Chapter Thirty-One
“HAVE YOU EVER been in a serious relationship before?” Audrey asked over dinner, gripping her burger in two hands and smirking mischievously. “I mean, besides this one.”
“Oh, is that what this is?” I lifted a brow before taking a bite of my grilled chicken wrap.
“We’ve already exchanged I love you’s. That’s pretty serious,” she pointed out.
“Hmm,” I nodded thoughtfully as I chewed. “You make a good point.”
“So?”
I shrugged and laid my wrap down to exchange it for a fry. “Not really. I had a girlfriend in college for about a year—”
“A year? That’s not exactly a short period of time,” Audrey laughed, wiggling in her seat with excitement. “What was she like?”
“You really want to hear about my ex-girlfriend?” I somehow doubted that. I’d always been under the impression women didn’t care to hear about previous relationships. Yet Audrey nodded eagerly, and my cheeks puffed with my exhale. “Okay, well, her name was Lori. She was an art major and we met in one of our shared classes. Things were good, until I brought her home to meet my family.”
“What happened then?”
I shifted in my seat and diverted my gaze to look out the window. It was snowing. The world was layered in a thin blanket of white dust and looked nearly picturesque from inside the restaurant. The conversation, the memories it inspired, made me want to be out there in the numbing cold and wintry hush. But Audrey believed it was better to face the pain than to bury it alive, and I felt her hand against mine, ripping me away from the urge to run.
“Blake?”
“Yeah?”
“What happened?”
“My mom talked me into breaking up with her,” I stated simply before I could think better of it.
Audrey appeared taken aback as she lowered her burger to the plate. “What do you mean?”
“She, uh … she initially acted like she was cool with her. You know, she talked about how nice she was, how pretty, whatever. Until she saw that I actually liked her, like, um …”
“Like it could last?” Audrey offered gently.
“Yeah,” I nodded, “exactly. That was when she cornered me and started mentioning all these things I should be careful about. Like the fact that she, uh … that she … um …” I stalled, faltering as I remembered the dinner at my parents’ house, when Mom had mentioned being concerned about Audrey’s relationship with her ex. I shook my head and clapped a hand over my eyes as I muttered, “I am the biggest fucking idiot on the goddamn planet.”
“What are you talking about?”
Dropping my hand to the table, I looked her in the eye and said, “She did the same thing with you.”
“With me?”
“Yeah. She told me to be careful of you, because you have a good relationship with your ex.”
Audrey’s mouth fell open in shock. “I don’t … what the …” She closed her mouth and shook her head before beginning again. “You don’t really think that, do you?”
“Hell no,” I replied and meant it. “But that’s what she’s always done. And I don’t know if it’s that she doesn’t want me happy, or if it’s because she sees outsiders as a threat, or what. I have no fucking clue. I just can’t believe it’s taken me so long to see what a fucking evil witch she is.”
“I think it’s sad,” she admitted quietly.
“Yeah,” I nodded, “so do I.”
“You know,” she went on, “just because things aren’t great right now between you two, doesn’t mean they never can be. She’s still your mom, and maybe one day, when this is all behind you, you can find it in your heart to forgive her.”
I scoffed, shaking my head. “I spent a long time hating myself because she manipulated me to do just that. You think I’m ever going to find an inch of forgiveness for her, at any point in my life?”
“I’m just saying, you never know.”
I smiled affectionately at the nearly innocent look of hope on her face. “You have way more faith than I’ll ever have.”
Audrey returned the smile and took another bite of her burger. “All I’m saying is, you never know.”
***
I woke up abruptly to a dark room and an eerie quiet. It was midnight and the house was still around me and Audrey still slept soundly beside me with her arm over my chest and her leg wrapped around mine. Snow pattered outside, landing in whispers against the window. Everything seemed calm and perfect, and yet, nothing felt right.
I focused intently on my body. Maybe it’d been something I ate, maybe the food had been bad. Yet my stomach was fine, without nausea or pangs. I didn’t have a headache, backache, toothache, or any other kind of ache to speak of.
With a deep breath, I closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep. I urged my worried mind to find contentedness in the woman at my side, the comfortable bed at my back, and the peaceful lullaby of the snowfall outside. It was winter, the season I loved about as much as autumn, and the brunt of my life was good. There was nothing to be worried about in this moment, and I just needed to go back to sleep.
But I couldn’t. It seemed impossible to find the calm I so desperately sought, and the longer I laid there, the harder my heart began to beat toward a panic. Finally, I let out an agitated huff and sat up in bed. Audrey’s arm dropped from my chest and I scrubbed my hands over my face.
“Fuck,” I muttered, pulling my knees up. “What the hell?”
“What’s wrong, Blake?” Audrey asked groggily, now curling her arm around my waist.
“I can’t sleep,” I explained weakly, as I laid a hand against her hip. “Sorry for waking you up.”
“No, it’s okay,” she assured me. “You want some tea? Maybe that would help.”
“Yeah …” I nodded at the idea. “Yeah, I think I’ll do that.”
She nodded in her sleepy haze and rolled away. “Okay, I’ll get the kettle boil—”
I chuckled and caught her before she could leave the bed. “No, you go back to sleep. I got it.”
Humming, she nodded again. “Don’t be gone long.”
“I’ll come right back,” I promised.
In the kitchen, I waited for the water to boil, desperately trying to ignore the trepidation making itself at home in my gut and mind. It felt insane, how unsettled I was over absolutely nothing. The house was fine. Audrey was fine. I was fine. Everything was fine. I gritted my teeth, planting my palms firmly against the counter as I repeatedly chanted in my head. Everything is fine. Everything is fine. The mantra was on a continuous loop, in hopes that something would click, and I’d manage to shake this horrific dread I couldn’t pinpoint.
JAKE. The microwave clock read 12:22 when the thought hit me as I poured the boiling water into my mug. It came as a bellowing shout, presenting itself in big, bold letters as black as the water surrounding the tea strainer of loose leaves. My hands started to shake and I put the hot kettle down on the counter before my vision blurred too much to see what I was doing.