by Piper Lennox
“Is that why you decided to tell my kid her mom died? Everything’s okay when it’s in the name of honesty, huh?”
“How the hell was I supposed to know you hadn’t told her, Orion?”
“Maybe because I whispered it all to you, that day at the zoo? Because I made it pretty damn obvious I didn’t want her to hear?”
The louder I get, the louder she gets. An even match. I smell something familiar on her breath as she gets right up against me—the rescue candies she gave me, while I hid in the shrubs outside the party.
“I’m so tired of people thinking things are ‘obvious,’ using that as an excuse not to be direct. I don’t work that way. If I have to say something, I just say it. Give it a try some time.”
“It isn’t how you work,” I counter, “but it is how the world works.”
“Excuse me for being myself, then.”
“People aren’t animals, Colby.” I stare her down. “You can’t just say whatever you want in a friendly enough tone and expect a good reaction.”
Where the anger’s coming from, I have no idea. I’m upset she lost London. I’m upset she told her about Emily. But I’m not actively angry with her.
You’re mad at yourself.
I should have never let things come to this. Last night was a mistake. The zoo was a mistake. Hiring her was definitely a mistake. From that exact moment in Kona when I lifted my head to the girl shaking a tin of sugar, I’ve forgotten, piece by piece, what I was supposed to be looking for.
It’s not about what I want. It’s about what London needs.
“I said I was sorry.” She pushes back her hair with both hands, shutting her eyes. “I fucked up, but then I did everything I could to make it right. And I did make it right, Orion—I ran all over this place looking for her, Clara and Georgia looked, we called the police. I found her. I’m not saying it undoes my mistake, but you can’t possibly stay this pissed at me over it.” She opens her eyes and motions to the hallway. “I mean, shit, she’s not even hurt! She skinned her knee on a rock. That’s got to count for something, here. I messed up, but I fixed it before anything really terrible happened, right?”
“That.” I point at her. “Right there. The fact you don’t get how—how completely horrifying today was—”
“I don’t ‘get’ it? Are you serious?” Colby’s stare bores into mine. She points at herself, too. “I was scared absolutely shitless today.”
“I’m not saying you weren’t. But until you’re a parent, you have no idea what it feels like to hear your kid is gone.” I drop my hand and ball it into a fist. Anything to stop the heat in my throat, building behind my eyes again. Even with London in the next room, safe and sound, my head won’t stop its slideshow of every possible thing that could have gone horribly, devastatingly wrong.
Colby waits. I rub the headache out of my eyes.
“When you have a kid,” I start, swallowing, “they’re...they become everything important in your life. Everything. Whether you hate your job or love it, it doesn’t mean shit if it’s not giving your kid what they need to live well. From the second you wake up to the second you fall asleep, you’re worrying about their grades, how much they didn’t eat at dinner, whether you were too hard on them when they threw a fit. When you date someone...you frame everything about that person in a different way. And yeah, maybe it’s not fair. Maybe there should be some kind of slack, a learning curve. But with a kid in the balance, you don’t get to make that decision.”
She looks like she has something to say, which isn’t a shock.
It does shock me, though, that she stays quiet.
“London is everything to me,” I whisper. “Nothing and no one will ever rank above her. She’s...she’s the one piece of myself I’d give anything to keep safe and happy. Even all the other pieces of myself.”
She laughs, but her brow’s furrowed. Her eyes glisten again.
“You think you’re the only one that loves that kid,” she whispers.
My hand lifts again, pointing to the door.
“Go. Please.” I can hardly get the words out.
Colby’s eyes shift between mine. “If I go,” she says softly, “I won’t come back. Either we talk this over now and get through it...or we end this.”
Her voice shakes again. I count the tears on her face and remember how much I wanted to kiss away every single one last night on the beach. What I wouldn’t give to go back and live inside that moment.
“People would always prefer not knowing,” I told her, back in Kona. I should have said “I,” not “people.”
If I could, I’d go back to last night and never learn my body’s betraying me all over again—never find out that there might be an end in sight, and that I’m running out of time to see if the things I want just might turn out to be what London needs.
And failing that, I’d go back to before I ever met Colby Harlowe, so I’d never have to know what it feels like to let her go.
“Fine,” she whispers, when I don’t respond. Silence is the only answer I can give that she’ll believe.
She steps away and turns. I don’t trust myself not to reach for her, so I start digging through the drawers of my dresser again. Through the open door, I hear her tell Walt and London goodbye.
I hear Walt tell her she should stay.
I hear London start to cry again, her scrape forgotten.
But I still don’t stop looking for the Band-Aids I know aren’t in here until I hear the front door swish open and shut.
Twenty-Three
Colby
Of all the days of the week Orion could have ripped out my heart and thrown it down like a fucking Band-Aid box, of course the universe would pick a Sunday—just for kicks to see me pull my miserable ass out of bed Monday morning, dreading my front desk shift with every drop of blood in my body. You’d think it wouldn’t be so bad anymore, knowing I only have to tolerate it one day a week instead of every morning. Wrong.
“You look...tired,” Aidan says warily, watching me sign into the shift log. We’ve been circling each other with fake friendliness, at least on my end, ever since that day I called her out.
Assuming “tired” really means “like shit,” I fall into the desk chair and swivel away from her, rifling through Saturday’s discharge forms. Of course Aidan left them for me to handle. “Late night,” I answer cryptically.
It’s such a huge understatement, it might as well be a lie: I didn’t sleep at all. Literally. The entire evening was spent crying into my pillow so the twins couldn’t hear, though I’m sure they did; the hours between midnight and dawn were spent drafting angry, bitchy letters to Orion that I delivered to the garbage can; and from dawn until the exact moment I left for work, I tried, without success, to unclog my sinuses of tears and rage. I’m not wearing any makeup and my hair’s barely combed. The shirt I picked is clean…but backwards.
Yes. I look like shit.
But the hell if I’m going to confide anything in Aidan.
“Coffee?” she offers, pointing to the back. Dr. Aurora’s probably got a full pot, freshly brewed, in the utility closet we converted to the world’s saddest break room.
I’m about to tell her how I take it, but then remember every morning Orion slid me a mug, already made just how I like. That’s where I should have gotten my caffeine fix today. Not from Aidan, who’s only offering because she’s afraid I’ll rat her out. It makes me angry and miserable all over again.
“No,” I manage, stabbing at the keyboard. “Thanks.”
Halfway through the day, I get a text from Walt.
I’M TALKING TO HIM. DW GIRL.
On any other day, his kind-hearted meddling would make me smile. Today, it makes me want to fall into a thousand pieces, just so the pug by the window can gobble me up into oblivion, the same way he ate a handful of crayons as soon as he trotted in here.
THANKS, I text back. NOT HOLDING MY BREATH—BUT THANKS.
Orion doesn’t want to talk. And he damn sur
e doesn’t want to listen.
“Excuse me, dear.”
I bristle. The short-haired woman who brought in her calico for a pregnancy examination has bothered me nine times in the last twenty minutes, using nine different terms that aren’t my name, each more sarcastic than the last. Miss, sweetie, sweetheart. I even got a “honey-pie” at one point.
“Yes, ma’am?” My smile is even more sarcastic than her “dear.”
“I’ve been waiting over forty-five minutes. Now, I’m not the kind of person to do this, but I’m going to leave a very poor review for this place online if I don’t get in to see the doctor soon.”
She puts one finger on the desk, painted bright coral, as though pressing an invisible Shitty Online Review button as we speak.
This woman has been here a thousand times. Not her, but hundreds of women just like her. Rude with a smile. I know her type. Thinks she deserves to skip the line because she has places to be.
“Ma’am,” I manage, shutting my eyes, because God, I just can’t with this shit today, “you checked in twenty minutes ago, not forty-five. There are several clients ahead of you, which I apologize for, but is entirely out of my control.”
It’s here the niceties drop. Her fingernail clicks on the counter with every word from those over-Botoxed lips.
“That man with the Pekingese arrived after I did, and so did that family with the two...” She wrinkles her nose. “...rat things.”
“Ferrets,” I mutter. She doesn’t care.
“I just want to know what kind of place you’re running here.” Her laugh is fake and too loud; she’s putting on a show, fighting the good fight for the entire waiting room to hear and, in her delusional mind, applaud her. “If you don’t take people in the order they arrive, what’s the point of this little sign-in sheet up here? What does your job even entail?”
“My job,” I spit, not even aware I’ve stood until I feel the chair spin and hit my leg, “is to send animals back in the order they got here and by the severity of their medical need.”
Her eyes narrow on me. “Let me speak to your manager.”
“I don’t have a manager.” I don’t mean for my voice to mock hers, but it’s just too damn easy. And today has been too damn hard. “What I have is a veterinarian, and no, you can’t speak to her, because she’s back there taking care of animals who actually need help.”
“My cat—”
“Let me save you a hefty bill.” I point over the counter at her calico, which she’s been letting roam the waiting room despite three warnings from me and one from Dr. Aurora herself. “Your cat is definitely not pregnant. It’s fat as shit because you keep overfeeding it.” I wave the intake form she filled out like a victory trophy. “How you think four cups of food a day constitutes ‘normal’ is beyond me.”
“Colby.”
Few things on this earth hit me with the same cold-shower jolt as Dr. Aurora’s voice, saying my name like she caught me stealing from a collection plate.
The woman jumps into victim mode. “This employee’s behavior is unacceptable. I don’t know what kind of place you’re running—”
“I’ll take care of it, ma’am, I assure you.” Dr. Aurora holds open the door to the back and nods her through. If I never see the woman’s smug, painted-on face again, it’ll be too soon.
Even worse, though, is the look Dr. Aurora gives me. She’s not mad. She’s disappointed.
And I am so fired.
Orion
“Why isn’t Colby watching me today?”
The computer screen shows me two things. The first is my current project for an overseas client, a complete redesign of the most color-clashing, Clip-Artsy logo to ever exist past 1994. The second is London, wilting against my doorway.
“She’s just not, bug.” I focus on the levels I’m adjusting, not her. “Let me finish this up and I promise we’ll do something fun.”
“Are you mad at her?”
Now, I look at my own reflection in the screen. It’s not a pretty sight.
“No, I’m not mad.” I’m not sure what I am anymore, but it feels like shit. “Seriously, London—I didn’t sleep well and you’re really trying my patience. Go watch your movie until the timer goes off.”
“I don’t want to. I want to play with Colby.”
My sigh comes out in four blasts, timed with the stab of the keyboard. “Can’t always get what you want, kid.”
“Daddy?”
I groan and spin to her. She’s hanging from the side of the doorframe by her fingertips, leaning almost all the way to the ground; her head is thrown back, nose almost touching the other side of the doorway. “What?”
“If you’re not friends with Colby, does that mean she’s not my friend, too?”
“London. I have to get this done, okay? Go.”
She rights herself, already jutting out her lip. The drag of her feet on the carpet as she retreats to the living room gets to me more than anything else.
Walt appears in the doorway next. It’s been about half an hour, plenty of time for me to finish this project. I’ve gotten nothing done.
“Hey, dumbass.”
I don’t swivel. I know he’s leaning on the doorframe with one leg crossed in front of the other, lint-rolling his uniform, giving me the flattest expression his face is capable of making.
“Hey. Thought you opened today.”
“Lissa traded with me. Speaking of—she talked about you pretty much incessantly at our last shift together. Should I set something up?”
“Not interested.” I poke at my keyboard, pretending to be productive. “You know this.”
“Yeah,” he says, “but I figured, since you’re on a roll here with stupid decisions, maybe you’d like to give her another date.”
“Shut up.”
“You miss Colby. London misses Colby. I miss Colby. Let’s fix the situation and call her, shall we?”
“We are working.” Just to keep up appearances, I change the color of the text to bright pink, then back to its original, hideous green. “We would appreciate it if you’d leave now.”
“She apologized, dude. You can’t throw everything away over one afternoon.”
Only now do I turn and look at him. “There’s not much to throw away. We had one date.” Or ten. Or twenty. Whatever.
“And she messed up one time,” he reminds me.
“It’s not about her losing my kid. That’s just the thing that made me realize....” I falter and run my hands over my head, clasping them behind my neck. “She’s not what I’m looking for. Bottom line.”
Walt shakes his head, rolling his eyes to the ceiling like he’s asking God to please remove this idiot from his aegis. If it weren’t for his phone’s alarm going off—a blaring siren, his “Get Your Ass in the Car Now” warning for himself—I’m sure I’d be in for one hell of a talking-to.
“I’m not finished,” he warns, pointing at me as he backs into the hall.
My sigh’s a long one this time, perfectly synced with the hiss of my chair as I swivel back to the computer. “I’m sure you’re not.”
As soon as he’s gone, I get up and fall into bed with all the dramatic flair of London mid-tantrum.
I do miss Colby. All night, I replayed the fight and passed my phone from hand to hand, daring myself to call her before reminding myself, fiercely, why I shouldn’t.
At eleven-thirty, I watched her leave for work. She dropped her purse on the sidewalk, twice, and spent four minutes rifling through it for her car keys. Her hair was up. I wanted to let it down. The hunch of her shoulders made her look exhausted. I wanted to carry her into my bedroom and watch her sleep.
It’s not about what you want, I reminded myself.
Which used to be easy to remember—back before I wanted her.
Twenty-Four
Colby
“I swear, it won’t happen again.”
Dr. Aurora rubs her stomach in slow, concentric circles. She can’t fit behind her desk anymore
, so we’re both sitting in the two seats that face it, instead. The kid’s so overdue, it probably has half a social security number already.
“I’m sorry, Colby,” she says, and seems to really mean it. I think she might cry. And, foolishly, I hope to use that in my favor.
“Please give me another chance. I know I shouldn’t have lost my cool out there, but that woman—”
“Is a client.” Her face gets stern. Bye, tears. “You have to learn that before you can work in this business. Yes, there are going to be assholes. But you don’t get to be one back.”
Now I’m an asshole? “I understand. Really, I—I do, I know that. I just had a really terrible night.”
“Terrible nights happen. It’s no excuse. I mean, God, Aidan came in here after her grandfather’s funeral Saturday and had no problem talking to clients properly.”
I just know Aidan is on the other side of the door, her embroidered coat freshly bleached. As satisfying as it would feel to drag her down under these bus tires with me, I refuse to tell Dr. Aurora that Aidan was at the beach Saturday morning before her shift, idiotically flashing it all over social media. Even if I leave here today with all my shit in a box, I won’t tattle on her for all the crap she pulls. She deserves it, but I’m not that kind of person. Dumb, but noble. Maybe someday it’ll pay off.
“I’ll give you a good recommendation,” she adds, softer now, shifting her weight in the seat. “I hope you find something amazing. When you’re ready.”
When I’m ready. Ready to play by the rules, no matter how messed up they are. Ready to keep my mouth shut.
The drive back to my apartment feels twice as long, but I keep myself together until I pull into my space. Then it hits. The injustice in the fact Aidan still has her job and I’ve got nothing. The fact I’ll be out of money in a matter of days.
So I’m already bawling when I look in my rearview and see Orion heading for his rental car on the other side of the lot. I can try and tell myself it doesn’t make me cry harder, watching London pirouette behind him before he scolds her into her seat, but I’m a terrible liar.