Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
But I already missed her so much it hurt.
We gathered around the dining room table the next day, all nine of us—my dad, Austin, Veronica, the twins, Xander and Kelly, Dash, Mabel and me. I tried to be grateful for who was there and not think about who wasn’t, but it was hard. I’m pretty sure I ate and drank, but mostly I just felt numb. It seemed like everyone was giving me a wide berth, since no one asked me any direct questions about the divorce or mentioned Lexi’s name.
After dinner, Veronica and I did the dishes, since we hadn’t helped with any of the cooking. Standing side by side near the sink, I loaded the dishwasher while she hand-washed serving bowls and platters. She talked for a while about the dance studio she’d just opened—she’d been a professional dancer in New York City—and how happy she was to be teaching again, and I listened with half my brain while the other half wondered what Lexi was doing, if she’d cooked, how her Thanksgiving was going, if she was thinking about me.
“Hey. You okay?”
Yanked out of my thoughts by Veronica’s elbow in my side, I looked down at her. “Sorry. Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You don’t seem fine.”
I placed a handful of forks in the dishwasher’s silverware rack. “I was thinking about Lexi.”
“Ah,” she said softly. “Where is she today?”
“At her grandmother’s, I think.”
“You don’t sound too happy about that.”
“I’m not.”
“Do you wish she was here?”
“Yes,” I admitted.
Veronica began drying a wineglass. “Does she know that?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Why not tell her?”
“She asked for space,” I said. “I’m trying to give it to her.”
Placing the glass on a towel, she picked up a second one. “So then it’s not final? The decision to split up?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I’m . . . I’m kind of fucked up over it.”
“Can I offer some completely unsolicited advice?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
“Don’t let her go because you’re too stubborn to tell her how you feel. Withholding your feelings is different than respecting her space.”
“I’m not sure she would believe me if I confessed my true feelings,” I said.
Veronica looked at me like I was nuts. “What? Why wouldn’t she?”
I remembered that Veronica didn’t know the marriage was only one of convenience. “I spend a lot of time guarding my feelings around her,” I said carefully.
“Okay, but you proposed after knowing her for less than three weeks.” Veronica laughed. “Not all that guarded if you ask me. And she’s head over heels in love with you.”
Hearing the words, even if Lexi hadn’t been the one to say them, hit me like a bowling ball in the gut. “You think so?”
“Yes! She flat out told me it was magic from the night you met. What’s more magical than love?”
“She said that?”
“Yes.”
I wondered if it was something Lexi had made up, or something she honestly felt. I wished I could ask her.
When everyone went into the living room for the traditional game of Pictionary, I claimed I had a bad headache and went up to my room. My siblings never would have let me get away with that if they hadn’t felt so bad for me. Or maybe they knew I wouldn’t be much fun, so they didn’t care if I was around anyway.
Upstairs in my room, I lay on the bed and stared at my phone, dying to call my wife. To hear her voice. To make her laugh. To tell her I felt it too, whatever the magic was between us. To tell her I loved her. Wanted her. Needed her in my life.
But I couldn’t make myself do it. Spilling out my feelings like that just wasn’t me. Maybe if I let them alone for a little bit, they’d evaporate instead of erupt.
I booked a plane ticket to L.A. for the following morning.
My dad was the in the kitchen when I came down just after dawn.
“You’re up early,” he said, pouring coffee from the pot into a mug. “Want a cup?”
“I don’t have a lot of time, actually.”
He glanced at my bag and lifted his coffee to his lips. “Going home already?”
“Flying to California, actually. I got a job offer out there.”
“That’s a ways away.”
“Yeah.” I hitched my bag up higher on my shoulder and looked out the kitchen window into the yard. “That tree,” I said, shaking my head at the site of the massive oak from which I’d tumbled. “Every time I see it, my arm hurts.”
My dad chuckled. “That was quite a fall.”
“I never should have climbed that thing.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think you had to.” He sipped his coffee.
“Dad, I broke my arm in two places.”
“I know, but you faced a fear. And then your brothers took care of you.”
“They did?” My memories after I’d hit the ground were hazy.
“Sure. I wasn’t home at the time, but the way they told it, Xander hauled you to your feet and got you to the car, and Austin drove you to the hospital. And they stayed with you, even after I got there.” He took another sip. “It’s what family does—they stay with you.”