All I had to do was make it to the end of dinner—when, with any luck, Joe would suddenly realize that even though he’d been invited, he wasn’t really welcome.
With any luck, he’d be just as eager to leave as I was to see him go.
Then I could relax.
Then I could dance the night away with Daniel and his adorable friends.
Then I could let this whole weird chapter of my life go at last—and move the hell on.
Thirty-One
BUT JOE DIDN’T leave. He stayed.
He lurked around the party long after dinner and well into the dancing—watching me with such purpose as I boogied defiantly with Sue and Daniel and all their cousins that he felt like a predator stalking his prey.
I didn’t care that he was here.
I didn’t care that he was here, damn it.
He couldn’t just stare me down into giving up all my joy.
I had moved on. And bounced back. And if he didn’t understand what he’d lost, then I was better off on my own.
I was fine, I was fine, I was fine.
But you can dance your ass off with bold, hysterical, can’t-touch-this energy for only so long.
Eventually, you have to take a breather.
As soon as I stepped off the dance floor, Joe moved in for the kill.
I didn’t want to talk to him. That should have been perfectly clear. What other message could ignoring him all night possibly convey? And yet there he was, as soon as I’d separated from the herd, moving toward me—with purpose.
But I didn’t have to just stand frozen there like a gazelle and let him pounce. I wasn’t some prey animal. As soon as I saw him making his way toward me, I started making my way toward … what? We were on a roof. It wasn’t like I could catch a city bus and disappear into the night.
But I had to try, anyway.
I headed off toward the far corner, like maybe if I could dart around behind the mechanical room and break his line of sight, he might lose me.
As I sped up, he sped up.
I’d gotten pretty good at speed-walking in these postsurgery weeks, so for a minute there, I was actually starting to lose him … until he broke into a run.
“Sadie!” he called, like that might slow me down.
Wrong. It sped me up.
“Sadie! Wait!” he called again as I rounded the corner.
Rounding the corner did help—for about one second.
Until, as soon as I got there, I realized it was a dead end. A dark dead end with—actually—a fabulous view of the downtown skyline.
I didn’t come to this side very often.
I slowed down, defeated, and then walked to the far edge of the roof, leaning against the railing as if gazing at the view had been my urgent purpose all along.
No escape now, I thought as I heard Joe’s running footsteps approaching behind me.
I took a long-overdue deep breath, felt it swirl in my lungs, and willed it to give me peace.
And then … Joe showed up next to me at the railing.
I felt him land before I turned.
“Hey,” he said, a little breathless.
I pretended I didn’t hear him. Like that glittering skyline had so enraptured me that commonplace things like human interaction didn’t even register.
But he wasn’t deterred. “Could I talk to you for a minute?” he asked, standing so close and looking at me so hard, I had no choice but to respond.
He wanted to talk to me? Hadn’t this night been agonizing enough? “Do you have to?” I asked.
He frowned like he wasn’t sure how to answer.
“Why are you even here?” I asked. “Sue’s not your friend.”
“Mr. Kim invited me.”
“That was an accident.”
“Okay,” Joe said, not too interested in Mr. Kim. “But I’m also here because I got your voicemail.”
I held still. My best wishes voicemail.
Joe waited for a response while I kept my eyes on the city.
“Did you listen to it?” I finally asked.
“Yep.”
“All of it?” I asked.
“Yep.”
Why was he bringing this up? “And?”
“And … I didn’t realize you were going through such a hard time. I’m sorry.”
Wow. So little and so late. I made my voice flat. “It’s fine.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
“I thought for sure you’d ignore it. Like you ignored all my other voicemails.”
Joe let that dig go as he edged closer to me.
So I turned toward him. He wanted to do this? Fine. We could do this. But once we were facing each other, I realized there was a lot more to that verb than I’d ever noticed before.