Page 147 of In Sheets of Rain

“I’m an adult, Kylee,” he said firmly. “I am capable of taking care of myself.”

“For God’s sake, you were sick,” I snapped.

“It happens,” he snapped back. “People get sick. They get over it. You’d been planning a trip to your parents for a while now. You shouldn’t have changed your plans just for me. And Jesus, driving so late at night!”

I got up out of bed and walked out of the room, feeling . . . lost.

I ended up in the spare bedroom, the one that had been turned into a writing and reading room for me. I sat down on the couch and stared out the window. And then opened a box up on a nearby shelf and pulled out my journal.

I flicked through the pages. The highs and the lows. The time I sat on the beach and wrote in the book that I had lost myself.

And I wondered whether I’d made a mistake. Whether this was what I had thought it to be.

Michael came and stood in the doorway, hair wet from a shower.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said.

He sighed. I stiffened.

Then he walked over to the couch and sat down beside me.

“Just because we argued,” he said softly, “doesn’t mean I don’t still love you.”

I stared out the window and thought about things.

I’d never argued with Sean. I’d just done what he wanted without comment and cultivated a mass of tangles in my stomach while I did it. I once had the gall to tell him to shut up about something. He thought I’d declared World War III. The shock on his face would have been comical if I hadn’t at the time felt like I’d let him down. That I’d failed something.

We brushed things under the rug. We didn’t address them.

I didn’t know how to argue with someone. I didn’t know how to handle someone who stood up for themselves and expected me to stand up for me.

I looked at Michael. He smiled softly at me.

“Come here,” he said, opening his arms.

I went willingly.

“I felt rotten,” he said. “I didn’t want you to have to put up with me. I can get cranky when I’m sick. I should have realised you’d want to help.”

“And I should have trusted you when you said you didn’t need it,” I offered.

“That’s the thing, Ky. As soon as you left, I wanted you to come back to me. I needed you to. And when you did so late at night, I felt worried and guilty.”

I reached up and touched his jaw, drew my finger over his chin and cupped his cheek.

“You’re stuck with me,” I said. He smiled.

“And you, Trolley Girl are stuck with me. Until the end of time.”

Maybe arguing was a good thing.