Page 97 of Why Not Now?

“She broke up with her boyfriend. He left her in Queen Elizabeth Park, and she called me to get her.”

“Why did she—nevermind. Thank you for bringing her home.”

I shrug. “No big deal. I’m always here if Lacey needs me.” I want to say I’ll be here if she needs me too, but I don’t. Not yet. She wants to do things on her own and I have to let her. “I gotta get back to my mom’s. See you later, Ava.”

I walk back to my car, each step away from her harder than the last. Maybe we don’t have to wait until after Christmas. Maybe we can fix this now. I turn around, opening my mouth to speak, say something—anything—to get her to talk to me. But she’s already gone inside and closed the door.

Chapter 32

Ava

AfterDerekleaves,Itry to talk to Lacey about what happened, but she only has one thing to say to me. Just before she closes her bedroom door in my face again, she says, “You know, not everyone gets a boyfriend who opens car doors and lets you pick the music and shovels the snow in your driveway. Some of us get boyfriends who leave us in Queen Elizabeth Park.”

It cuts deep that she can see where I’ve messed up so horribly, but I still can’t.

I end up downstairs in my office, sitting at my desk, staring at my computer for a long time, wondering where I went wrong. I’m failing my sister, and I don’t know how to fix it.

Derek’s words come back to me.I’m always here if Lacey needs me.For once, he hadn’t said he’d be there ifIneed him.

Eventually, I turn my computer on to try to distract myself with work. Over the last few weeks, I’ve sorted pictures I’ve taken into different folders, focusing on ones that will match the theme of my portfolio, which means I haven’t edited any with people in them since that’s not what I really want to do. I open the folder with the people in it and start going through them.

I find the ones from the night at Gingerbread Lane and see Lacey laughing with Tanner’s niece, Juliet. There’s another of Lis pointing something out to the two girls. They’re all looking intently at one of the displays. I click through to the next and stop. Derek is looking past the camera at me. He’d told me I was supposed to be taking pictures of the displays and not him, but he’d been so happy and so comfortable, I’d had to capture it.

This picture is different, though. In the split second I’d taken it, I captured his expression when he looked at me. It’s an expression I remember from when we were together before, when he looked at me like I was the most important person in his world.

I couldn’t say how long I stare at it. I don’t edit it at all. There are minor adjustments I could make, but I just look at it, wishing I had recognized what had been right in front of me in the moment, wondering if it would have changed anything if I had.

He’d promised to make me love Christmas again, and up until yesterday, he had made it the best one I can remember. Now that Christmas is only three days away, it might be the worst since the first one after my parents died.

My throat clogs and tears scratch my eyes. I pull my knees up, curling into a ball on my chair as I look at the picture, wanting to have that moment back right now. Wanting Derek’s arms around me as I think about how I’ve lost him. How I’ve lost my parents. How I’m losing Lacey, if I haven’t already lost her, too.

As the tears start to fall, I realize I’m not only crying because of Derek. I’m crying because of everything. I never grieved when my parents died. I’d needed to be strong for Lacey. I’d needed to get things done. There hadn’t been time for more than a few tears back then. There isn’t time to feel my emotions now. Except they’ve officially overflowed the box I’ve been stuffing them in, and they all spill out.

I grab the pillow I usually keep behind my back because I can’t afford a better desk chair and use it to cover my face, smothering the sobs as they wrench out of me.

I cry and cry. For my parents. For my baby sister, who had no one but me and who I’ve let down. For Derek, who I’d pushed away then and now. And I cry for myself, for the person who was stolen from me, the dreams I’d put on hold for so long. I’ve been living in a fog of exhaustion and responsibility since that day, and I am officially broken.

Derek said he worried, at the pace I was going, that I would burn myself out. Well, consider me burnt out. I’ve reached the end of the rope and I’m ready now to let someone else pull me back in.

If only I hadn’t pushed away the one person I want to do it. He’d said a week, but I need him now.

It’s late when I’ve finally cried myself out. I don’t bother to shut down my computer—it has long since entered sleep mode, anyway.

I toss and turn, falling into a fitful sleep only after I place a drop of Refuge on my pillow. I wake the next morning with my eyes puffy from all the crying, taking a scalding shower to attempt to get back to an even keel. Even though something needs to change, I still need to go to work. So I pull myself together, and go upstairs where Lacey has already made a pot of coffee, like she does every morning. She’s not in the kitchen and she knows my schedule, so I leave without saying goodbye, not wanting her to shut me out again. I couldn’t handle that right now.

Either thankfully or unthankfully, housekeeping doesn’t need any of my mind involved, my body just going through the motions of what I need to do. I spend the whole day wondering what my next moves are going to be. I really need to cut one of my three jobs. I know which one that’s going to be, but it’s scary to do it since I’ve worked at the restaurant for so long and the money it brings in is steady, whereas the photography work is not.

By the time I get home that afternoon, I’ve made up my mind, and after checking on Lacey to make sure she hasn’t snuck out again—though I don’t expect her to after yesterday—I return to my office to type up my two weeks’ notice. As I hit print, my cell phone rings.

“Is this Ava Calligan?” a man asks when I answer.

“Yes.”

“Oh, good. My name is Sam Fontana. I’m the owner of La Dolce Vita. Have you heard of it?”

“Of course. Your cannolis are some of the best in the city.”

He laughs. “Thank you. I’m glad you’re a fan. I’m sorry to call so close to Christmas but, I got your name from Vic Sterling when I mentioned wanting to upgrade my website and make some promotional material. She said you’re an excellent photographer and after she sent me your portfolio, I have to agree. I wondered if we could chat about a possible job for you.”

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