Page 105 of Return To You

“It does?” She makes me feel better. I thought I was being a bad person there, for a while, wishing him gone so I could get back to not dreaming the life I will never have.

“Yeah. You finally have something good. Something scary and big and life changing. Why keep it?”

My heart hammers. “You’re just plain cruel, Kiara. I know you don’t mean it. But that hurts.”

“Butterfly,” she says, taking my hand. “You’ve been through shit, and you found a balance. And I admire you for that. But you can’t stay stuck there forever, only taking care of others, never taking what you want. Ethan is your man. I can see how happy you are with him. Don’t let his macho speech about how much the country needs him fool you. If he’s the one for you, he’ll find a way to be with you.”

“How did you know he says his country needs him?”

“Just a wild guess,” she states. “But more importantly, he’s going to want you to tell him you want him. Guys like him, all muscles and big talk, they’re softies inside. They want to be wanted. Don’t forget that.”

“You’re so right,” I breathe, thinking of my conversation with Ethan about why he’d been gone for so long.

Kiara stands and claps her hands. “Gotta go. I’ll put the therapy session on your charge card. As for Amy, I suggest the Bitch Brigade get together and sew little voodoo dolls and we get busy with pins and shit.” And just like that, she gets a smile out of me.

That evening, as I’m getting ready to go to bed, my phone rings with a local number that’s not in my contacts. It’s probably a marketer. I find it so annoying how they trick you with numbers that are local. There should be a law against that. Impersonation or something.

On the other hand, it could be a client who needs to change their appointment for tomorrow. Or a lead on a new building. Everyone in this town seems to have my number, and it’s fine by me.

I pick up.

“Did I wake you, sweetheart?” Ethan’s low rumble shoots straight to my core.

“Aww, honey, you can wake me anytime you like.”

He says sweet little nothings to me.

"How’d you get my number?” I ask.

“Uh—still the same number.”

Right. I erased Ethan’s number a week after our breakup. Guilt eats at me that he kept it, and I didn’t.

Ethan doesn’t seem to pick up on that. He tells me he’s about to have a nightcap with his dad and he’ll be staying the night at the farm, then he tells me sweet little nothings again, and then we hang up.

It’s going to be like that, moving forward. We’ll be together on the phone more than in person. I should get used to it.

After we hang up, I save his contact, then do my evening routine in the bathroom, taking more time with my lotions, the toner, the serums. It’s soothing. I notice he left his toothbrush here and his backpack. I almost call him back to tell him, but it’s stupid. Lynn will have a toothbrush for him. Or maybe he just carries spares in his saddle bags, who knows? He’s so used to not having a home.

That makes me sad, so I try to think about happy things as I slide into his jersey for the night. About what our life together will look like. About the fact that he kept my number in his phone for all these years.

I wonder what the time difference with Brussels is. And does that mean it’ll be morning there when it’s evening here? Or the opposite.

I always get confused with that.

We’ll have to schedule our calls. Get into a habit, if his job allows it.

It’s a good thing I’m my own boss. I can make and receive calls whenever I want. I suspect it won’t be the same for Ethan. At least one of us will need to be flexible.

I’m not really tired anymore. I thought I was, and then… my mind started on its own little path. So I pull out my souvenir box, sit on the floor with it, and go back down memory lane.

Just like usual. Life is different, and it’s the same in a way. In a way better way, of course.

Just not everything I hoped for.

It never is. For anyone.

Like anybody else, I need to deal with what I can have, and cope however works for me.

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