“That’s, like, the cutest thing ever,” I squeal.
“I know. I was adorable.” He grins at me. “How about you?”
“I don’t think I wrote anything quite that cute. Anyway, I didn’t become a serious poet until I was in high school.” Now my face feels like it’s on fire. “I didn’t mean to say I’m a poet or anything. I’m not. I just mean that I didn’t start writing poetry seriously until then. Sort of serious.”
“You are a poet though.” The smile drops off his face. “Don’t say you’re not because you absolutely are. More than a lot of adults who claim to be.”
I squeeze my hands between my knees. Sometimes adults say things that are patronizing, but this doesn’t sound like that. He sounds like he truly means it.
I almost feel sad when my house comes into view. I feel like I could talk to Mr. Bennett in the car for the next hour or two. Usually when I’m in the car with my mom, I turn on the radio because talking can get awkward, but I didn’t feel the urge to do that at all with Mr. Bennett.
“Thanks for the ride,” I say as he pulls up to my curb.
“It was my pleasure.”
He throws the car into park, and for a split second, it almost feels like the two of us are on a date and he’s dropping me off at home at the end of the evening. It’s so preposterous, but at the same time, it feels that way. And for a moment, I almost feel like I’m supposed to lean in for a good-night kiss.
But that would be ridiculous.
“Thank you again.” I grab my bag off the floor and open the door to the car. “Really.”
“Any time, Addie.”
As I dart from the Honda to my front door, trying to avoid the raindrops splashing down on me, I find myself smiling like an idiot.
OceanofPDF.com
Chapter Thirty
EVE
“NOW THESE ARE A PERFECT FIT.”
Jay is kneeling beside me, in a back row of Simon’s Shoes, having placed a pair of Calvin Klein green pumps on my feet. We do this sometimes after our session in the storeroom, if she hasn’t called him to come home. We go out to the main part of the store, and he helps me try on shoes. There are already half a dozen boxes on the floor beside me.
“I can’t afford these,” I remind him, although they do admittedly look gorgeous.
“I wish I could buy them for you.” His eyes meet mine. “I wish I could buy all these shoes for you.”
“And I wish I didn’t have to go home to him.”
I blurted that out without thinking, but as the words leave my mouth, I realize how true they are. On my birthday, I was considering recommitting to my marriage, but now I realize that Nate and I can never crawl back to each other. The abyss between us widens every day.
“Why not leave him?” Jay says.
I snort as I kick off the pumps. I like them too much, and it’s frustrating. “And then what? We run off together?”
Even though I say it sarcastically, the truth is that I dream of a happy ending for me and Jay. It will never happen—we both have too many entanglements—but if only we could. In the end, though, I couldn’t do it to Nate. I couldn’t humiliate him that way.
Sometimes I think he would barely miss me though. He came home tonight, dripping wet, and he told me he had taken a walk in the rain to inspire himself. Then he went up to his office on the second floor, and he closed the door. I knocked to tell him I was leaving, but he barely acknowledged me.
As if on cue, Jay’s phone starts ringing. This time while he is talking, I can hear a baby crying in the background. I rest my chin on my hands, trying to push away the stabbing guilt in my chest. No matter what happens with Nate, I need to end things with Jay. Sooner rather than later.
“You have to go,” I acknowledge as soon as Jay ends the call.
“She wants me home.” He sighs. “The baby is… Anyway. Next week?”
While he is still crouched beside me, I reach out and run my fingers along an old jagged scar just below his hairline. He told me he got it when he was a child, trying to worm his way under a fence. One of these weeks, it will be the last time for the two of us. But I hope that won’t be this week or next week.
It will be soon though.
“Yes,” I say. “I’ll see you next week.”
Jay looks down at the shoeboxes scattered at my feet. “I better put all these away. I don’t want to get in trouble.”
All the boxes came from the storeroom, so we each grab a bunch of them to carry back there. Almost like Pavlov’s dogs, I start to get turned on the second we get close to the storeroom. It doesn’t matter that we’ve already gone at it twice tonight. I still want him. And by the look on his face when he glances over at me, he feels the same way.