Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 108862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
And stop, unable to find the words.
And unsure what I’m apologizing for.
Is apologizing my kneejerk reaction to everything? To assume I’m always in the wrong? To shrink despite my own convictions?
Isn’t that the very thing Diego hated about me?
I clench my fists, frustrated.
I can’t just let him go.
I’ve sat here long enough stewing and thinking and typing, and I’m about out of things to type, think, or stew about.
I need to talk to Diego directly.
“Tell Lance I’m sorry,” I say to Cash, even though I’m pretty sure Lance got lost on his way to the bar or whatever he ordered is sitting on a counter somewhere in the kitchen, forgotten. Either way, I’m out of my seat while Cash stares after me, stunned by my sudden departure.
I get home in a hurry. Pulling into my driveway, I don’t know why I’m surprised to see his dad’s car still sitting out front, as if he might have come home, miraculously solved it in ten minutes out of sheer anger, and hit the road in it.
I’m at his door right away. I knock.
No answer.
Another knock, more urgent. Still nothing.
I put an ear to the door, certain I can hear him. But the longer I stand here, the less certain I am. “Diego?” I call out. “C’mon. Let’s just talk. Please.”
I move across his porch and peek in through the window like a creeper.
Nothing. No sign of life. No light on.
I step back, stumble off the porch, and stand in the grass like a garden gnome. The bed of wildflowers sits eerily in the silence and the darkness of this awful night.
He’s in there, isn’t he? Ignoring me? Being petty? Sulking?
Or I misunderstood everything and he doesn’t want to talk.
He’s already said his goodbyes, whether I heard them or not.
Well, that’s messed up.
“Hey!” Now I’m at his side window like a lunatic, tapping on the glass of the guestroom. “Diego, c’mon! I know you’re in there!” I press my face to the window, trying to see in.
Then I’m at the side kitchen window. “Diego!”
I’m at the front door again, ringing the doorbell over and over and over.
This goes on for fifteen minutes, by the way.
I’m not proud of myself.
And when I finally drop my ass on the front step of the porch, sitting there numb and quiet, I wonder if he really is, in fact, gone. That he didn’t even stay the night.
That he would actually just go. Be done with me.
Just like that.
Where would he have gone without a car?
Headlights blind me as a truck turns onto my street, roars its engine, then stops right by the curb. I sit up at once, blinking the light out of my eyes, my heart swelling with hope.
Then the door swings open.
Oh. It’s Lance.
“Go, go, I got this,” he says to someone—Chad, I’m guessing—then starts over the lawn carrying a doggy bag. “Have you eaten?” he calls out to me. “Of course you haven’t. What’re you doing out here on this porch like a lost puppy? Come on, Wy-Guy, let’s go. Chad’s going home. I’m all yours tonight. Inviting myself in.”
He heads toward my house without further discussion.
I pry myself off Diego’s porch, stop in the grass, and look up at the dark window one last time.
I think he really did leave.
“Don’t worry,” Lance says when we’re inside and he’s pulling out one thing after another from the doggy bag. “Don’t worry. I’m not here with pearls of wisdom or advice or even encouragement. You know me well enough to know I’m bad at all those things. I’m just here to feed you and get away from my needy boyfriend.” He makes a face at me. “I love Chad, but he is so needy lately. Must be tough for him, having such a talented boyfriend whose designs are always in demand. Eat this, it’s a billion calories but worth it.”
We bring the food to my couch and eat our dignified meal of steak and potatoes plus three gravy-lathered sides hunched over the coffee table with the TV on. Lance keeps laughing at whatever it is. I can’t absorb any of it. I have no appetite either, yet here I am, slowly bringing bite after bite to my mouth somehow.
“He didn’t even say goodbye.”
I think Lance was in the middle of saying something. He stops chewing and looks at me. “Did you expect him to?”
I consider it. Shrug. Then go for another bite.
“He obviously cares about you,” says Lance. “He just shows it by … setting fire to everything. But that apparently includes your enemies, too, so at least there’s an upside …”
“He won’t pick up the phone, either. I can’t bear to text him. I’m probably blocked for all I know.”
“I doubt that.”
“You don’t know him, Lance.”
“I knew him a teeny bit. And from the way he took care of you at the Ball?” He shakes his head. “Doesn’t seem like the blocking type. Maybe gets stuck in his feels. Needs time to sort things out.”