Page 64 of Love In Translation

Abi squeezed her hand. “You look shattered, Rhee.”

Rheo pushed her hand into her hair and dragged it away from her face. “I am. It’s been a day. I expected Carrie to arrive at some point, but I never expected my parents to visit.”

Abi swung her car key around her index finger. “Still nothing from Fletch?” she gently asked.

Rheo pursed her lips. “No.”

Abi grimaced. “Ouch.” She frowned and snapped her fist around her keys. “He hasn’t taken his stuff, has he?”

No, she’d checked.

“Well, maybe there’s a good explanation for why he hasn’t contacted you.”

“And maybe it’s his way of reminding me I have no claim on his time, nor do I have a right to know where he is or what his movements are,” Rheo snapped.

“Or that,” Abi agreed.

Damn, not the response she’d hoped for.

She wanted Abi to tell her he’d lost her number or he was busy or give her a stupid-ass excuse for him not calling. But because Abi was brutally honest, she gave it to Rheo straight. Fletch, the asshole, was avoiding her.

Returning to the house, Rheo slipped into her chair opposite her dad and, despite not being hungry, spooned food onto her plate. She hadn’t eaten today. Food, even Abi’s, held no interest for her.

Rheo pushed her food around, half listening to Carrie recounting her hike up an active Balinese volcano and her parents discussing the death of a rock climber in Yosemite.

“Well, if you climb without ropes, what the hell can you expect?” Rheo snapped, after listening to their mournful comments about how sad it was and how only the good die young.

Her mom broke the uncomfortable silence. “He didn’t die soloing. He died from double pneumonia after a bout of flu.”

“Oh.”

Right, she’d grabbed the wrong end ofthatstick. Rheo placed her elbow on the table and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. She was emotionally and physically wiped out. She wanted to go to bed, but knew she would spend another night watching the shadows on the ceiling. She couldn’t concentrate enough to read, and her mind tumbled from Fletch to work and back to Fletch.

Neither subject was easy to think through. Was she ready to go back to the UN? And if she wasn’t, what else could she do? Would she ever sleep with Fletch again? Evenseehim again? No, that was silly—she’d speak to him soon, but it was doubtful they’d go back to what they were before. Whatever that had been.

She hated this, hated not knowing where she stood. This was why she should’ve kept her emotional distance and stayed uninvolved. The sex they shared was great, amazing, but was it worth all theseWhat’s happening?andI’m so confusedthoughts?

Gail’s hand on her arm pulled Rheo’s attention back to the table and her uneaten food. “So, tell us everything that happened, Rhee. I suspect you left lots out when we last spoke.”

Yeah, she did. Because she didn’t want them to know about her fall from grace. But should it matter? These people gave her life. She could keep her pride, or she could take some steps toward having a closer, more truthful relationship with them. Her pride and ego wanted to keep her mistakes under wraps—she didn’t want to admit to failing. But wasn’t failing how one learned? And she was so tired of trying to get it all right. Frankly, chasing perfection was exhausting.

Rheo pushed her plate away, skimming over her and Callum’s breakup—it didn’t hurt, they were still friends—and the events before and after the viral video. All three looked horrified when she told them severe stress led to her losing her words.

“I’ve lost my confidence, and I need it to do my job,” Rheo admitted. “I’ve done a lot of training videos, but I will only know whether I can handle it when I’m in a high-pressure situation.”

“But you’re better than you were?” Carrie asked, topping off their wine.

Rheo considered her question. “Much. Something clicked when I translated for the Brazilian kayakers—long story—and from then, it hasn’t been so hard. But I don’t know, can’t decide, whether I’m at the same standard I was before.”

Ed rested his forearms on the table, his sandy, bushy eyebrows pulling together. “Is going back to that high-pressure environment something you want to do?”

“Are you telling me I should do something less stressful?” Rheo demanded, on the defensive. “Is it toocorporatefor you, Dad? Should I buy a van and hit the road?”

“No, I don’t want you to do what we do, you’d hate it.”

She’d forgotten how literal her father was. He didn’t do sarcasm.

“You always hated it. But you don’t have to return to a job you don’t want to do either,” Ed continued, his eyes holding more patience than she deserved.

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