Page 89 of Shifting Gears

* * *

Not even work is enough of a distraction as time presses on and the weather turns from November rain to December ice and sleet. It gets harder with every passing day to drag herself out ofbed and into the office every morning. She’s there in body but not in spirit.

Where she used to work so single-mindedly that Kayla would sometimes find her sleeping face down on her desk, now Nora spends half her days staring listlessly out at the city, imagining what Riverwalk must look like right now.

It’s probably properly snowy, rather than the iron-grey salty slush that lines the streets here. Is Dani helpfully shovelling the driveways of half the town like she mowed lawns in the summer? Nora can imagine her scraping the ice off her truck in the mornings, wearing the big fleece-lined brown canvas jacket she’d sometimes wear on the cooler nights before Nora left. The river and the ice rink are likely frozen over, the houses twinkling with coloured lights. Like a picture-perfect holiday card.

Nora can see it in her mind’s eye just as clearly as she can see Dani coming home to her after a long day at work, shrugging the wet jacket off and joining her in front of the fireplace at the rental house. Nora would warm her face with kisses until Dani laid them both back on the couch, spreading out in front of the crackling flames.

Nora can almost taste Dani’s lip balm. She can hear her voice, low and sweet and increasingly less controlled as Nora slides her hands underneath Dani’s shirt. She can feel the warm softness of Dani’s skin.

“Congratulations, the contract is signed. Everything is pretty much in order, now we just need—Eleanor?”

Nora blinks. The warm fantasy swims in her vision and then dissipates; she isn’t in Riverwalk with Dani. She’s in her sterile office, halfway through an email and definitely late to a lunch she scheduled with the head of PR.

“That’s great,” Nora says vaguely, spinning her chair toward her computer and typing a few random words in lieu of trying to remember what Kayla might be talking about. The email she stillhasn’t finished might as well be written in Sanskrit—none of the words make any sense. “They signed. Fantastic.”

Kayla’s eyes narrow. “Who signed?”

Nora searches her memory banks for what contract Kayla might be talking about, but she comes up blank. Kayla has been taking charge a lot lately, picking up Nora’s slack in the same way she did over the summer. She’s better at it than Nora ever was.

Knowing there’s no getting her lack of attention past Kayla, Nora shrugs helplessly.

Kayla sighs, taking a seat on the edge of Nora’s desk. “Eleanor.”

“I know,” Nora mutters. She braces her elbows on the desk, pressing the heels of her hands against her tired eyes. The urge to fight against this conversation is slowly leaking out of her. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve been doing half my work lately. You did this job better than I ever have.”

“Thank you, but that’s only because I don’t hate every second of it like you do.”

“Renée must be thrilled that I’m failing so spectacularly.”

Kayla scoffs. “Forget about Renée. The only thing you’re failing at is letting yourself be happy.”

“That’s not something you can fix,” Nora says. Her voice seems to echo back up at her from the surface of her desk, and she rubs her eyes viciously until tiny specks of light erupt behind her eyelids. “You’ve already played your ‘take a vacation’ card.”

“I think we both know it was more than a vacation, Nora,” Kayla says softly.

Nora stops rubbing. Kayla’s use of the nickname is enough to make her pause—she’d gone by Nora all summer, and going back toEleanoron a permanent basis has been like trying to fit into clothes that no longer fit. Eleanor Cromwell got lost somewherebetween tree house sunsets and lawn mower races, and she hasn’t found her way back.

“Ash and I have been trying to figure out what’s really keeping you here. We haven’t been able to decide,” Kayla says as Nora raises her head. Kayla is looking at her with unnerving empathy. “Ash thinks it’s a sense of duty. I think you’re probably afraid. What do you think?”

“Of course I’m afraid,” Nora says. An uncomfortable thing to admit, but she’s long past trying to pretend she’s doing okay. “I’ve been afraid since the second I got to Riverwalk.”

“Of what?”

“Telling the truth. Lying. Leaving the life I knew. Afraid of…” Nora swallows. Even this long after leaving, saying Dani’s name out loud is still hard. “Falling for her. And then it all came to a head, and I had to leave, and now I’m afraid I can never fix it.”

“Nothing is irreversible.”

“She said she would have come with me, if I asked. I didn’t say yes. I left her. She might want nothing to do with me,” Nora says. It’s one of the loudest regrets that’s been haunting her lately. “And I can guarantee everyone else feels the same way. I hid who I was for months.”

“People do stupid things when they’re scared,” Kayla says reasonably. “Did you ever explain yourself to them?”

“I don’t deserve their forgiveness. I should have been better. I should have been up-front. And none of it matters anyway, because I can’t just abandon my father’s company to go live in the woods.”

“Oh, who gives a flying fuck about your father?” Kayla snaps, her voice high and loud like the words have been threatening to burst out of her for too long. “I certainly don’t! He treated you like shit!”

Nora doesn’t know how to respond to that. She stares at Kayla, silent and flabbergasted, until Kayla slides off the desk to approach her.

---