Page 17

Astrid

If I was the kind of person who threw up in stressful situations, I’d have my head in the nearest trash can.

I’d told myself that I would not tell Grayson the truth, that I could wait it out. But with him standing there, looking at me so openly, so honestly—it just came out.

And now, I feel like a total bitch. A real one. Why didn’t I just lie? Tell him I was sick, or that we just weren’t compatible? Even after I’d told him the truth, I could have augmented it. Told him it was my fault.

But it wasn’t my fault.

“ Fuck ,” I mutter, dropping my head into my hands when I reach my car and realize my keys are in my bag. I’m digging through it, trying to find it, when my phone starts to vibrate.

A California number. I chew my lip. It could be a research facility calling back about an application. I’m not in a good state to talk to someone in a professional setting, but I don’t want to let it go to voicemail. I don’t want to risk them moving onto the next person on the list.

“This is Dr. Astrid Foster.”

“Astrid?”

“…Brianna?”

“Hey,” she says, her voice sounding purposefully deflated, flat. “I think I left a necklace at your place.”

I blink against the bright Milwaukee sunshine, trying to parse this previous reality with the one I just experienced. Grayson O’Connor and Brianna don’t just feel like different chapters in a book—they feel like two different worlds. And I don’t have the bandwidth to quickly transfer from my experience with him, to this experience with her.

“Hello?” she says, making me startle, her accent getting stronger the longer she speaks. I wait to feel something—to miss her, to be angry with her for what she did. But it doesn’t happen.

I realize, with a start, that with Grayson in the arena, I experienced more emotion in five minutes than I did with Brianna in our entire relationship. And that it most certainly was not her fault.

She goes on, “Listen, I wouldn’t normally bother, but my grandmother gave it to me, and it’s important. I could come over after work any day this week—”

“I’m sorry, Bri. I’m not home.” I turn, put my hand against my car, feel the hot metal under the skin. “I can—let me talk to the doorman. Maybe he could let you in to look around.”

“You’d…let me do that?” she asks, voice small.

I laugh. “Why, are you planning on stealing something from me?”

“No. But, Astrid—you just don’t make any sense to me. I also…I mean, I wanted to apologize. For that whole…crazy thing.”

“Don’t call it crazy, Bri.”

“Sorry, I know. The stigma. But if I’m bein’ honest, that’s how bein’ with you made me feel.” She laughs, then sobers quickly. “Sorry. It doesn’t matter now.”

“I’m sorry I made you feel that way.” I’m talking to Brianna, but all I think about is Grayson. What is it about him that makes me feel wide-open? I never would have told Brianna the truth about any bad sex we might have had, so why the hell did I tell him?

“Well—it’s—I accept your apology,” she says.

“What…what exactly would you say was the problem?”

“Astrid,” Brianna laughs. “Are you asking me to psychoanalyze you ?”

“No,” I choke, actually laughing, too, realizing how silly this is. My heart skips when the door to the practice facility opens, and I duck inside my car, hurrying to start it and get the air conditioning on my face. Brianna’s voice stutters as she comes through the car’s stereo.

“…like you wanted to dig into everyone else, but nobody was allowed to do that to you, I guess. A bit hypocritical, is all.” I sit in silence for so long that she says, “Astrid?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” My hands shake as I grab my water bottle and take a sip. “Thanks, Brianna. I’ll talk to the doorman and let you know.”

“Okay,” she says. Then, after a moment, “You know, Astrid, you are the only person I have ever cheated on.”

“I believe you,” I laugh. “You seem too nice for it.”

“Oh, it is tearin’ me up.”

“You should really talk to someone about that.”

That makes her laugh, and after we hang up, I sit in my car for far too long. Long enough to know that Grayson doesn’t come out for hours after our conversation, his car still sitting in the parking lot, when I finally drive away.

***

Monday passes by in a blur. I get to the community center early and bury myself in my work. Georgia only drops by once to check on me, her smiling face bright and chipper as always. I eat lunch alone in my office, scooping a chickpea salad into my mouth while staring at the screen. Later in the afternoon, I pop out once to fill my water bottle and use the restroom, then return.

Everyone else leaves, one by one. The custodian knocks on the door, comes in to empty the trash, then tells me to have a good night. I stay for another hour after that, and when I’m just stepping out to leave, she’s putting the cleaning supplies back in a closet.

“Great,” she says. “I’ll lock up and we can leave together.”

As we push through the front door, the sun is setting over the parking lot, casting the sky in rich orange and purple hues. Birds sing to the left and right, and a few kids go by on bikes, laughing and squealing.

There’s already a car idling in the parking lot, and she climbs inside, waving to me as I head over to mine. By the time I climb inside and try to start it, the custodian is long gone. My car makes a valiant effort, the engine sputtering and sputtering, but dying out before it can come to life.

“No,” I whisper gently, like the car might hear the sound of my voice and take pity on me. I’m exhausted—I’ve been working for almost fourteen hours, and the only thing I want to do is go back to Sloane’s and fall into bed.

When the engine still doesn’t come to life, I try, “Please.”

But this Toyota Camry doesn’t give a shit about the day I’ve had.

Sighing, I press the button for emergency assistance, and the woman who answers asks me if I’ve been in an accident, and if my car is in a safe place, away from traffic. I glance to the left and right, at the dwindling light, the bugs starting to gather around the lamps, and the fact that I’m the only person in this entire parking lot.

“No accident,” I say. “I’m in a parking lot. I think my battery is dead.”

She disappears for a moment, then comes back on to tell me that it’s looking like it might be a few hours wait—there’s some sort of music festival in town this weekend, and all the mechanics and tow companies are busy.

“Okay,” I sigh, letting my head fall against the steering wheel. When I’m off the line with her, I try Sloane. She doesn’t answer the phone, so I text.

Astrid: Hey, sorry to bother you. Car battery is dead. SOS?

I wait five minutes, and when I don’t get a reply from her, I try Callum.

Astrid: Where is your wife?? Tell her to look at her phone, please :(

Ten minutes after that, I have nothing from either of them. I try Sloane again, and when she doesn’t answer once more, I’m left staring at the number for the only other person I know in Milwaukee.

The man that I just had the most awkward encounter of my life with yesterday. Whom I haven’t spoken to since telling him he sucks at sex.

“ Fuck, fuck, fuck ,” I mutter, rolling my head on the steering wheel.

Then, I lift my head and force myself to hit the button and make the call. The first two rings go through, and I start to think he might not answer. I start to think that might be the best-case scenario, actually—maybe I can just sleep in my car, do a good old bathroom pit-wipe, and pray nobody in the center realizes this is the exact same outfit I was wearing the day before.

“Astrid?” Grayson answers breathlessly, like he had to run to the phone to get to it. Then, in the background, I hear a wail that can only belong to Athena. To Grayson’s credit, he doesn’t hesitate in asking, “Is everything okay?”

“Actually—” I stop, hearing another wail, and pull the phone from my ear a bit. “I mean, is everything okay with you ? What is going on there?”

“Oh,” he forces a laugh, which comes out shaky, and says, “that. It’s—uh. It’s Athena. She’s crying.”

“Why is she crying?”

“I’m not sure,” Grayson says. “Well, actually, this is kind of her routine. She cries at night. But she’s also upset about going to school tomorrow.”

That’s right—today was Labor Day. Callie and Athena will start school tomorrow. This is the worst possible time I could be calling him. Another heart-wrenching wail comes from Athena in the background, and it rings alarm bells inside me. The poor girl.

Then, I hear a voice I recognize ask, “Who is that? Who are you talking to?”

“One second, Callie,” Grayson says, and there’s the sound of her shifting, turning away.

Distantly, I hear her say something back that sounds scathing, but I can’t make out the specific words.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, shaking my head, even though he can’t see me. I’m calling the night before school starts. I’m an asshole. “It sounds like you have enough on your plate right now. I can figure out something else—”

“ Astrid ,” Grayson says. “Where are you? Are you okay?”

“Just a dead battery—”

“At the community center?”

“Yes, but—”

“We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

***

True to his word, Grayson pulls into the center’s parking lot exactly nine minutes later. As he turns his car into the spot beside mine, I catch sight of Athena in the backseat, her face pressed to the window as she looks out. There are tears down her cheeks, and her eyes are red, but she doesn’t appear to be actively crying.

“Hey,” I say, uncrossing my arms and stepping toward him when he gets out. “I’m sorry—”

“Ms. Foster!”

Callie is coming around the side of the car, her face lit up when she sees me. Grayson stares at her for a second like he doesn’t recognize her.

“Callie, I told you to stay in the car,” Grayson says, at the same time I say, “Callie, you can call me Astrid.”

A beat passes where she looks between us, like she’s waiting to see who is going to win out. Thinking about her starting school tomorrow, I smile at her. “Here, why don’t I walk you back to the other side?”

Callie frowns, but nods and walks with me. I open the other door and help her inside as Grayson goes to the back, opening it and grabbing out a thick set of wires with clamps on the ends. Jumper cables—of course he has exactly what I need.

“It’s nice to see you,” I say to Callie as she climbs into the car.

“I’m starting school tomorrow,” she says, then, glancing at her sister. “We both are. But in different buildings.”

I try to give her a sympathetic expression. As an only child, I try to imagine what it would be like—to be Callie and feel responsible for her little sister while knowing she couldn’t be with her every second of the day.

“That sucks,” I say, which makes Athena giggle. It sounds dangerously watery. Focusing on Callie, I ask, “Is there anything about it that sounds good to you?”

She looks surprised, thinks for a second, then says, “I guess my school will have fast food in the cafeteria. That’s kind of cool.”

I bite back my first thought, which is that she definitely shouldn’t be having fast food for lunch every day. But I push that to the side—if it makes her excited about school, it’s a good sign.

“That is cool. I think we should talk about school more later. But right now, my car battery is dead, and I imagine it’s not super safe out there right now. Can you wait in here with Athena, make sure she stays safe?”

This seems to hit the mark for Callie—she glances at her little sister, who shows no sign of trying to leave the car—then back at me, nodding solemnly.

“Yes, I will.”

“Thank you.”

I close the door and circle back around to Grayson, who already has my hood popped and is lining up the jumper cables between our two vehicles.

“Sorry,” I say, stepping over them. “I can help.”

“No worries.” And when he looks up at me, his arms braced against my car, the wind pushing his hair back from his face, it damn near knocks the breath out of me. “Only took me a minute.”

“Oh,” I say, through the ringing in my ears. “Right.”

“I don’t get how you do that so easily.”

I blink at him. “What—?”

He lifts his shirt to wipe some sweat from his brow, and I look away, but not before I catch the flash of his stomach where it rides up. To be helpful, my mind happily provides me with the image of my lips, trailing down that very stomach.

“Talking to them,” he says, dropping his shirt and gesturing to the car. “They won’t talk to me. I think they hate me.”

I wish I had something better to say than, “It’ll get easier, I’m sure of it.”

He shrugs, his eyes still on the engine, then he goes through the motions of jumping my battery, hopping back in his car and starting it, getting my engine going. I have jump-started a vehicle before, and I’ve even had boyfriends do it—so why is the sight of him doing it so captivating right now?

It must be because I’m tired, exhausted from the day.

When he’s all finished up, he closes the hood and makes a big show of clapping his hands together, a smile loose on his face.

“Thank you again. And…I’m sorry to drag you out here—”

“Astrid.” He holds his hand up, shaking his head, taking a step toward me. It makes my heart flip embarrassingly. “Really, it’s not a big deal, okay? We’re friends—that’s what friends do. Just make sure you drive her around a bit before parking, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” The words rush out of me, and I study him, trying to figure out why he’s not acting weird after the conversation we had yesterday. The discomfort of it rises up inside me, bubbling in my chest, and I push it down, smiling at him. “Thanks again.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, crossing over to the door of his truck. “Have a good night, Astrid.”

“You, too.” Raising up on my tiptoes, I say, “Bye, girls! Goodnight!”

Callie leans over Athena to wave at me, and I watch as Grayson tells them to put their seat belts on, before smiling at me one last time and reversing out of the lot.