Page 40 of Falling into Place

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Carly

Hey, where’s the best place to find kitchen cabinet organizers? And don’t say you don’t know. I’ve seen your apartment.

—Text message from Kendall to Carly Porter, one year ago

Her entire adult life, Carly had worked so hard to avoid ever realizing her greatest fear that she’d never considered how she might react if it actually happened.

If you’d asked her a week ago how she might handle the prospect of unemployment, she’d have guessed it would be something along the lines of hysteria or a full-blown panic attack.

Maybe even to the point she’d be on her knees, tearfully begging Mai to reconsider.

She’d furiously search internet job boards and apply for twenty jobs by noon, because even though she was a saver and had a perfectly respectable safety net in her bank account, she never wanted to actually use it.

But when she’d left Mode’s office that day, she had just felt numb.

She’d gone home in a sort of trance, her body going through the motions to get to her car, drive home, and unlock her apartment.

She fed Pepper, poured herself a glass of wine (adopting airport rules because no one was there to stop her), and settled in on her couch with the remote.

She sat there for hours, only getting up to pee, and wouldn’t have thought her day could get any worse.

Then Brooks called.

“Hi,” she said, too weary to say, Where the hell have you been? like she’d been prepared to yesterday.

“Hey,” he said.

She closed her eyes, tears building beneath them. It was so good to hear his voice. Especially after this morning.

“I’m sorry.” His voice cracked.

She was so raw that the anger from yesterday dissipated like smoke. She wished he was here. Why had he called instead of coming over?

“God, Carly, I’m sorry for how I treated you this weekend.

” He sighed, and she could picture him at home, on his couch, or maybe at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, raking a hand through his hair.

“I was sort of in shock, I think, and went to a dark place inside my head. I used you to get out of it, and when that still didn’t work, I ran away.

You deserve better than that, and I’m embarrassed and ashamed of myself. I hope you can forgive me.”

All she wanted in this moment was to fold herself into his body and feel his warm strength around her.

“I accept your apology about the disappearing part only. I was fully engaged and on board for everything else.” She’d give anything for him to take her mind off the conversation with Mai this morning, which didn’t feel much different from what he’d done early Sunday morning and seemed to think he needed to apologize for.

“Sometimes when you’re hurting, it helps to just get lost in someone you trust. I could easily do the same with you. ”

She almost told him about getting fired right then and there, but she couldn’t make the words come. It almost didn’t feel real, yet. The news would make him feel even worse, too, because it was sort of because of him, and he didn’t need another weight stacked on his shoulders right now.

“But,” he started, “if our roles were reversed, you’d also talk to me about what had upset you when you were ready. Whether it was later that day, the next day, or a few days later. You’d trust me with the talking part, too.”

She frowned. “You won’t?” He was new at this, sure, but weren’t they getting there?

“I don’t know. I’ve never trusted anyone with those parts of me, really.

” A door opened and closed in the background, as if he’d walked outside.

“I gave bits and pieces to Coach once, and sometimes I’ve talked a little to my sisters.

I’ve even opened up some to you. But there’s a hell of a lot more in here, buried deep and that I’ve never dealt with.

Things I haven’t even let myself dwell on.

I learned how to distract myself with things like school and work, which I thought was better than sex and alcohol.

But I just traded one diversion for another, and I’m realizing maybe that hasn’t been the healthiest thing.

Both for me and any relationship I might want to have. ”

His voice was careful and hesitant, like he was leading up to something. Dread slowly settled in her stomach and spread, sending ice trickling through her veins.

“I ... God, I care about you so much, Carly. But I think I need some time to figure a few things out. I need to work on communication and how I handle stress. I need to work through what happened with my parents and the horrible things I see in the hospital, and to learn how deal with all of that in a different way. I don’t know what will happen when I dig into those dark moments, and I—I don’t know.

I just don’t want to bring you down with me.

I want to be able to be there for you and to shoulder your burdens when you need me, but I don’t know if I can do that when I’m already on my knees from the weight of mine. ”

She blinked twice, then rubbed her eyes with one hand, her head starting to pound. Was this really happening right now? Literally hours after she’d lost her job for being with this man?

“Are you saying this is over?” she asked bluntly.

She thought she heard a sniffle, but couldn’t be sure. “I’m saying I have to make sure I’m worthy of you,” Brooks said slowly. “And I ... I think I need to get there on my own before we can be together.”

Well. There it was.

She almost laughed at the absurdity of it all.

The irony of him saying he couldn’t be there for her on the exact day she needed him to.

But he didn’t know she’d just lost her job, and even in her current state she recognized he was taking a big step admitting he needed help.

It wasn’t his fault every part of her life was falling apart.

No job. No Brooks. Sasha still wasn’t speaking to her. Kendall was visiting her parents in Ohio, so Carly didn’t even have her to fall back on.

This was officially rock bottom.

Her eyes were glassy, but no tears spilled over. She dug her fingernails into her palm just shy of pain, released, then did it again.

“I don’t know what to say,” she finally said. “I wasn’t expecting this.” Any of it.

“I’m sorry.” He sounded as miserable as she felt. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“You said that already.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s why I have to do this. I can’t keep doing things I have to apologize for.”

A few tears escaped and tracked down her cheek. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

“No.” She took a small measure of comfort in that. “But I’m sure I want to give us the best chance, and in order to do that I have to step back and fix some things. I just ... Something tells me things will get worse in here before they get better.”

She just sat there, lashes wet and eyes unfocused. There really wasn’t anything she could do, was there? If there was, she didn’t have the energy to recognize it.

“I don’t know how yet, but Carly, I will fix this,” he promised.

She shook her head, eyes closed, throat tight. “What happens if, by the time you think you’re ready, I’ve moved on?” She didn’t know if such a thing was possible, but if he could walk away, surely she could find someone else, too. Someday.

He said nothing for a long moment. “If you were happy, I’d find a way to live with that,” he said, voice rough like he had razor blades in his throat.

If you were happy. She’d thought she was happy before Brooks, but the word took on a whole new meaning after him.

He made her laugh and made her think, and when she was around him, she felt beautiful and adored.

She’d never known uninhibited joy or what it felt like to truly crave someone.

She’d been living at a six, perfectly content and satisfied, until Brooks showed her what life was like at a ten.

Which was all well and good until he removed himself from the equation.

On the other hand, it was also very possible the choices she’d made because of her feelings for him had ruined her life. In more ways than one. So all things considered, maybe this was for the best.

Tears flowed down her cheeks in earnest now. Now that they’d started, she couldn’t stop them. She had to get off the phone.

“I have to go.” She didn’t wait for his reply and ended the call, sank back into the cushions, and let the flood take over.

Carly barely moved for three days. She had nowhere to go professionally and had zero interest in social functions.

The beauty of food-delivery apps meant she didn’t even have to leave to eat and had meals delivered to her doorstep twice a day.

For hours on end, she zoned blessedly out as she binged series after series, and for the most part, that kept her calm.

But occasionally something tripped her memory—about being unemployed or worse, about Brooks—and she’d break down again.

After ignoring her calls and texts for several days, her mom stopped by unannounced, banging on the door until Carly finally let her in.

With wide eyes her mom had taken in the disaster that was Carly’s apartment—food containers on the counter, dishes in the sink, random clothes and books strewn around the living room, and demanded to know what had happened.

After Carly told her everything—from falling for Brooks to alienating her best friend and getting fired, and finally him deciding to call things off—her mom made her take a shower then tucked her back in on the couch, cleaned the place up, and made Carly her first home-cooked meal in five days.

She’d also offered Carly money, which she politely declined.

She’d go crawling back to her old accounting firm soon enough.

An hour after her mom left with a promise she’d check back in tomorrow, another knock sounded on the front door.

Carly looked around as she got up, wondering if her mom forgot something.

Maybe she’d gone against Carly’s orders and told Sasha what happened, and her oldest friend decided to come check on her, too.

But the person standing on her Got Wine? welcome mat was the last person she expected to see.

“Benjamin?”

He looked exactly the same as the day he left nine months ago, from his cropped blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses to the University of Oklahoma T-shirt he wore at least twice a month.

Benjamin gave her a shy sort of smile. “Hey.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I, uh, came back early. Can I come in?”

“Sure,” she said, stepping back. “Yeah, of course. Come in.”

He crossed the threshold but didn’t go far, and turned to her with arms open and an expectant expression. She walked into his embrace, inhaling the familiar scent of his laundry detergent and trying not to compare it to the way it felt when Brooks hugged her.

“It’s good to see you,” he said into her hair.

“You too.”

He lingered there for a beat, then released her and walked farther into the living room. Pepper lifted his head from where he’d sprawled out in the middle of the couch, but made no move to vacate. Benjamin stopped in the middle of the rug and looked around for a moment.

“Not much has changed in here,” he said, smiling at her.

Thank God he hadn’t shown up a few hours sooner. “You know me,” she said. “Creature of habit.”

He remained standing there and rubbed the back of his neck, as if he wasn’t sure what to do next. They hadn’t spoken since their conversation about dating other people, and to be honest, once things had started up with Brooks she hadn’t thought about Benjamin all that much.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked, remembering her manners.

“Sure, I’ll take a water. It’s so hard to stay hydrated when I’m traveling.”

“When did you get back?” she asked, grabbing a glass from the cabinet.

“Today.”

“Today? As in, you flew back from South Korea today? ”

“Well, technically the trip started yesterday, but yeah. I hope it’s okay I came over. I ... I didn’t want to wait to see you.”

She filled up the glass and brought it to him, then nudged Pepper off the couch so they could sit down.

She wasn’t sure what to make of him being back in the States or of coming directly to her place, and asking about the former seemed like the safest place to start.

“Did something happen to bring you back early?”

“The director of our program quit unexpectedly. It kind of shook things up at the company, especially with their internship program, so they cut us loose early.”

“Oh no, I’m so sorry.”

Benjamin opened the drawer in the end table to grab a coaster and set the glass on top.

“It’s okay. I’ll figure out my next steps in the next couple of days.

They still offered to give us letters of recommendation, so I’m not worried about finding a job somewhere.

” He ran his palms up and down his thighs, which he usually only did when he was nervous.

“But I, uh, I didn’t come over to talk about my job. Not right now, at least.”

“Okay,” she said, waiting.

He locked eyes with her. “I missed you while I was gone.”

“I missed you, too,” she returned, though with notably less enthusiasm.

She could chalk up her lukewarm sentiment to the week she’d had, but it was more than that.

Even if it was over, her time with Brooks changed her, and at this point she wasn’t sure what that meant.

For her, or for her and Benjamin—because it seemed like that’s where he was going with this.

“Would you go to dinner with me tonight?” he asked. “So we can talk?”

With the history they had, she could at least hear him out. There were plenty of things she needed to update him on, too. “Sure.”

“What is today?” he asked, looking up and squinting. “Jet lag has me off on my schedule.”

In her state, Carly hardly knew, either. “Thursday?” She was pretty sure that was right.

“Thursday, huh?” He grinned.

She smiled back. She knew exactly what he was thinking.

He wagged his eyebrows. “You wanna?”

She nodded. “Barrios, here we come.”