But I also knew this: Chloe Adams wouldn’t leave her worst enemy wounded and stranded by the side of the road, so I wouldn’t either.
Not that she was my enemy, even though I was hers. And she wasn’t wounded. Or stranded, for that matter.
Whatever. It was a fucking metaphor.
My headlights illuminated her yard as I turned into her driveway. I cut the engine. I had half expected her to change her mind during my twenty-minute drive here, but there was a faint light coming from one of the windows. Still, I texted her, just in case.
Steven
I’m here.
Chloe
Door is unlocked.
I exited my truck, shutting the door as quietly as I could. Unlike me, Chloe lived in town, and she had neighbors. I didn’t want to give them something to talk about.
“Chloe?” I called softly as I stepped into her dark living room.
“In here,” she called back.
I fumbled around her furniture toward the sound of her voice, bumped my knee against a table and swore quietly, until I found the hallway. Light spilled out from an open door. I headed toward it.
I paused in the doorway to her bedroom, feeling like I needed an invitation to cross the threshold, and folded my arms across my chest and leaned one shoulder into the frame. “Hey.”
She didn’t so much as lift her head from the pillow, just looked down her nose at me before returning her gaze to the ceiling. “Hey.”
I had never seen her look like this. So still and quiet. Like all the life had been sucked out of her. I didn’t like it. “Did you take the test?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“I can’t pee,” she said. “I’m not hydrated enough.”
There wasn’t a glass or water bottle on the nightstand, and from the way she lay completely still on her queen-sized bed, her hands clasped over her abdomen, I figured she didn’t intend to rectify that herself.
“I’ll get you a glass of water,” I said, pushing away from the door frame.
“You don’t have to,” she said, not moving a muscle.
I paused. “Are you going to do it yourself?”
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. We both knew she wouldn’t. It was funny. At dinner, I had watched her take care of her mom, her dad, her brothers. Six months ago, she’d rescued me and Stevie in the middle of a thunderstorm. But when it came to helping herself, it was like she couldn’t be bothered.
And then I thought of all the Monday afternoons she spent doing chores and paperwork for her parents after a six-hour shift pouring coffee at Jo’s. I thought of the way she had heaped the last of the potatoes on her brother’s plate, taking none for herself even though it was her favorite.
So maybe it wasn’t that she couldn’t be bothered. Maybe she gave so much to everyone she loved that when it came to herself, she had nothing left to give.
I located the kitchen off the hallway. It was small—everything about the bungalow was small—and it took only a moment to find the cabinet with the glasses. I grabbed one and filled it to an inch from the brim with tap water. There were dirty dishes in the sink. A blue porcelain bowl with a shallow moat of milk rimming the bottom, a spoon, and a coffee mug that looked like it had been there since at least this morning.
I shook my head, annoyed that she had either eaten cereal for dinner even though she had just gone grocery shopping, or she hadn’t eaten anything at all. I took a minute to wash them by hand since she didn’t have a dishwasher before heading back to her room.
Chloe was right where I left her. She probably had every centimeter of the ceiling memorized by now. “Sit up,” I ordered.
Her eyes narrowed to annoyed green slits, but she huffed an aggrieved sigh, pushed up on her elbows, and wiggled backwarduntil her back was pressed to the tufted headboard. I handed her the glass, and she took five long swallows before setting it down on the nightstand.
“I can’t drink it all at once. I’ll puke,” she said.
