Page 102 of How to Walk Away

“I don’t need looking after.”

“You want me to leave Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee in charge?”

Not really, I supposed.

He continued. “I’ll make sure you get back safe tomorrow.”

“You’re not going to switch me to some other PT, are you?”

“That’s up to you.”

I couldn’t even imagine anybody else. “I don’t want another PT.”

“Then I’ll stay.”

“Are you still going to come for tutoring?”

“Yes, if you like. But I’ll come after supper—just to keep things clear.”

“No goofing around?”

He shook his head. “It’s best.”

What could I say? It’s not best, it’sworst? There was no way to win. He had decided I wasn’t qualified to know what was right for me. And from the sound of things, he didn’t trust himself too much, either. Was he rejecting me? Was he uninterested? Could you kiss a person like that and not feel something, at least? I knew there was longing there—but maybe it was just a general longing for anyone at all. Maybe he was so lonely, any live girl would do—even a broken one like me.

He was still standing at the door, staring down at his hand on the knob. He looked up. “I brought a present to give you tomorrow,” he said then. “But maybe you don’t want it now.”

I turned my eyes to the window. “Just throw it away,” I said.

I heard the door click closed behind him, and then he was gone.

I stayed awake for a good while after that—waiting to hear Kit creep back to her bedroom, because I needed to pee and I’d be damned before I asked Ian to take me. Maybe I’d be better off without him. He certainly seemed to think so. But in all that time of thinking, I could not for one second imagine how.

Twenty-two

THE NEXT DAY—my actual birthday—did not shake down the way I expected.

I expected to wake up and work my way through an awkward breakfast with Kit and Benjamin all lovey-dovey while Ian stared out the window with a face of stone.

But that’s not what happened, exactly.

When I opened my eyes and tried to move my toes, as I did every morning—one of them did something utterly shocking.

It moved.

Itwiggled.

The big toe on my right foot, to be exact.

Part of me thought I might still be asleep.

I tried again, and it moved again.

“Hey!” I shouted. “Hey!”

In seconds, all three of my lake housemates came bursting through the door in a hilarious potpourri of pajamas that made it clear I was definitely the first one up. Kit was in a hot-pink negligée, a sight I’d never seen before, and Fat Benjamin had a remarkable, gravity-defying bed-beard situation going on. Ian, I did my best not to notice, slept in blue cotton pajama bottoms. Only. Also, his hair was even more unruly than Benjamin’s beard—but to be honest, it just made him cuter.

None of that mattered, anyway. “Am I dreaming?” I demanded.

---