Page 20 of Out of the Cold

“Luce?” His voice was soft, hesitant.

She choked back a sob. “I understand. I wouldn’t want to be with me either.”

“Don’t say that. It’s not...we’re just...we’re in different places.”

That’s what had attracted her to him. That and their mutual love of books. She’d been clueless, living on her own for the first time. He was thirty-two and already a respected tenure-track associate professor.

If only he’d yelled or insulted her, accused her of something. Instead, his kind explanation eviscerated her. Of all the varieties of pain she’d endured, this was the worst. Never had she seen herself so clearly.

“I sometimes wondered what you would have been like if you never got sick,” Mark said.

“You and me both.”

“I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say.”

I’d probably never have met you, she wanted to say.I’d have been somewhere else. I’d have been long gone.

“I should go,” she said, desperate to get off.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “I wanted to know, and now I do.”

“Lucy—”

“I have to...” She couldn’t finish the sentence. “Goodbye, Mark.”

She hung up, her breath sawing in and out, her heart racing. Spreading her knees, she leaned over and took deep breaths.

She was fine. She’d be fine.

But was it true? Was she incapable of being a partner to him? To anyone?

The floor vibrated with the heavy tread of someone coming up the deck stairs. Straightening up, she saw Gabriel appear on the other side of the glass doors carrying a bucket.

He paused, and she could faintly hear him call her name, presumably to make sure he didn’t walk in on her naked. A moment later, he disappeared behind the barrier surrounding the hot tub.

She was as bad as Gabriel thought she was. Worse even.

She’d once found a pamphlet for the parents of cancer patients on her mother’s nightstand. She knew it wasn’t meant for her, but she’d read it anyway. A lot of it was stuff she’d heard before, but one part talked about teenagers missing developmental milestones. At the time, she thought they meant things like prom and graduation.

But it was more than that. She’d never had the chance to go to parties with her friends and defy her parents’ curfew. She didn’t have a job until she was in her twenties. She was in the hospital or home sick in bed while her friends were taking the first messy steps into adulthood. She didn’t even move out of her parents’ house until she was twenty-seven, the same year she finally finished college. She met Mark six months later. Now she was thirty and barely able to live on her own.

She’d tried so hard to be normal, but she never stood a chance.

Had she even been in love with Mark, or was he a way to get away from her hometown and start the life she’d been missing?

It was a big world out there, and she’d managed to put three thousand miles between herself and her family. But she wasn’t independent. She wasn’t a functioning adult. She’d only switched from depending on her family to depending on Mark.

It’s not my fault, she wanted to yell.How was I supposed to tell the difference?

Hilde came and sat next to her, her body warm and heavy against her leg. Sometimes she did that, sat so close there was no space between them. That was okay for a dog, not so much for a human.

She was too exposed with Gabriel out there, even though she doubted he’d so much as glance in her direction when he left, so she went to her room and lay on her bed. Exhausted by self-doubt, she was asleep in minutes.

She woke to eat dinner and take the dog out, then went back to bed again with an apologetic pat on Hilde’s head. She woke at dawn from a dream that she was back in the hospital.

She’d had similar dreams for years after going through treatment, and they’d started up again after Mark left. Each one left her weak with relief, like she’d had another close call.

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