Page 119 of How to Walk Away

But pretty much everything else about that day did surprise me. How much I missed Kitty already, how strange it felt to be “on the outside” again, how simultaneously comforting and terrifying it was to hear the front door close behind me.

My childhood bedroom was a surprise, too. After my dad left, my mom wheeled me right to it, as if to move on to brighter topics. She had redecorated. She pushed open the door and voiced a quiet “Surprise!”

She’d replaced truly everything—my trundle bed with the pink dust ruffle, my floral upholstered chair, my curtains, my rug. Everything old was gone—stuffed animals, photo albums, books, clutter, posters.

“Where is everything?” I asked.

“In storage tubs,” she answered. “All the keepsakes, anyway. The furniture I set out on the curb—and it was gone in two days.”

It was good and bad—both at the same time. She’d taken away the comfort of all those old familiar things, but she’d also taken away their ability to remind me of my old life. This new room was like a hotel. Roman shades in linen, a chaise longue by the window, a hundred pillowson the bed. A mirrored chandelier. Spare, and done in tones of her favorite color, “greige,” a cross between gray and beige. It was tranquil and sophisticated and utterly unfamiliar. It looked like a magazine.

“A new room for a new start,” she said.

I had to hand it to her. She had great taste. “Well, this is definitely a best-case scenario.”

“And Dad can bring all your old junk in for you to sort through whenever you like,” my mom said. Then she remembered and took a shaky breath. “If he comes back.”

“He will,” I said. “He just needs some time.” Then, because it made it seem like we were almost doing him a kindness, I said, “We can give him that, right?”

She nodded. “We can give him that.”

My mom lingered at my bedroom door for a good while then, unsure if she should leave me alone. “Well,” she said, after a long silence. “I guess I’ll let you get settled.”

I sat very still for a long time. Twenty minutes? An hour? Maybe I was in shock. All I know is, I couldn’t grasp how on earth my life’s path had led me back here. I couldn’t think about the past, but I couldn’t see a future, either.

When the doorbell rang, I wondered if it was my dad.

But a few minutes later, my mom clicked down the hallway, swung open my door (without knocking), and presented—of all people—Ian.

I think she said something prim, like “You have a visitor.” I feel like she might also have offered Ian a wine spritzer, which he declined. All I remember was the sight of him.

Because as soon as I looked up, I was alive again.

Ian Moffat was in my bedroom. In a blue T-shirt and button-fly jeans.

“Hello,” he said, after my mother left, hooking his thumbs in his pockets and looking around. “Nice place.”

I didn’t know what to say. I had no idea why he was here.

“I’ve come to apologize,” he said then, shifting his weight. “I think I’ve made your life harder, not easier—though that was never my intention.”

I waited.

“I just wanted to help you get better—as much as you could.”

Okay.

“I should never have let myself care for you the way I did.”

I looked up. “You let yourself care for me?”

But I suddenly felt like I’d focused on the wrong part of that statement. Ian didn’t answer. He studied the rug.

Right then, a foolish little hope lit up somewhere in my heart. Maybe that’s why he’d come. Maybe now that I wasn’t his patient anymore, we could—what?Hang out? Kiss again? Date? Be together?

“I’m also here,” Ian added, “to share the news that I’m officially fired. Myles submitted it yesterday.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

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