One Good Thing

by Millikin, Jennifer

  Over his head she gives me a hostile look, acid covered in sugar, before turning on her heel and disappearing behind a row of tents.

  “She means well,” Warren comments, looking after her. “She’s suffocating though.” He grabs for his throat with both hands, miming his words.

  When I don’t crack a smile, he waves a hand at the sky. “The weather is nice.”

  I’m not interested in small talk, though it seems Warren is. I know this is hard for him, probably more than I realize.

  But guess what? This is an out-of-body experience for me too. Chatting about the weather isn’t going to cut it right now.

  “Warren, how are you here?” I angle my body toward him, my knee propped on the bench and my arms draped along the back. I can’t believe it’s his face I’m seeing right now. He dominated my thoughts for so long.

  He turns to me, and his skinny face swells before my eyes. Love, desire, longing, they fill the hollows in his skin formed by months of inactivity. “I woke up,” he says simply, as if there is no more explanation than that.

  “Right,” I say slowly, nodding, understanding his answer but still not absorbing it. “But, how? And when?”

  His head travels slowly back and forth, as if the answers elude even him. “I don’t know how I woke up. I just did. I opened my eyes, and I was in this room I’d never seen before. It was white with—”

  “Watercolor paintings of flowers,” I say, remembering all the hours I spent sitting in a chair beside a sleeping Warren.

  “Yes,” he breathes, reaching for my free hand. He intertwines his fingers through mine, and I stare down in amazement. This is Warren’s hand. Warren’s.

  “I woke up alone,” he continues. “I was frightened. And confused. I’d had so many dreams, and I wasn’t sure if I was still in one. Then a nurse walked in, and she didn’t notice at first. She was nearly to my bed when she looked at my face.”

  His lips curl into a smile as he remembers. “She shrieked. She dropped whatever she was holding and ran from the room. Then there were so many people in the room I thought there was no way another person could fit. Only a couple were doing anything useful; the rest just wanted to see me. And I still didn’t know what it was they were looking at. I wondered if I was disfigured.”

  My heart lurches, picturing the curious and astonished gazes. It must have been terrifying.

  “The doctor explained to me that I’d been in a coma for about ten months and—”

  My hand flies to my mouth. “I left only days before the ten-month mark.” Shannon’s phone call, when she’d asked for Warren’s concert shirts… He’d been awake then.

  Warren’s fingers tighten around mine. “I’m not mad at you for giving up. I was told someone in my position should have been a lost cause.” An empty chuckle rises from his chest. “They call me a miracle.”

  “I’d call it miraculous.” I want to ask him what his family told him, if he knows about the bakery, but now isn’t the time. “Do you remember the stroke?”

  He shakes his head.

  I don’t know what else to say. What does someone talk about with their ex-fiancé who was in a coma and now is not? Politics? The rate of global warming? The new giraffe born at the zoo?

  A burning sensation starts behind my eyes. This is all too much.

  Warren sees the tears starting. They haven’t even tipped over onto my cheeks yet, but he is there, ready to cradle me, banish the tears the way he always did when I came home upset. To our home. The one I rented out. The one currently occupied by someone else.

  My hands touch Warren’s back as he holds me, and I feel the jutting shoulder bones, my fingers bump, bump, bumping over the backside of his ribs. His atrophied muscles will regain their strength, the fibers regrowing and binding into the sinew he stood in front of the bathroom mirror and flexed when I was nearby. I’d once told him that his back muscles were a turn-on, and it was all the encouragement he needed. He had no qualms using against me the ammunition I’d handed him.

  “I’m here now, Addy love. We’ll get through this together.”

  I stiffen at the nickname. Months ago, I’d wished he would wake up and call me that. Prayed for it.

  I pull away, replacing my hands in my lap. “Warren, you should know that—”

  Warren stops me with a shake of his head. “Whatever you did while I was out, it’s okay. These last ten months are like a black hole. For me, and for you. For us.”

  He takes my left hand, raising it to his lips and kissing the space where my engagement ring should be. He swallows hard and looks into my eyes, his gaze intense, deep and penetrating. I know Warren, and this is how I know he is about to deliver a speech he practiced the whole flight here. “I love you, Addison. I woke up as in love with you as I was the last night I went to sleep in our bed. I know you’ve been working to move on since you were told I was a hopeless case, but I’m right here, and I’m going to get us back to where we were. I’m going to put that ring back on your finger, maybe not today, but soon. When you’re ready for it. You’re going to fall in love with me again.”

  I stare, caught, his words slipping into me.

  Tell him about Brady.

  I should tell him how Brady makes my heart soar, how he breathed life into me when my oxygen supply was low. Tell him about what it feels like to be loved by Brady, like being in a misty rain, the vapor settling gently onto my skin. Soft and cool, all-encompassing and refreshing.

  I should tell Warren it’s not as simple as he thinks, that his return doesn’t come with a broom, sweeping away the detritus of the life that went on while he slept. His well-meaning declarations can’t polish us, make us shine once again.

  I look into his eyes, knowing he deserves only the truth.

  But then I see the small crescent-shaped scar on his hairline, the one he got when he lifted me on his shoulders at a concert and I got scared and gripped his head, my pinky nail digging into him.

  And I lie.

  * * *

  “We’ve checked in at the hotel down the street.” Shannon shades her eyes from the sun with one hand and points with the other.

  She rejoined Warren and I not too long after I opened my mouth and said, “Okay.”

  Okay.

  Okay, you can try to make me fall in love with you again.

  Okay, you can put that ring back on my finger someday.

  Okay, I’ll give you hope, even when I’m in love with another man.

  Shitty. I’m a shitty person.

  “That’s nice,” I tell Shannon, unsure of what to say in response to the hotel.

  I glance down at my watch, groan internally when I see the time. It’s late, and I promised Brady we’d have dinner together. And now, alongside the pasta, I’ll be serving a heaping portion of shock. “I’m sorry, I have to go home.” I don’t say more. It’s another lie. One by omission, this time.

  Shannon turns to Warren. “Would you mind going to the hotel and booking us a table for an hour from now? The man at check-in said they fill up early.”

  Warren gives her a look. “Try being a little more obvious, Shannon.” Despite this, he listens to her. He kisses my cheek, his hand running the length of my forearm as he leans in.

  I offer him a smile and watch as he goes. I wonder how long it will take him to gain back all his weight?

  “So?” I tilt my head, waiting for Shannon to start with whatever it is she sent Warren away to say.

  “Does Warren know you’ve moved on with someone else?”

  I stare hard at her, my arms crossing in front of myself, as if I can block myself from the indignation I feel wafting off her. I don’t know how she knows about Brady, but I’m not going to bother asking.

  My chin lifts an inch. “I haven’t told him yet.”

  Her mouth curls into a hateful smile. “Don’t worry, the guy you moved on with already knows about Warren.”

  My hands, limp at my sides, flex into fists. “How would you know that? Did you tell him? Ho
w do you even know who he is?”

  “I didn’t tell him anything. He saw for himself.”

  It’s not the answer I was expecting. “What do you mean?”

  I hate the satisfaction on her face, the curve of her smile. “It was earlier, right after you saw Warren. A man was standing nearby with a guy and girl—”

  Relief washes through me. I shake my head, certain. “Whoever you saw, it wasn’t the guy I’m dating.” Brady has two male friends in Lonesome, and so far that’s it.

  Shannon cocks an eyebrow. “She was” —her hand hovers a couple inches off her flat stomach— “maybe four months pregnant. Barely showing. And it was definitely your guy. I noticed him, because who wouldn’t? Tall, dark hair, muscles and a face like that?” She laughs. “You clearly have a type. Anyway, I was watching him when he turned and saw you. You didn’t see him because you were too busy getting reacquainted with my brother’s lips.”

  “Nooo,” I mutter, my voice low and guttural.

  “Yesss,” Shannon purrs. “If Warren’s return presented a problem for you, then I think you managed to solve it all on your own.”

  “I have to go.” I grab my purse and shopping bag from the bench and jog away, not waiting for Shannon’s response. By the time I get to Grandma’s Jeep, my hairline is sweaty.

  The wind from the drive home dries the sweat. I park the Jeep, skipping the house and going straight to cabin seven.

  I knock once. Twice. Three times.

  No answer.

  From my purse I find the list I used to shop yesterday, and I tear it in half. Grabbing a pen, I write a note to Brady.

  It’s not what you think. I love you.

  I slip it in the crack between the door and the doorframe. Before I go, I lay a palm on the door and bow my head, saying a quick prayer.

  On my way to the main house I check my phone, hoping for something, anything, even an angry voicemail, but there’s nothing. I call him twice, but it rings and rings and then voicemail picks up.

  I don’t know what to do. I guess I’ll start with dinner.

  My grandma comes into the kitchen just as I’m taking the ingredients from the bag. I stop what I’m doing and fold myself into her.

  “Addison?” she asks, patting my back.

  “I think I may have ruined it.” My voice is muffled by her shoulder.

  “Ruined what, honey?”

  “Things with Brady.”

  “Addy, disagreements are normal. Now you get to make up.” She pulls back and winks at me. “That’s the fun part.”

  I shake my head, tears brimming. “This is much more than a disagreement. Warren is here, Grandma. He woke up.”

  Her fingers touch her lips in surprise, blocking her gasp. “Oh shit.”

  She leads me to the island and pulls out two stools. “Sit,” she instructs. “Tell me everything.”

  I fill her in on every detail, and she stays quiet, nodding the whole time. When I’m done, she says, “I don’t envy you.”

  I laugh, an empty, dry sound.

  “Do you still love Warren?”

  This is what I’ve been wrestling with. Before Warren, I didn’t have any consequential exes. I never had to run into them and remember the good times, the little things that made them special in the first place. Are glasses always tinted rose when you look back on a relationship that ended because of circumstances?

  The truth is, I do love Warren.

  But I don’t love him the right way, not anymore.

  I don’t answer my grandma, and she doesn’t press me. “Are you making dinner?” she inclines her head at the uncooked pasta on the counter.

  I stand. “I was supposed to cook for Brady. I was going to start teaching him.”

  “Brady’s a good man, Addy. He’s not going to run away. He’ll confront you. You’ll tell him your side. It will all work out.”

  I think back to the first few days Brady was here at Sweet Escape, how broken he was over Lennon. Over the girl who didn’t choose him.

  I want every one of your kisses and sighs and irritated looks. I want to love you loudly. I want to love you messy. Brady’s words from two nights ago.

  I can only hope he meant it when he said messy, because this is the very definition. He couldn’t possibly even know it was Warren who was kissing me. At this point, Brady thinks I was cheating on him, right after he told me he loves me.

  I set to work making the sauce, but the smells of garlic and oil make me nauseous instead of hungry. Grandma leaves the kitchen, but she’s back a minute later, keys jingling in her outstretched hand.

  “What’s that?” I ask, her wide eyes scaring me. I can’t take any more right now.

  “The keys to cabin seven.”

  My lower lip quivers. She uncurls her fingers and I slip the keyring from around her pointer finger.

  I don’t run to his cabin, because I’m terrified of what I might find.

  Nothing.

  No sweatshirt hung over a chair.

  No toiletries on the counter in his bathroom.

  No clothes in his dresser, shoes lined up in the small closet, or his suitcase stashed away.

  I arrive at cabin seven and let myself in, and the only thing I find is that I was right.

  He’s gone.

  My steps are slow and heavy. I’m almost out the door when I see a folded piece of paper on the ground. Hope flurries through my heart, a dash of excitement. A note from Brady! He knew I’d get the key, that I’d come here looking for him. I bend, snatching it from the floor, and open it.

  My hope crashes to my feet. It’s the note I left when I came here the first time, without a key to let me in. I tuck it into my back pocket and lock the cabin behind me.

  When I get back to the main house, Grandma is stirring the sauce I’d left behind on the stove. Hope is evident on her face, too.

  Hope. Such a dangerous thing. I know that by now.

  I shake my head, and her face falls.

  “He’s gone.” My voice is jagged. I blink back my tears, taking over for my grandma at the stove. I stare into the sauce, my wooden spoon cutting a path through the thickening cream. I’m saving my tears for later, for when I’m in the shower and I can scream silently.

  Grandma leaves the kitchen, sensing my desire to be alone. When there’s a knock at the front door, nobody but me is around to get it. I dump my noodles into the boiling water, droplets sailing over the side and sizzling on the cook top. I rush out of the kitchen, smoothing my hair and wiping beneath my eyes.

  “I’m coming,” I yell, before Brady can lose his nerve and leave.

  Here it is again. Hope.

  I pull open the door, my lips poised to proclaim It’s not what you think.

  “Hi,” I say awkwardly, rearranging the shape of my mouth.

  Warren smiles nervously, and I see it on his face too. Hope.

  26

  Brady

  My phone lights up. Addison’s name flashes across the screen.

  “Are you ever going to answer it, Brady?” Lennon gives me a look that tells me just what she thinks I should do.

  The pad of my thumb swipes over my lower lip as I study her name, then the screen goes dark. “At some point, yes. Just not yet.” I need to hear Addison out, but the truth is that I’m afraid of what she’ll have to say.

  Lennon turns back to her book, and I know she’s swallowing her opinion.

  I tossed and turned all night, thinking about what I saw in the market yesterday, and I think I’ve figured it out.

  I’ve gotten myself into another situation where nothing is fair. It wasn’t fair to Lennon that both her best friends were in love with her, and it’s not fair to Addison that her comatose ex-fiancé woke up and came for her right after she fell in love with me.

  It stuns me how unfair life can be. How it trucks along, wreaking havoc, unapologetic about its wrath. I thought Addison and I had a good thing, two broken hearts coming together and mending one another, but no. It appears there’s
just more heartache for me. Life is starting to feel like a pie-eating contest, where the only prize is more pie.

  I blow out an irritated breath and stand. “I’m going to the lobby to grab a newspaper.”

  Lennon looks up at me. Her legs are curled beneath her on the couch. “Grab me one of those cookies they keep near the coffee?”

  I nod, a small smile turning my lips upward. Lennon’s never been shy about her appetite, but she has been eating like a linebacker since they arrived.

  I slip out the door and take the elevator down. I was lucky yesterday when the hotel where Finn and Lennon are staying had a room available on their floor.

  The lobby has three newspapers, and I choose one and sit down. Finn went out to get lunch for the three of us, and Lennon’s reading her book. I might as well sit down here and page through this newspaper.

  Plus, I’m sulking.

  I take my paper to the far corner of the lobby, to a place where there are three chairs and zero people. I start with the sports section, move on to world news, and then the front page stories. People have been coming and going through the lobby, but as far as I can tell nobody pays me any mind. It takes a full half hour for anybody to sit down in one of the nearby chairs.

  I finish my article, glancing up as I turn the page. My gaze stills, locked on the guy reading a different paper. He glances over; he must’ve felt me staring.

  He dips his chin, his gaze returning to his paper. It’s an acknowledgment and also a polite instruction not to talk to him. Normally I’m all for leaving strangers alone, especially ones who are reading.

  But this guy happens to be the guy I saw kissing my girlfriend yesterday.

  Tossing the paper aside, I lean forward and extend a hand. A false show of civility. When he reluctantly places his hand in mine, it’s all I can do to keep from tightening my grip.

  “Warren?” I say his name like it’s a question, even though my instincts told me who he was yesterday, and they’re screaming the same today.

  He eyes me warily. “Yes. Do I know you?”

  I take my hand back, straightening my shoulders. “Brady Sterling. I’m Addison’s boyfriend.” It’s a liberty I feel like taking. We hadn’t gotten around to discussing titles, but saying I love you catapults us past the conversation where we determine the relationship.