He pulls his head back, making a face at me. “Okay, Lara. I’m just trying to be helpful.”
“Well, maybe try beingherefor me!”
“I am here!”
“But not really, not ever!”
I realize this is going off script, that I’m veering into the dangerous territory of bringing things up that I shouldn’t. There’s no point having this argument while I’m upset about something else.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Zachery asks, lowering his hands slowly and taking a step back from me.
“Nothing.”
“No, Lara, you started it. Say what you need to say.” He says this like a challenge, and if it was any other day, I wouldn’t rise to it.Zachery and I never fight, have never fought, and I realize in this moment that it’s because I’ve never thrown a fit about the way he treats me.
“You’re never reallyhere,” I say, knowing even as the words are coming out of my mouth that I’m never going to be able to put them back. “You use my place like a hotel, in and out. Because Wildfern Ridge isn’tgoodenough for you.”
“You know I’ve never wanted to stay here, Lara,” he says, crossing his arms. “Just because that’s whatyouwant doesn’t mean that’s what everyone is going to do.”
“Iknowthat. But it’s not just— it’s like that party. You made me come along with you, then youleftme there alone to go off with some guy?—”
“Are you serious? You’re bringing up a party from high school?” I realize Zachery is grabbing his duffel bag from the couch and I open my mouth to stop him, but I don’t know how. “The only party you ever came to? Also, I feel like I should point out the fact that if you didn’t go to that party, you wouldn’t have the triplets. So maybe I’m not some evil witch.”
“I never said you were evil?—”
“You love it here, and that’sfine.But you can’t be pissed at the people who don’t. Especially when not all of us really feel like Wildfern Ridge even wants us.” He pauses at the door, breathing hard, then looks back at me. “And don’t worry. I won’t be using your place as ahotelanymore.”
With that, he turns and lets the door slam shut behind him, and the first sob is climbing up my throat before I have a chance to stop it. Hands shaking, I drop down onto the couch and let myself cry again.
I’m thinking about Jake, about what I did to him. About the impossible situation I was in as a teen, and how I still don’t know what I would choose if I had to go back and do it all over again.
About Zachery and how I only half-meant the things I said to him. How I didn’t want him to leave, and now I feel more alone than ever.
Sliding down onto the floor, I pull my phone from my pocket and bring up the photos of the triplets - the same ones I’d shown Jake earlier, scrolling through snapshots of their lives that would never add up to the years he missed with them.
I study their little faces and think about their tiny bodies in bed at my parents’ house. I wonder which book my mom read to them before they fell asleep. I think about being a little girl in that house, what it was like to know that I could fall and my parents would always catch me, and I let myself cry more.
Tomorrow, I’m going to have to start working on fixing everything I’ve managed to destroy.
But for now, I grab a blanket from the couch, curl up on the floor, and feel sorry for myself.
CHAPTER 22
JAKE
Idon’t even realize I’m walking into the pub until I’m already there.
After cleaning up the smashed glass from the floor, I decided to go for a walk to try and cool off. I shake out my hands, as if I can flick the anger from my body like water droplets after washing my hands. Like if I just keep moving, eventually it will stop sticking to me and move on to someone else.
But it’s pervasive, sticky, unending. An emotion so persistent that it fuses with my personality, makes it hard for me to see where it starts and I stop. Like a piece of double-sided-tape you keep passing from one hand to the other, not sure how to get it off.
Wandering around town with the cool summer night air on my cheeks doesn’t help. Seeing the familiar storefronts — the hardware store, the insurance agency, Lara’s father’s clinic — just makes me angry. Makes me feel like boiling over.
No matter how hard I try, I’m like a stupid fish, always ending up right back in the same tank.
“Jake.”
Lawrence is standing behind the bar, holding a glass in his hand just like last time, staring at me like he’s probably said my name a couple of times at this point. The man was like an uncle to me for years, and for a second, I think about turning and walking right out of the bar again.
