She bolted from the room then and I stared at the ground. I could feel Ames’ eyes on me, so after a beat, I looked up at him. “I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice breaking. “I tried not to insert myself into your argument, but I feel for her, Ames. She’s so much like me.”
He ran his tongue over his teeth before saying, “Why are you still here?”
I’d never been more aware of my heart than right then, when he looked at me with contempt and derision, with the coldness I’d never known he possessed.
Until that moment, I had no idea that romantic love could have so many thorns.
Chapter Twenty-One
“I really fucked up.” I pressed my palms against my face, trying to work the feeling back into my skin.
“You did.” Sam didn’t try to make me feel better about it. I had fucked up, royally so. Saying things I didn’t mean, with anger in my words. “What are you going to do to fix it?”
Running a hand down my face, I let out a sigh. “What the hell can I do?”
“Uh, going to her hotel and starting with an ‘I’m sorry’ would be a good start.”
“Oh, thanks. Didn’t think about that.” I shoved him, and he sloshed the beer in his hand. I ignored his glare. “She’s not in her hotel. She checked out, and I don’t even know if she’s still in the country.”
It’d been a week. A week of restless nights, of walking the city for hours at night until I was weak from the cold. If I replayed the conversation we’d had in the pub’s kitchen, all I did was want to wring my own bloody neck. The way she’d looked at me, like she was watching my soul leave my body, was enough to make me hate myself more than I ever had.
I stood up and paced the room. I would torture myself if I kept replaying that scene in the kitchen. If I’d ever doubted her growing feelings for me—which I hadn’t—that moment would’ve cemented them for me. I’d broken her, in a way she didn’t deserve. All because I’d been angry.
Lotte had called me a fucking idiot about a hundred times, but it’d been drowned out by the same words I’d said to myself, over and over, for the last one hundred and sixty-eight hours.
“What if she has left the country, mate?” When I didn’t answer right away, he punched me relatively gently in the arm. “Don’t be stupid. You lost one person you loved, and you didn’t have a choice. Now, you do. You have a choice: to go after her or to lose her.”
The thought made me angry, and I punched him back without trying to cause actual harm to him. “It doesn’t feel like a choice to me.”
“Good.” He settled back against the couch. “Because it’s not. You’re going to find her.”
I nodded, steeling my resolve. “I’m going to find her.”
“How?”
“Google?”
Sam sat up and dropped his feet to the floor. “Look, Ames. I get that Google is the all-powerful vehicle to finding just about anyone in the world, but you’re talking about a country with three-hundred million people in it.”
“How many Mila Sommers can there be?”
Sam pulled out his phone and typed. “Looks like there are a handful on Facebook.”
I scratched my head. “I don’t think she’s on there.”
“What about her brother? Doesn’t he have a blog?”
I pointed at him. “Yes, he does. Search Jude Sommers.”
It took us only about twenty minutes to find him, and less than a minute to find his blog and his email address. As I began composing my email to him, Sam stopped me with a hand to my shoulder.
“What if he’s angry at you, for hurting her? You think he’s going to tell you where she is?”
He had a point. “But I can’t do nothing.” I inhaled deeply, and exhaled, trying to clear my thoughts.
“When is she due to go back to the States?”
I glanced at the calendar on the wall. “Tomorrow. But she could’ve caught an earlier flight for all I know. If I hurt her like I think I did,” I clenched my jaw, “she might’ve left as soon as she could.”
“And where would she have gone?”
“To Jude’s, in Colorado.”
“Look, I’m not suggesting you do something as crazy as fly to Colorado and track Jude down, but, well, I am saying that. An email could be ignored. You need the big gesture. You need to apologize in person. And get on your knees and tell her you love her, and that you were an exceptional arse.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I never said I loved her.”
“Oh, piss off.” He pushed me this time, hard enough to send my phone skidding across the floor. “I’ve known you most of our lives, and I’ve seen you this miserable twice. You don’t look that miserable when the feelings aren’t that deep.” He laughed bitterly, and drained his glass of beer. “Trust me, I know what heartbreak looks like.”
I scrubbed my eyes with my hands, trying to figure out how I was going to wrangle time off from the pub in order to search for Mila in the States. “I don’t know how to begin with her. I don’t know what to say to make it better. I didn’t expect her, wasn’t looking for her.”
“The night you saw her on the bridge, something was different.” Sam set his glass down with a loud thunk. “The look on your face. I know you felt something shift.”
“Because when I saw her, when we made eye contact, the first words that crossed my mind were, ‘There she is.’” It had stunned me then, the words and the feeling just looking at her had elicited in that moment. It was why I’d stopped in my tracks, the reason I’d forgotten how to breathe for a second. “I fought it hard at first. I resented her. And maybe I’d never truly let go of that resentment. I don’t know how else to explain what I said to her.”
“You were scared. Because you love her, and you’ve loved and lost in a way that’s scarred you permanently. But you have to grow the fuck up, and find her. You can’t be afraid, forever.”
“I don’t want to be afraid. And I don’t want to move on without her. That’s…” I shook my head. “It’s not even an option for me.” The air around me since she left felt thicker, like I could choke on it. Had the air been thick like that before she came, and I was too busy taking shallow breaths to notice? I wasn’t sure—the only absolute thing I knew for sure was that I wasn’t going to move on without her.
“You should start drafting your apology speech now.”
I sighed, staring blankly at my phone. “How do I apologize to her? How do I tell her I won’t fuck up again?”
“Ames. Come on.” Sam gave me a look like he was trying not to laugh at me. “You will fuck up. Probably hundreds more times. You’ll hurt her and she’ll hurt you.”
“Then what’s the point of promising I won’t?”
“Don’t promise you won’t. That’s the point.” He glanced at his phone. “Jude lives in Highlands Ranch.” Sam turned his screen toward me. “It’s south of Denver.”
“I need to talk to Asher and Lotte. And Jennie, too.”
“I’ll help. With the pub while you’re gone.”
“Thanks,” I told him, and started pulling up flights on my phone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was my fifth day straight lounging on Jude’s couch. I was sure that if I moved away from it for too long, it’d lose my impression and I would never get comfortable again.
I’d burned through all the shows I’d saved up on Jude’s Netflix queue while I’d been gone, and I hadn’t checked my email once in the week since I’d left the U.K.
Jude gave me food when he was around, and his girlfriend, Trista, kept me company, silently, once in a while. But it was the second time in four months that I felt like I’d lost direction of my own life. Like my compass was spinning, unable to find the magnet to make it stop. I knew I’d figure it out eventually, but having my heart tossed into a blender was admittedly making me the most pitiful person at the moment.
But on that fifth day, Jude dragged me out and put me in his car and drove me to a dance studio that had private rooms for rent.
/> I sat in the car and stared up at the building blankly.
“Come on, Mila-moo. You need to get back at it. You’re turning into sludge just sitting on my couch all the time.”
“I don’t feel like dancing.”
“I don’t feel like watching you sitting on my couch, day in and day out. Get in there and dance. For an hour. I’ll run to the grocery store and when I come back, we can go home. But I’m not going to let my sister turn into a zombie.”
I looked at him, feeling the weight of my pain then, like it was wrapping itself around me, tighter and tighter. Ames had looked at me like I was unwanted. A nuisance.
“Mila,” Jude said, softer this time. “I know you’re hurting. But you aren’t a wallower. You’re a doer. I’m going to make you hike with us this weekend too. So, you might as well remind your muscles what it feels like to move so you’re ready.”
“I don’t want to go hiking. And I don’t want to dance.” I propped my elbow up on the edge of the window. “I just want to go back to your couch.”
“I’m not going to let you. I’m going to bully you into doing this one thing for yourself. Go in there for an hour. I don’t even care if you dance. But put on the music and just listen to it, okay? For me?”
“Why do you have to pull the ‘for me’ card?” I groaned, and grabbed my bag before climbing out of the car. “One hour,” I reminded him.
“One hour,” he confirmed, and reached over to close the door.
I stared up at the all glass-fronted building, and felt like falling apart on the sidewalk. I didn’t want to dance. I didn’t want to move. I just wanted to exist, until I was back to my normal self. But because Jude had asked, I went into the building, my oversized CU Boulder sweatshirt slipping off one shoulder in a way that wasn’t stylish but sloppy.
Jude apparently had already paid for my use of the space, because the woman didn’t take any money from me. She walked me down the hallway, past classes and individual lessons and one or two solo dancers until we were in the very last room. She showed me where the bathroom was and then closed the door behind me, leaving me alone in the space.
I walked to the windows first, which had a view of a green park beyond the parking lot. Leaves were falling from the trees, now that fall was officially in Colorado. It looked so different than the view I’d become accustomed to. Gone were the gray skies that I missed, the tall buildings lining the river. Gone was Big Ben. I traced the window trim and closed my eyes. I missed Ames so much. The way we’d connected, how my skin had hungered for his. The drop in my stomach every time he smiled at me.
I pulled in a deep breath and then connected my phone to the Bluetooth speaker in the room. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I scrolled through my list of songs until I found something mellow to stretch to. I had no plans to actually dance, but I couldn’t deny that getting a deep stretch in my unused muscles felt refreshing after sitting on a couch for the better part of a week.
After twenty minutes of stretching, I turned to an older song I’d developed a dance routine to. It was a slower beat, lots of feet sliding across the floor, body spinning and arms moving through the air like the wind.
I was so wrapped up in the song that I didn’t realize an hour had passed until my phone rang through the Bluetooth speaker. And that’s when I realized it’d been closer to two hours.
I slung my sweater back on and trudged out to Jude’s car.
“Feel better?”
I grunted in response.
A week later, our parents came to visit. It was their first time visiting Jude’s new house, so they decided to make the visit last all day. My mother and I had never addressed our argument in London, and I had no desire to. But as fate would have it, she and I were thrown together inside, to assemble the salads for the barbecue Jude had planned.
We didn’t speak, except to sneak around one another for a utensil or a vegetable. As I hulled the strawberries, she seemed to be unable to take it anymore.
“What are you making?”
“Strawberry poppy seed salad.”
She made a noise in the back of her throat. “You loved that salad when you were younger.”
I stopped hulling for a moment, surprised she’d remembered and surprised she’d bring it up.
“How are you doing?” she asked in a rare moment of her actually showing in an interest in such trivial things.
“Fine.” I dropped strawberry after strawberry on the cutting board before grabbing a large chopping knife. “How are you?” I asked.
“I’m okay. Seeing a new therapist.”
I didn’t have a reaction to that. My mom saw therapists like she saw movies. A different one every couple of weeks. “That’s great.” It was said without feeling and I winced, knowing she’d hear it in my voice too.
After trying to slice through a strawberry and effectively smooshing it from the dull blade, I grabbed the knife sharpener and started sliding the knife across it.
“He’s older. His youngest was diagnosed terminal cancer when he was five. I think that makes him more empathetic.”
I waited for it. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard my mother say such a thing. She gravitated to therapists who had experience with having sick children, and used that as a way to explain away her lack of support for me. I washed the knife under the faucet as I waited.
“His older kids had to fend for themselves for about four years, until his son died.” She wasn’t looking at me as she stirred a mayonnaise mixture in a bowl. “And he was surprised that they didn’t need him anymore. It made him lash out a little.”
She paused mixing and I moved the knife to the cutting board to begin chopping the strawberries again. “Okay.”
“Of his three living kids, he only has a relationship with one of them. I…” in my periphery I saw her turn toward me. “I think that maybe I haven’t always been fair to you.”
It hurt her to say it, I could tell, from the way her voice sounded warbled and unsure. I channeled Jude in listening to her, because I wanted to tell her, “Oh, you think?” but knew that wouldn’t accomplish anything productive.
“When we found out about Jude’s heart, we were so worried about him that we stopped worrying about you.” She braced her hands on the countertop, but I kept cutting, not wanting to turn to her. Not yet.
“And it’s no wonder you lashed out, rebelled the way you did.”
That caused me to roll my eyes. To my mom, sneaking out once when I was sixteen was akin to taking up a heroin habit on the scale of levels of rebellion.
“I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry if I ever made you feel slighted. I know we don’t understand each other, and we never will, I suspect. But you’ll always be my daughter, and I don’t want to fight with you.”
As far as apologies went, it wasn’t a terrible one. We wouldn’t be holding hands and singing Kumbaya around Jude’s fire pit that night, but it was better than nothing.
“I don’t want to fight with you either, Mom.” I placed the knife down and turned. “But I want you to respect my decisions, especially when they’re not hurting you, Dad, or Jude. You don’t have to understand them, or me, but you don’t need to tell me how live when I’ve managed more or less on my own for the last ten years.”
I watched her swallow, and knew this conversation was almost unbearably difficult for her. “I’ll try.”
It was a start.
Chapter Twenty-Three
By the second week, I was beginning to feel like myself again. The couch no longer had a solid impression of my body, I was finished with all my London posts for Jude’s blog, and I’d done two jobs from the makeshift studio I’d set up in the corner of Jude’s guest bedroom.
Trista and I were out to lunch, our first time actually forced to engage in conversation. We’d talked, sure, but only casually around Jude’s house. But after my conversation with my mom, I was done holding onto old demons and waiting for them to strike.
The bistro she’d pic
ked was small, our table barely the size of a dinner plate. Once the waitress had left us, I cleared my throat. “Thanks for coming out with me.”
“Of course.” She looked at me expectantly, and I felt myself shrivel under her gaze.
That was the conundrum about Trista. She was quiet, hardly ever the one to initiate conversation. She just looked at you with these saucers for eyes, as if she could see deeper than you could speak to. It was intimidating, but somehow not completely uncomfortable.
“We haven’t talked, not really, since things with Colin.” I swallowed down my anxiety. “I know that stealing your boyfriend was a pretty shitty thing to do.”
I cradled my coffee cup in my hands, staring into its contents as if it could help me conjure up what I wanted to say.
But then she spoke. “You didn’t steal him.”
I raised my head. “But… I was seeing him, while you were together.”
“Things can be stolen, but people can’t. He wasn’t mine. Especially if he could be in love with you at the same time.”
I was perspiring. This conversation was made doubly uncomfortable because I’d been crashing at her house, recovering from my second heartbreak of the year. “Regardless, it was still a terrible thing I did. Probably one of the worst, if I’m being honest.”
She nodded, and appeared to be thinking. I had to force myself not to ramble, to give her the time to think. My lips itched to chatter.
“As trite as it may sound, I believe that everything happens the way it’s supposed to.” She leveled me with her gaze. “I’m not sure I ever would have left Colin if that hadn’t happened. I would have stayed with him, unhappy, and punished myself by loving your brother from afar for too long. I’m not like you.” She was the picture of serenity, the afternoon sun warming her face. Her features were smooth, and she had the presence of someone who had lived a thousand years. “You being with my boyfriend forced me to face the reality of my situation. It forced me out of my comfort zone. But,” a smile teased her lips, “I’m not going to thank you for it.”
The Weight of Life Page 21