presses her fingertips to her mouth to suppress a smile while my Dad grunts his approval. “I knew I liked that boy.”
“That why you’re home?” My dad says. “Because… of what happened?”
I tell them about Miranda wanting to show my work. That I moved back home so I can focus on painting full-time. That it’s temporary, just until my opening. “I’ve got savings,” I tell them, suddenly worried about the fact that they can barely afford to feed the bellies they’ve got without me, throwing myself on the pile. “Not much, but it’ll go a lot farther here than Boston.” I think about Patrick’s offer. That maybe it would’ve been better, easier if I’d taken him up on it. Then I think about the check I burned. Probably best not to tell my parents about that either.