Page 60 of Unwanted

Unable to read his expression or gather anything from the tone of his voice I return to the app.

I want to.

He reads my response and then I quickly move my fingers across the phone screen amending my answer.

If that’s okay with you, I would like to stay a bit longer.

“Why don’t we both just move back into the house?” he suggests. “Your old room is still empty and waiting.”

He’s referring to the house they all live in. The house I left all those years ago.

I shake my head as I type.

I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I don’t want to impose.

Lennox is hovering now, reading over my shoulder and talking faster than I can type.

“How are you imposing? You pay rent there.”

I turn to glare at him and he interprets the look perfectly. “Relax, they don’t know you still pay your portion. How they haven’t figured it out, I don’t know, but that’s beside the point.

Like I said, you pay rent—mine and yours. You can fucking stay there.”

I huff in annoyance as I return to typing.

The money doesn’t matter. I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.

“You mean Arlo’s toes?”

I avert my gaze and bow my head down to the phone.

Lennox grunts in frustration, causing me to look back up at him. “I wish I could fucking hear you right now so we didn’t have to do all this stopping and starting.” He pushes the closest stool in anger, letting it fall to the floor. “I want to be able to talk to you about the things that matter without all this extra bullshit.”

Putting my phone down on the counter, I stand up and wrap my arms around him, hoping to calm him down. I know he can’t hear the soft murmurs of reassurance that come out of my mouth, but I hope my hold on him is enough for him to feel how much I love him and how much I’m here for him.

Hearing aids had come up in conversation a handful of times over the weeks, but Lennox was still processing the loss and wasn’t in the right headspace to commit to something so permanent.

And as far as I was concerned he could take all the time he needed. This was his loss, his life. And if anything, this outburst solidified that I didn’t want to be anywhere but here right now. I wanted to remind him at every turn that he was not alone.

He huffs out a resounding sigh, picking up the fallen stool and taking a seat on it. “I don’t think I’ll ever not be angry,” he admits.

Knowing he is going to hate me for reaching for my cell, I do it anyway. I type what needs to be said and hand him the phone.

His eyes dart between the screen and me.

“Feel for as long as you like or need. There is no expiration date on pain, there is only acceptance.”

He reads the words out loud, and even though I wrote them for him, I realize it’s my truth just as much as it’s his.

The pain between Arlo and me hadn’t dwindled or disappeared. We’d both just learned to live with it, just like Lennox will.

And if I wanted us to move forward, we needed to learn how to live with the painandeach other.

After a few moments of silence, Lennox’s features soften and the side of his mouth tips up in a smirk. “Don’t leave your day job and start writing motivational quotes, okay?”

I jokingly punch him in the arm and follow it up by flipping the bird and pointing at him. The sign for “fuck you.”

“Are you going to move in?” he asks, not allowing his outburst to deter us from the original conversation. “I can talk to Arlo for you.”

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