Page 134 of One More Chapter

“Not sure. My dad is helping with the last of the carpeting today, so it might be a late night. And I also have a book to get through. I’ll let you know what my plans are though.”

“Okay,” I nod.

Even in this weird sense of limbo, he hasn’t failed to check in on me, like he’s taken that little nugget to heart and hasn’t let it go.

Matching words and actions.

Something I once thought only existed in fairy tales.

“Hey, Ant?” I call softly after him. He stops in his tracks, turns around, and hums. “I’ll answer any questions you have. When you get to them.”

He nods slowly, his bottom lip sucked between his teeth.

“Yeah. Will do, boss.”

He gets swallowed into the sea of old ladies, and I watch him until I can’t any longer.

I never needed permission from Anthony to sign the contract, but something about the conversation we had pushes pen to paper as soon as I get home.

Three years. Six books. Tours and events.

My future laid out in black and white.

The dates are ambiguous enough that I still have one more decision left to make. A decision that is as simple as the winter in Boston is cold.

When the time comes, will I be able to leave the job that has kept me stable for the last decade of my life and venture into the unknown?

fifty-two

anthony

Knitting is hard work,I will tell you that.

I only made the one hat, but the inklings from my childhood of learning a new skill reminded me that working new muscles takes hard work.

Or, it could just be that talking with Penelope Barker for thirty minutes after a drought wrung out my heart.

I am exhausted. Actually, that word doesn’t even begin to cover it. I’m like a barrel turned upside down to get the last few drops out, then forgotten and left on its head.

I went straight from helping my mom to working at my place. Between that and the knitting, my hands and my heart are raw. And still, as soon as I walk through the door, I’m wired in one direction.

Only the microwave light is on, like she left it for me. One quick peek down her hallway tells me that Pen is awake and in her bedroom, the light beneath her closed door calling to the devil on my shoulder. I can’t. Not just yet. I have one thing to do first.

With my pajamas on, and my bucket of emotional support cheeseballs at the ready, I dive into our story from page one.

“Anthony, give me a hand with this, will you?” Mom asks, piercing the wall of murk that has been settled around me since I finished her book.

I blink, push up from the kitchen table, clod over to where she’s washing dishes, and start to dry. I barely register what she’s saying—I know she’s going on about the drama in her knitting circle or book club or something, but I only catch every few words. I’m still surrounded by Penelope’s.

I knew she was hurt, but I guess I never assumed the degree to which my arrow dug.

The way her character built up walls of distrust from every other bad relationship, only to let Finn’s peel them back with his deceiving hands, just to crush them into dust and blow them away with the wind?

That wasme.Idid that to her. And then, to read about the way she’d cried? Holed up and sunken in on herself? I had no idea how hard she fell for me in those few weeks, but the fall from my deception left her shattered. I’ve been torn between an insistent need to go and bandage her up, and wallowing in my shame, knowing I don’t deserve to.

“…feel bad for Penelope.”

“Hmm? What?”

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