Miller is quiet for a moment, staring at me with a perplexed look, probably unsure how to comfort me when I’m this upset. He falls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. “That’s why you called me over here?” His voice has a sharp edge to it, even though it’s still a whisper. “Because you’re mad at your mother?”
His reaction is staggering. I reach out and put my hand on his chest, but he grabs my wrist and flicks it off him. He rolls over and sits on the edge of the bed, his back to me.
“No. Miller, no.” I’m saying no, but that word is a lie, and we both know it. I place a hand on his shoulder, but he flinches when I touch him. He stands up, and I hear the snap of the condom as he pulls it off and tosses it angrily into the trash can next to my bed. He slides his boxers on and then steps into his jeans. He won’t even look at me.
“Miller, I swear. That’s not why I called you over here.”
He’s walking across my bedroom. “Why’d you call me, then? You weren’t ready for this to happen tonight.” He snatches up his shirt and finally looks at me. I expect to see anger in his eyes, but all I see is hurt.
I’m sitting up on the bed, the blanket pulled up to my chest. “I was, though. I promise. I wanted to be with you—that’s why I called you.” I’m desperately trying to recover, but I think I’ve ruined this. It’s terrifying me.
He takes a step forward, waving a hand in my direction. “You’re upset with your mother, Clara. You didn’t want me—you wanted revenge. I knew you weren’t ready. It was weird . . . it was . . .” He releases a frustrated rush of air.
I use the sheet to wipe some of my tears away. “I called you because I was upset, yes. But being so upset is what made me want to be with you.”
He’s already got his shirt over his head, but he pauses as he’s pulling it down over his chest. “I would have come over, Clara. Without the sex. You know that.”
Why can’t I stop offending him? I don’t want to hurt him, but that’s all I’m doing right now.
He reopens the window, and the last thing I want him to do is leave. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I didn’t mean to drag him into this. But I don’t want him to leave me alone right now.
“Miller, wait.” He’s about to climb out the window, so I plead with him again, moving to the edge of my bed, still wrapped up in my blanket. “Please. It wasn’t personal. I swear.”
Those words pull him away from the window and back toward the bed. He lowers himself in front of me and cups my face with both hands. “You’re right. That’s why I’m so upset with you. The one thing that should be the most personal to us wasn’t personal at all.”
His words rip through me, and a loud sob breaks from my chest. I can’t believe I did this. It feels like I’ve stooped to my mother’s level. Miller releases me and starts to climb out the window, and I cover my mouth with both hands, unable to stop the feelings from tearing through me. It’s not just what I’ve done to Miller. It’s everything. I feel everything. I feel the loss of Jenny and the absence of my father and the guilt over how they died and the betrayal of my mother and the pain I caused Miller, and it’s so much all at once that I don’t think I can do this anymore. I crawl back up my bed and bury my face into my pillow, but I really just want to pull the covers over my head and close my eyes and never feel any of it again. It’s too much. It’s not fair. It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair.
I feel the mattress dip beside me, and when I roll toward him, he wraps his arms around me and pulls me against him. It makes me cry even harder.
I try to tell him I’m sorry, but I’m crying so much I can’t even get words out. Miller presses soft lips against the side of my head, and I struggle to say it, but the only word I’m sure he can make out is sorry between sobs.
He doesn’t tell me it’s okay or that he forgives me. He doesn’t say anything. He spends the next several minutes silently comforting me while I cry.
My face is pressed against his chest—buried deep into his shirt. When I can finally find my words again, I use them. Over and over. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You’re right, and I feel terrible.” My words are muffled against him. “I’m so sorry.”
He’s gently cupping the back of my head. “I know you feel bad,” he whispers. “I forgive you. But I’m still mad at you.”
Despite his words, he presses a kiss into my hair, and that’s all the forgiveness I need from him right now. He should be mad at me. I don’t blame him. I’m mad at me.
He lies with me for a while, but when I’m no longer crying, he pulls away and looks down at me, running his hand over my cheek. “I should probably go. It’s getting late.”
I shake my head and look pleadingly into his eyes. “Please don’t. I don’t want to be alone right now.”
I can see the three seconds of contemplation swirling around in his eyes before he nods. Then he sits up on the bed and takes off his T-shirt. He bunches it up and then reaches over and slides it over my head. “Wear this.”
I slip my arms into the T-shirt, and with the covers still on top of me, I pull the T-shirt over my hips.
It’s not lost on me that even after everything that’s happened tonight, he still hasn’t seen me naked. He never even looked when I dropped my towel.
He slips under the covers with me and pulls me to him so that my back is pressed against his chest. We share a pillow. We hold hands. And eventually, we both fall asleep, angry at different people, but both hurting the same.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MORGAN
I thought washing baby bottles while praying for Armageddon was rock bottom, but maybe I was wrong. I think this might be rock bottom.
What do people do when they hit rock bottom? Wait until someone throws them a rope? Wither away to skin and bones until the vultures come and find them?
I’m on my bed, where I’ve been since last night, except I gave up trying to sleep. Now that the sun’s about to come up, I don’t see the point.
I walked to Clara’s room a couple more times but didn’t even bother trying to knock. She turned her music up to drown me out, so I decided to give her the night to hate me before attempting to ask for her forgiveness.
Maybe waiting to start therapy was a bad idea. I thought it would be better to wait a few months—let the hardest parts of the grief settle. But obviously, that was a mistake. I need to talk to someone. Clara and I both need to talk to someone. I’m not sure this is something we can fix on our own.
I don’t want to talk to Jonah about it because he’ll just apologize and tell me it’ll be okay and assure me it’ll get better. And maybe it will. Maybe a rain will come that’ll flood the pit I’m in, and I can float to the top and climb out. Or at least drown. Either one seems appealing.
Even if we start therapy right away, nothing will change what happened last night. Nothing will change the fact that my daughter saw her mother kissing her dead father’s best friend so soon after his death. It’s unfathomable. Unforgiveable.
All the school counselors and therapists and conversations and self-help books in the world will never get that image out of her head.
I’m completely mortified. Ashamed.
And no matter how many texts he sends me—seven since he left here last night—I am not speaking to Jonah again. Not for a long time. I don’t want him in my house. I don’t like what his presence does to me. I don’t like the person it turns me into. Kissing him last night was one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made, and I knew that before I even let his lips touch mine. Yet still, I did it. I allowed it. And the worst part is I wanted it. I’ve wanted it for a long time. Probably since the day I met him.
Maybe that’s why I feel like such a piece of shit right now, because I know if Jonah hadn’t left all those years ago, we might have eventually ended up in the same position as Jenny and Chris. Sneaking around, betraying our spouses, lying to our families.
My anger with them hasn’t subsided since last night. I’ve just developed a new anger th
at is just as intense, but this time it’s directed toward myself. There isn’t a life lesson I could teach Clara at this point that wouldn’t make me out to be a hypocrite. I feel like anything I say to her from this point forward will mean nothing to her. And maybe it shouldn’t. Who am I to raise a human? Who am I to teach someone morals? Who am I to help guide someone else through life when I’m wearing a blindfold and running in the wrong direction?
I jolt upright in bed when I hear a rapping on my door. So help me God, if it’s Jonah Sullivan, I am going to be pissed.
I throw my covers off and pull on my robe. I haven’t even had a chance to speak to Clara yet, so until I speak to her, I don’t want to even bother talking it out with Jonah. I rush through the house to get to the door before he wakes her.
I swing it open but take a step back when I see Mrs. Nettle standing on my patio with the screen door open.
“Just making sure you’re alive,” she says. “Guess you are.” She releases my screen door, and it slams shut against the frame. I speak through it.
“Why were you assuming I’d be dead?”
She keeps walking, limping away with her cane. “There’s a window screen on the ground over on the side of your house. Thought someone might have broken in and murdered you last night.”
I watch her until she makes it to her patio, ensuring she doesn’t fall. Then I close the door and lock it. Great. A broken window screen. Something else Chris would have taken care of if he were still alive.
I’m walking into my bedroom when I pause.
I was Clara’s age once. Window screens don’t just fall off on their own. Did she sneak out last night?
I spin and walk straight to her bedroom. I don’t even knock because she’s probably not even inside to answer me. I push at the door, but it’s locked. It’s just one of those hook locks that can easily be lifted and bypassed. I hate that I’m resorting to breaking into her room, but I need to see if she’s actually gone before I get dressed and go find her.
I grab a hanger from my closet, then slip the hanger up the crack in her door until it catches on the lock. When it releases, I push at the door, but it doesn’t open right away. Did she barricade herself in her room?
God, she might be angrier than I thought.
I shove my hip against the door, moving whatever it is she pushed against it. I get the door open a few inches, and I peek inside.
I release a huge sigh of relief. She’s still asleep. She didn’t sneak out. Or if she did, she’s home now, and that’s the most important thing.
I start to pull the door shut, but I pause when I see movement. An arm wraps over Clara’s stomach. An arm that isn’t hers.
I throw my whole body against the door to open it. Clara sits straight up in bed, startled. So does Miller.
“What the hell, Clara?”
Miller is standing now, scrambling to put on his shoes. He reaches to the nightstand and grabs condoms, shoving them in the pocket of his jeans like he’s trying to hide them before I see them, but I definitely saw them, and I’m angry, and I want him out of my damn house right now.
“You need to leave.”
Miller is nodding. He looks at Clara with eyes full of apology.
Clara covers her face. “Oh my God, this is so embarrassing.”
Miller starts to walk around the bed but then pauses and looks at Clara, then me, then Clara, then down at his bare chest. That’s when I realize Clara is wearing his shirt.
Does he expect her to give it back to him? Is he an idiot? He is. She’s dating an idiot. “Get out!”
“Wait, Miller,” Clara says. She snatches the shirt she was wearing yesterday off the floor and walks to her closet. She closes herself inside so she can change shirts. Miller looks like he doesn’t know if he should listen to her and wait for his shirt or run before I murder him. Lucky for him, it only takes Clara a few seconds to change.
She opens the door and hands him his shirt.
Miller pulls on the shirt, so I yell at him again, this time with more force. “Get out!” I look at Clara, wearing just a T-shirt that barely covers her ass. “Get dressed!”
Miller rushes to the window and starts to open it. He really is an idiot. “Just use the front door, Miller! Jesus!”
Clara is wrapped in her bedsheet now, sitting on her bed, full of rage and embarrassment. That makes two of us.
Miller slips past me nervously, looking back at Clara. “See you at school?” He whispers it, as if I’m unable to hear him. Clara nods.
Honestly. She could sneak any guy into her bedroom, and this is the guy she chooses? “Clara won’t be at school today.”
Clara looks at Miller as he reaches the hallway. “Yes, I will.”
I look at Miller. “She won’t be there. Goodbye.”
He spins and leaves. Finally.
Clara tosses the sheet away and reaches to the floor to grab the jeans she wore yesterday. “You can’t ground me from school.”
My worry about whether I have the right to parent her is nonexistent right now thanks to my anger. She isn’t going anywhere today. “You are sixteen years old. I have every right to ground you from whatever the hell I want to ground you from.” I glance around her room, looking for her phone so I can confiscate it.
“Actually, Mother. I’m seventeen.” She slips a leg into her jeans. “But I guess you were too busy with Jonah to remember that today’s my birthday.”
Shit.
I was wrong.
This is rock bottom. I try to recover by muttering, “I didn’t forget,” but it’s obvious I did.
Clara rolls her eyes as she buttons her jeans. She walks to her bathroom and comes back out with her purse.
“You aren’t going to school like that. You wore those clothes yesterday.”
“Watch me,” she says, shoving past me.
I’m pressed against the frame of her bedroom door as I watch her walk down the hall. I should be running after her. This isn’t okay. Sneaking a boy into her bedroom is not okay. Having sex with a guy she just started dating is certainly not okay. There is so much wrong here, but I’m scared it’s beyond my parenting abilities. I don’t even know what to say to her or how to punish her or if I even have the right to at this point.
I hear the front door slam, and I flinch.
I grip my head and slide down to the floor. A tear rolls down my cheek and then another. I hate it because that means a raging headache is going to follow. I’ve had headaches every single day since the accident, thanks to the tears.
This time, I deserve the headache. It’s like my own actions have given permission to her rebellion. They have. She’ll never respect me again. A person can’t learn from someone they don’t respect. It just doesn’t work that way.
I can hear the faint sound of my phone ringing down the hall. I’m sure it’s Jonah, but part of me wonders if it could be Clara, even though she hasn’t even had time to back out of the driveway. I rush to my bedroom, but I don’t recognize the number.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Grant?”
I grab a Kleenex and wipe my nose. “This is she.”
“I’m the technician who’ll be repairing your cable today. I just wanted to let you know that someone will need to be home from nine until five so that I can have access to do the repairs.”
I sink onto the bed. “Seriously? You expect me to sit in this house for the entire day?”
There’s a pause. He clears his throat and says, “It’s just policy, ma’am. We can’t enter an empty residence.”
“I get that it’s policy for someone to be here, but you can’t give me a smaller window of time? Maybe two hours? Three?”
“It’s difficult for us to pinpoint a particular time because every repair varies in need.”
“Yeah, but come on. An entire day? Why do I have to stay in this house for eight fucking hours?” Oh my God. I’m cussing at the cable technician. I shake my head, pressing my palm against my forehead. “You know what? Just c
ancel it. I don’t even want cable. No one has cable anymore. In fact, you should probably start looking into other careers, because apparently being a cable technician is no longer sustainable.”
I end the call, and then I toss my phone on the bed and stare at it.
Okay. Okay. This is rock bottom. This is definitely rock bottom.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CLARA
I get to school half an hour early. There are only a handful of vehicles in the student parking lot, and Miller’s truck isn’t even one of them. There’s no way I’m walking into Jonah’s classroom early, so I pull the lever on my seat and lean back.
I’m not going to cry.
In fact, I’m not even angry right now. If anything, I’m numb. So much has happened in the last twelve hours that I feel like my brain must have an emergency shutoff valve. I’m not sad about it. I prefer this feeling of numbness to the anger I had last night and the embarrassment I had this morning when my mother was so rude to Miller.
I get it. I snuck a boy into my room. I had sex. That’s really shitty, but she lost her privilege last night to tell me what is and isn’t shitty behavior.
I flinch at the knock on my passenger window. Miller is standing next to my car, and I no longer feel numb because seeing him springs a little bit of life back into me. He opens the door and takes a seat, handing me a coffee.
He’s never looked so good. Sure, he’s tired, and neither of us have brushed our teeth or our hair, and we’re wearing the same clothes we wore yesterday, but he’s holding coffee and looking at me like he doesn’t hate me, and that’s a beautiful thing.
“Figured you could use the caffeine,” he says.
I take a sip and savor the heat against my tongue and the sweet caramel sliding down my throat. I don’t know why it took me so long to appreciate coffee.
“For what it’s worth . . . happy birthday?”
He says it like a question. I guess it is. “Thank you. Even though this is the second-worst day of my life.”
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