“I don’t think you’re crazy.”
“I would. I’m usually very normal. Ask anyone.” She presses her lips together, as though trying to regain control of her words. “Can I use your bathroom?” she asks after a moment.
I gesture wordlessly to the door and she shoots me a grateful look before practically jumping inside it.
Barely five minutes have passed since I heard the first knock.
I can’t believe this is happening.
I can’t believe Fiona is here and that she is beautiful and obviously still in love with Declan and acting like I’m…
Not after he told me about you.
Told her what exactly? That’s he’s sleeping with someone? That he’s spending time with someone?
She knows my name.
Does she know the names of the other women he’s slept with? Sienna and whatever her name was? Did he go to Fiona then too?
Before I get a chance to organize my thoughts the lock scrapes against the door and she emerges, her blush gone, her smile back.
“Great news,” she says when she sees me. “I’ve officially calmed down. I mean, I’ll probably wake at 3 a.m. for the rest of my life thinking about this moment but que sera, sera.” She hesitates. “Okay, the calm thing was a lie.”
Oh my God, she’s goddamn delightful.
She clears her throat. “Do you know if—”
A phone buzzes once from her bag, cutting her off.
“Sorry,” she says, diving for it. “It’s the hospital.”
“The hospital?” I ask faintly.
“Oh, I’m fine. I work there. I’m a pediatrician.”
Of course, she is. Why wouldn’t the tall, beautiful woman also be a highly trained medical professional? A children’s doctor. The most heroic of the doctors.
“It feels like I’m always on call these days,” she mutters, typing something into her phone. “Even when they know I’m not.” When she’s done, she throws it back into her bag, tugging the tote over her shoulder.
We look at each other for a beat.
“I’m going to go,” she says firmly. “I’ve signed everything I need to sign but tell him to get it looked over properly to be sure. I’m sorry for barging in and ruining your morning.”
I nod before I realize what I’m doing. “No, that’s… You didn’t.”
“You’re kind,” she says and an almost pained expression crosses her face. “I get why he… Anyway.”
She leaves the folder on the counter and takes one last look around the apartment. “I see he’s finally gotten out of his art phase.”
“What?”
“You know. All those stupid museum prints.”
I stare at her. I have no idea what she’s talking about. And to my embarrassment, I see the moment she realizes it.
“Right,” she says awkwardly. “Well. I’ll let myself out. I’m sorry again.”
And then she’s gone.
The room is deadly silent without her. I don’t move. I can’t move. My mind is blank, my thoughts are… I force myself to stand, my body light as I stare at the new addition to the counter.
The manila envelope is thick but worn as if she’s taken it in and out of her bag. As if she’s handled it a dozen times. Next to it is a thin sheet of folded paper. I nudge it open, glimpsing her scrawled handwriting before I realize what I’m doing and step back.
Her letter.
She wrote him a letter.
Of course, she did. Why wouldn’t she? No matter what Declan said, the fact remains that they’ve known each other since they were fourteen and I’ve known him for… three months?
Is it only as long as that?
What’s it going to be like if I go any further? What’s it going to be like if I let myself actually…
God, I can still smell her perfume.
I collapse onto the sofa. My little serenity bubble has burst, the happiness I felt not twenty minutes ago replaced by a gnawing anxiety. How the hell do I compete with that? How do I…
My eyes drift to her water bottle on the table and the faint lipstick print she left on it.
And suddenly I know. I know there’s no way this ends with me. It’s like I’ve just become a side character in my own life. The only thing that will happen is that I’ll get my hopes up. My hopes up and my guard down. And even if he doesn’t mean to right now, even if he doesn’t want to hurt me, he will. He’ll go back to her. How could he not? And I’ll be tossed aside. Just like I was with Josh. Just like Dad was with Mom.
I stand so quickly my head spins and yet I’ve never seen anything clearer. I put on my sandals and tie my hair back, not waiting for it to dry. It takes only moments to gather my things and then I grab the envelope and shut the door behind me.
It takes no time at all to get to O’Shea’s. It’s too early for it to be open. The front doors are locked, the blinds drawn, but the dull thud of a dumpster draws me to the alley where I find a man in a staff T-shirt trussing up trash bags.
“Through there,” he says when I ask him where Declan is and I thank him as he gives me a distracted nod to a side door behind him.
I have one foot inside when he calls out. “You Sarah?”
I look back in surprise and he grins. “Thought so,” he says. “Down the hall and to the left. If he’s not in the office he’ll be in the bar.”
Does everyone know about me? Did he send around a mass email? The twisted feeling in my stomach only increases as I step fully inside, my eyes adjusting to the dim light. I head down the hallway, squeezing past boxes of the day’s deliveries, past the kitchen and the cleaning closet. I find the office easy enough, a tiny windowless room that barely holds the desk and chair crammed inside. He’s not there.
I keep going, past the restrooms and through the swinging double doors to the main bar area. Declan stands in the middle of the room, his hands on his hips and his chin to his chest as he listens to one of the people gathered around him. Above them, a large dark stain on the ceiling drips down into several buckets.
I take a step back, intending to go wait in the office but a woman has already spotted me and she nudges Declan before I can escape.
He breaks into a wide smile, which only makes me feel worse.
I shake my head as he comes over to me, the group reforming without him. “I can wait.”
“I can’t. What are you doing here?” He kisses me on the lips before I can respond, a quick brush that feels achingly intimate. “Don’t tell me,” he says, grinning. “You wanted to see me in my element, right? The big man in charge?”
I should have waited for him to come back to the apartment. I understand now why he wanted to wait to tell me about Fiona. Why he wanted to know what to say. Because now, standing in front of him, I’ve got nothing.
His smile fades when I don’t answer and he reaches for my hand to squeeze it. “You found the body in the closet, didn’t you?”
Someone calls his name, but he waves them off, not taking his eyes off me. “What is it? What happened?”
“Fiona came by.”
His smile drops altogether. “She what?”
“After you left,” I say to his growing confusion. “I got up and she was… She knocked on the door and I let her in.”
“She came to the apartment?”
“She wanted to give you this.” I draw out the envelope. “For your divorce. And she wrote you a letter.”
“You spoke with her?”
“She wanted to give you this,” I repeat, my voice starting to wobble. “And—”
“Let’s talk about this in the office,” he interrupts, cupping my elbow.
“No.” I plant my feet, glancing at the people at the other side of the room. They’re far enough away that they can’t hear us, but I suddenly need their presence. The threat of an audience will help me through this.
Will help me do this.
I hold out the envelope, trying to get him to take it but he doesn’t move. A wariness creeps into his expre
ssion as though he knows exactly why I’m here. That makes one of us.
“What did she say to you?”
“Nothing,” I insist but he’s taking his phone from his pocket.
“She’s unbelievable.”
“Declan, stop it. She didn’t say anything bad. That’s not why she came.”
“You don’t know her like I do. She— Hey!” He looks up in shock as I pluck the phone from his hand. The others glance over at his raised voice and I flush in embarrassment.
“Sorry,” I say, handing it back to him. “But you’re not listening.”
Declan stares at me. “You look like you’re about to cry.”
“I think you should take a look at these. And read her letter. And maybe you… maybe you should—”
“Should what?” he asks calmly. Too calmly. “What are you saying?”
That your wife is in love with you.
And I think you’re still in love with her.
“Sarah?”
“Just take some time to think about this,” I say, taking a small step back so my heel hits the door. He doesn’t follow. He’s holding himself still like he doesn’t trust himself to move.
“I don’t want any more time,” he says. “I’ve had a lot of time. Now tell me what Fiona said to you.”
“It’s not her.” A lie. “Don’t be mad at her. She didn’t say anything bad about you. This is me.”
“You’re using that line on me right now? Are you serious?”
“I think you just need some time to—”
“Declan?”
“Just hold on,” he yells at the group. “Don’t do this,” he says, turning back to me. His eyes bore into mine with such intensity I can’t look away. “I mean it, Sarah. I’m not chasing after you again.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
He rears back and I panic. “I didn’t mean it like that,” I say hurriedly. “I’m not… I’m not breaking up with you.”
“No,” he says. “That you can’t do. How can you break up with me when you won’t even admit we’re at the start of a relationship?”
“That’s not what this is about.”
“You’re going to keep doing this,” he says as my thoughts collapse into each other. “Aren’t you? I’m not him, Sarah. I’m not Josh and I’m not your mother.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? Because it feels like every chance you get you try and find something to drive us apart. Are you that scared of something serious or do you just not want it with me?”
“She came all this way to—”
“I don’t give a shit what she did. I told you I feel nothing romantically for her, but you’re convinced I’m… what? Secretly in love with her? Using you to get to her?”
“I just—”
“Just what?” He waits as I flounder before him. There’s a burning in my chest that moves to my throat.
“I just want you to be sure that you know what you want.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. The shutters come down as he closes off from me and I wonder once again how I messed this up so badly.
“I know what I want, Sarah,” he says finally. “But I’m not going to wait around for you to figure out what you do.”
He takes the folder from me, shoving it under his arm. “Thanks for dropping this off,” he says. “And I’m sorry again about your job.”
“Declan—”
“I’ve got a whole other disaster to deal with right now, if you can let yourself out.” He doesn’t look back at me as he returns to the now quiet group. “Take care of yourself, Sarah.”
I stare after him until my eyes start to sting and then I turn blindly, pushing open the doors and getting out there as quickly as I can.
34
Two weeks later
“Try it again, honey.”
I turn the key, waiting for the noise of the engine. The noise of freedom. It doesn’t come and a moment later the hood drops shut with an echoing clang revealing my dad wiping the sweat from his brow.
He shakes his head at me through the windshield and I pull the key back out.
“Aren’t you glad I taught you all those survival skills now?” he asks as he trundles back to the driver’s seat.
I smile as he gets in, the truck dipping slightly under his weight. We’ve just finished three days of camping off the Delaware River. After working up the courage to tell him about what happened with work, he insisted I come out as soon I could to get my mind off things. It was the right decision. I didn’t realize how much I needed to get away from everything, how much I needed not to think until I was out in the open air.
I usually hated the stilted conversations with my dad but this time I was grateful for the silence. And he seemed to sense my mood, leaving me in peace.
An hour ago, we’d packed up the campsite to drive back to the train station when his truck gave out on a back road. The thing was older than I was, so I wasn’t too surprised, but Dad spent the last twenty minutes trying to get it going.
Now he reaches behind him to grab one of the many bags of chips left over from the trip. He always overpacks, like we’ll get stuck out here. Which, I suppose we actually are now. The road ahead and behind us is deserted, with thick trees on either side. There’s the odd passing car, but no one who can probably help with an engine as ancient as this one.
“There’s a mechanic forty minutes south of here,” he sighs, taking out his phone. “I’ll get them to send someone up.”
“I better let Claire know I’ll be late,” I say, taking out my own phone. I send her a quick text, trying to sound extra friendly. The last time I saw her we’d had a big argument.
“Do you know what the final stop on the self-pity train is?” she’d yelled at me as I left the apartment. “It’s you finding a new roommate because I don’t want to live with this crappy version of you. Talk to him.”
Talk to him. As if it was that easy.
I couldn’t blame her for being annoyed with me. I’d been moping around ever since I broke things off with Declan. Alternating between lying in my bed and lying on the sofa, watching twenty-four-hour news stations and sitcoms from the eighties until Claire put the television in her room and threatened to unplug the Wi-Fi. Then I just stared at nothing.
“I hope you don’t need to rush back for an interview,” Dad says, peering out at the road.
I shake my head. “I haven’t applied for anything yet. But I’m keeping an eye out,” I add, trying to sound positive. “Maybe I’ll try something new.”
“Anything in particular?”
“I’m thinking about becoming a celebrity nanny.”
“Glad to see you’re finally thinking big.”
“I’ll start applying seriously when I get back,” I say. “Soraya says she knows someone at a startup who’s looking for project managers, which is basically my job anyway. It’ll work out.”
Dad says nothing, munching on his chips.
“Will says he’s thinking about quitting,” I say. “They’ve put a junior designer at my desk who keeps asking him if he’ll be their mentor. He says he’s losing his mind.”
“Sounds like he misses you.”
“He does. He told me. That’s how I know it’s bad.” I pause, remembering how he tried to warn me about Matthias. “He’s a good friend.”
Dad clears his throat and I wait for the question. The one he always asks. He hasn’t brought it up the whole trip and now he turns to me, his voice unbearably soft.
“Are you alright, Sarah?”
“Of course,” I say, surprised. “I’ll be fine. I’ve got savings.”
“I don’t mean about the job. You’ve been quiet all weekend.”
“You always tell me I talk too much when we go camping.”
“And this time I didn’t have to tell you that once,” he points out.
“Only you would complain about not having anything to complain about.” I run my finger down the torn leather of the seat, findin
g the spots where the stuffing pokes through. I might as well tell him. “I met someone.”
Dad eats another chip. “That so?”
“Over the summer but… I think I might have ruined it.”
“Ruin is a very serious word,” he murmurs. “Do you want to talk about it?”
No. Yes. “I think you already know the ending.”
He shrugs. “We’re going to be here for a while. It’s either that or I put on Moby Dick again. I know where you hid the cassette tapes.”
I roll my eyes, but Dad just waits. “I found out he was married,” I say finally. “He’s not anymore. They’re separated but…”
“He didn’t tell you about her.”
I shake my head. “Even though he knew about Mom.” I pause. “He said he was going to.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Yes,” I admit.
“But it still hurts,” Dad surmises.
I nod, focused on the stuffing. He sighs. “That’s a shame.”
“We talked about it. He explained everything. But it still didn’t feel right.”
“Why not?”
“She’s very pretty.”
“So are you,” he says automatically.
“It’s more complicated than that.” I run briefly through what happened when Fiona and I met. “Do you know who I became when she showed up?” I ask at the end. “I was the bad guy. She was the beautiful, kind, clumsy heroine and I was the woman on the side.”
Dad frowns. “I don’t like you talking about yourself like that.”
“But it’s true,” I insist. “I was the other woman. She was nervous around me. She panicked around me. And I don’t know what he told her, but he must have made it sound like he cared about me a lot more than he does.”
“And why would he have done that?”
“I don’t know,” I mutter. “To make her jealous?”
Dad’s silent for a long time. Besides making him tell me how his retirement party went, this is the most we’ve talked about all weekend and I’m just beginning to wish I had never brought it up when he speaks next.
One Night Only: An absolutely hilarious and uplifting romantic comedy Page 29