Page 38 of How Freaking Romantic

There’s a small puddle of saliva on the hardwood floor when I wake up next to the front door.

I can hear my phone ringing, but my limbs rebel when I try to move.

No! Stop! Don’t move us from this folded, inhuman position where our joints have only now given up all hope of mobility. Embrace atrophy, Beatrice. EMbrACE IT.

But I do move. I even dare to sit up, and each muscle tightens and aches with the effort.

OUCH.

I pull my phone from my bag as I splay my legs out in front of me. It hurts so much I forget to look at the screen before answering.

“Hello,” I mumble.

“What color is mauve?”

Shit . It’s my mother.

“I’m sorry?” I ask, trying to straighten my back.

“The painters will be here to do the guest bedroom soon but I think they ordered the wrong color. I distinctly remember picking out mauve, but this one looks purple.”

“I don’t really have time for this right now, Mom.”

She lets out an indignant scoff. “It’s seven a.m. What else could you be doing?”

“No, just…” My voice fades, swallowed up by a pit of sadness. “I can’t fix everything.”

“What does that mean?”

I lean back against the door. I’m exhausted and scared and so angry I think I might burn away right here in the foyer of this apartment. But I also don’t know how to tell her that.

“I can’t fix paint colors. Or divorces. Or hot water heaters.

Or job searches. Everything is falling apart, and I don’t know how to fix it,” I say.

The thought of filling her in on all the details—especially the latest development—makes my stomach turn, so I just release a sigh.

“And I don’t know how to stop feeling so much so I can at least try. ”

Silence fills to the line. I think that maybe she’ll start to disengage, say her goodbyes, and create distance from the mess like she usually does. But instead she stays on the line, quiet for another few moments before she says, “You know, Bea, you’ve always reminded me of a coconut.”

The tears that had been threatening my eyes disappear as I frown. “A coconut.”

“Ever since you were little,” she continues, unfazed.

“You know, most people are like apples. They have this protective skin, but it’s not too thick.

It’s even kind of enjoyable. We pick them mostly because they’re easy.

We can get to the good stuff without too much work.

But that’s not you. You’ve got this hard shell around you.

It protects you from getting hurt, but it also makes it almost impossible for anyone to break through it.

In fact, I feel like once you found those friends of yours in college, you stopped letting anyone else try. ”

“That’s not true,” I murmur.

“Oh really? When was the last time you dated anyone?”

I pause to think. Nathan’s face is the only one standing out to me. I had dated a few guys over the past couple of years, had pleasant conversations in the hallways with my fellow law students, but never formed any meaningful connections. And that had been the point, hadn’t it?

In the silence, my mom clicks her tongue. “You’re a coconut.”

“So, I’m hard and hairy. Great. Thanks, Mom,” I mumble, pushing an errant curl from my face.

“My point is that you’re hard work, Bea. But once someone gets through that shell, what they’ll find inside is sweeter and more wonderful than any apple on the whole planet. And without the bitter core.”

I smile to myself and let my head fall back against the door again. “You should put that on a greeting card.”

“Maybe I will,” she says. Another moment passes before her voice returns, now with a comforting tone that I haven’t heard in years.

“I know I wasn’t easy, Bea. I relied on you too much.

And I know that’s why you have that shell to begin with, but I never saw it as a bad thing.

Because I thought it meant you’d be better protected than I was.

Maybe you wouldn’t get your heart broken as easily.

But it also meant you had an excuse to not let anyone in.

You deserve the same care and love you give away to everyone else, Bea.

And at some point, you need to fight for you just as much as you fight for everybody else. ”

I sigh and close my eyes. “Stop making sense or I’ll hang up on you.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I was planning to hang up on you anyway. I need to figure out who replaced my mauve paint with purple.”

I smile. “Mauve is purple, Mom.”

She hums, like she’s not listening at all. “All right, I’m going to go yell at someone. Love you,” she says.

“I love you, too.”

I hang up, then stand and hobble to the kitchen, praying that the coffeemaker is one of the things Josh insisted on keeping, but the countertop is empty. I begin opening the cabinets in case it’s hidden somewhere. To my utter dismay, all I find a lone jar of instant coffee.

A door creaks open somewhere in the apartment.

There’s the steady beat of Tex’s paws followed by slow, lumbering footsteps that make their way down the hall.

I turn just as Josh arrives at the doorway to the kitchen.

He’s still in the same sweatpants from the day before, but he’s taken off his sweatshirt so I can see his bare chest. He’s skinny, too skinny, and his face is slack with sleep the same way I remember from college.

His hair is jutting out in all directions and he’s itching his head in a familiar way, too.

Relief floods my chest because there, for a moment, between the cracks, is the Josh I know, the Josh I remember.

It takes a second for him to look up and see me, but when he does his eyes widen, as if the entire night comes back to him all at once.

“You twisted fuck,” I growl. “Who the hell drinks instant coffee?”

He stills. It’s like he had been mentally preparing himself for something else to come out of my mouth. Then his shoulders relax, and he offers me a weary smile. “I broke the coffeemaker.”

“And you never thought to buy a new one?”

He runs a hand through his hair. “I’ve had other things on my mind.”

Right . I sigh, taking the jar of instant coffee from the shelf along with two mugs.

Silence envelops the room as I make us each a cup. He watches me microwave the water and stir in the granules. It isn’t until I push his mug in front of him that I say, “How long?”

He stares into the depths of his coffee for a long moment.

“Two years,” he finally murmurs. He catches my shocked expression and winces. “I know. At first I thought it was manageable. I mean, it was…”

I frown. “Josh…”

He knows what I want to say. Because these were the excuses before, the insane idea that it was okay, the pills and the lies were okay, until the moment when they weren’t.

He hangs his head. “Yeah.”

I stare at him, letting a moment pass before I ask, “What happened?”

“Grad school was… rough. I know you thought it was a fucking joke when I quit my job and applied, but I thought it would give me some direction, you know? Or at least give me time to figure out what the hell I was doing with my life. But it was hard—too hard. And trying to balance that and Jillian, it was just…” His hand rakes down his face.

“So I dropped out. Started doing temp work. That was hard enough, but then Jillian got promoted. And she was working late, and I had to go to these stupid parties with her, and it felt like everybody knew. Everybody was looking at me like I was a fucking failure. Like I was living off my wife. And I know it was all in my head, but it didn’t make it untrue, either.

And I just… I had to get away from the stress and the expectations and…

” His voice trails off and he shakes his head.

“You don’t just stop being an addict, Bea. ”

I let out a long exhale. “Why didn’t you talk to me?”

He laughs bitterly. “Right. Should I have called before or after you sent me all those STD notifications?”

I force a small smile onto my face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He laughs again, this time with a bit of humor.

It fades quickly. “Jillian started to think something was wrong, but I never let her find out what. That’s when the fighting got bad.

Really bad.” He swallows, and there’s a new sheen to his eyes.

“I didn’t tell her I was filing for divorce.

I don’t even know why I did it. I was just so pissed, and it felt like we were already done…

” His voice fades, and silence replaces it.

Something tightens in my chest, a vise made of fear and sadness, but it doesn’t stop me from leaning forward.

“Does anybody else know?”

“No. I think Travis suspects, though. He texted me a few times, but I avoided answering. And Jillian moved out before it got really bad.”

“What about your lawyer?”

Josh scoffs. “God, no. Can you imagine?”

My heart drops. “But—”

“Bea. I can’t tell him. I probably could have in the beginning, but it’s too far gone now.”

“He needs to know, Josh.” It sounds like I’m pleading, and I realize I kind of am. “This affects the case. If it comes out later and you’re not the one to tell him, it compromises both of you. His career is on the line.”

“Why do you care? I thought you hated him.”

I swallow, even though my mouth is dry. “Josh…”

He shakes his head. “If I told him, then it’s out there. He could drop the case. I’d lose everything; I’d be fucked.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Neither do you.”

I run a hand through my knotted hair. I get it; Josh likely did a lot of lying to cover this up for so long, which means that any financial disclosures were probably covering for it, too.

But that also means Nathan was likely the one who submitted those documents to the court.

The thought sends a spike of anxiety through my chest.

“If you tell him, then at least it’s protected under attorney–client privilege. He can help you work through this without anyone knowing. Because if Jillian finds out about this…”