A quiet laugh puffed from her nose as she realized she’d read the same sentence out loud three times. “Sorry, Mikey. Having some trouble focusing.” She closed the Kindle’s cover on her finger and stared out the window, then sighed. A big one.
It wasn’t long after her pause that Kendra came in to check on things. Ellis hadn’t expected to see her. “I didn’t think you were working tonight.”
“Switched shifts with Omar. With Evan out of town, might as well, right?” Ellis nodded but could feel Kendra studying her. She perched on the edge of the bed, put a hand on Michaela’s leg, and stared at Ellis for a moment before speaking. “Talk to me,” she finally said, spinning a finger around in front of Ellis’s face. “What’s that look?”
She’d already fended off Evan. She didn’t have the energy to keep Kendra at bay as well. “Why couldn’t she just be real, Kend? What’s so hard about that?”
Kendra took a moment. She tilted her head, gnawed on the inside of her cheek. “Don’t you think she was being real with you?”
“What do you mean?”
Kendra took a deep breath. “Let’s be honest, okay? You don’t like her online persona because of this girl right here.” She tapped gently on Michaela’s thigh. “That’s not on her—that’s on you.”
“But she lied to me.”
“She didn’t, though. She didn’t lie. She just didn’t tell you everything. And that wasn’t cool, no, but don’t you think you’re being a little hard on her? How many times has she sent you an apology text now? A million?”
That brought a reluctant smile. “A couple million, yeah.”
“You have all the power here, you know. Maybe it’s time you let her talk to you, yeah? Maybe you need to explain why you overreacted.”
“I didn’t overreact!”
Kendra said nothing, just watched her face.
“Shut up,” she said, but there was no venom. She knew Kendra was right. Her own brain had been telling her the exact same thing. She set the Kindle on her lap and stared out the window.
“Just give her a chance, maybe.”
“Maybe…”
“At least think about it.” Kendra stood and dropped a kiss on the top of Ellis’s head. Then she headed out the door, presumably to check on her next patient.
Give her a chance.Seemed simple enough. The question was, though, had she missed that chance?
Chapter Twenty-two
Cherry stood with her hands on her hips and stared at the bright yellow garage-type door of the storage unit. She’d rented it several weeks after her father had died. Selling the small run-down shack they’d lived in meant she’d had to clean it out, and while she’d thrown most things right into a dumpster, there were a few things she’d boxed up to keep. Since she rented an apartment with two other people, she didn’t have the extra space to stack a dozen boxes and a couple pieces of furniture she’d kept out of sentiment, so a storage unit it was.
She hadn’t been back to it in years. Literal years. She got an invoice each month, paid it, and never gave the unit—or its contents—another thought.
With a sigh, she slid her key into the Master Lock and popped it open. The door opened loudly, clearly not used to sliding up and down on its track, squealing in protest.
Must hit her right in the face, as if it was a physical thing and not just a smell. Dust, old cardboard, and neglect all combined to create the air offorgotten. Cherry frowned.
She didn’t really want to be here doing this, but her conversations with Lila, the shock and disbelief on her face and in her voice, had stayed with her for more than twenty-four hours, playing on a loop in her brain. She’d gotten very little sleep, and when she woke up Saturday morning, she knew somewhere in her being that she would end up here today, before she’d made a plan or even considered it. She just knew. She almost texted Ellis to ask if she’d come with her, but the idea of Ellis saying no was just too much to bear, so she managed toclose out of the open text and slide her phone into her pocket. Now, she was there. Alone.
Boxes were piled in no conceivable order. Haphazard. Some against the side wall. One stack of three toward the back. There was a rocking chair, the one her mother had rocked her in as a baby, before deciding to head for the hills. Some sliver of sentiment must’ve made her keep it. There was also a step stool, clearly handmade, painted white with little cherries on it. Her late grandfather had made it for her. A dresser and night table and bed frame all stacked next to the other wall. Her childhood bedroom set, also a gift from her grandparents.
God, she’d lost so many people, and not for the first time, she let herself wonder what her childhood would’ve been like if her grandparents hadn’t died early. If she hadn’t been left with an angry, heartbroken dad who had zero help and very little knowledge about raising a little girl.
Shaking that off, she went to the boxes. Neighbors had helped her pack things up, so she had no idea what was in which box. Luckily, each one was labeled by room, so that would narrow it down a bit.
The kitchen boxes had all the dishes and utensils they’d had. Not a lot of happy memories tied to those. Her father didn’t cook and had no desire to learn. Suffice to say, she’d eaten a lot of pizza in her young life.A lotof pizza. Boxes markedbedroom,bathroom,basement,kitchenagain—she moved them all until she came across two that saidbedroom closet. Since she’d taken the box from her closet when she moved in with Shea and Adam, these two were definitely from her father’s bedroom closet, stuff that had been in there that wasn’t clothing or shoes. She took the boxes off the pile and set them in the center of the unit where there was space directly under the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Pulling off the tape that sealed them shut was easier than she expected, as it had lost its stickiness over the years.
She hadn’t packed these boxes, had no idea what was in them. She’d been forbidden to go into her father’s closet as a kid. From going into his bedroom at all, actually. His roar was terrifying, and she’d only needed to hear it once to keep her from ever venturing near his room again. She’d ridden out many a nightmare by her little shaking self because she was too afraid to wake him up in the night. She didn’t know a lot about his room, but if there were personal things or things he hid from her, this was likely where they’d be.
Getting lost in memories would be easy, she knew, as she pulled the rocking chair closer so she didn’t have to sit on the floor of the dirty, musty storage unit. She brushed the dust off the seat with her hand, then sat and opened the first box.
