Page 106 of How to Walk Away

No reaction there, either. “I understand,” Ian said. “If you wouldn’t mind letting me arrange the switch, it might give Myles one less reason to fire me.”

“That’s fine,” I said.

“I’ll find you someone good.” His poker face broke my heart.

“Great.”

Ian headed toward the door, but I called his name. He turned back.

This might be the last time I’d see him. I couldn’t stand the idea that he’d always remember me as a pathetic, lovesick, delusional girl. I didn’twant to be the only one who cared. If he could be a robot, so could I. “Thanks for your restraint at the lake, by the way. I cannot imagine what I was thinking.”

Ian gave a sad smile. “What restraint at what lake?”

And we left it at that.

***

LATER THAT NIGHT,with a week minus one day until Kit’s first-of-April Valentine’s Day party, I asked her to call it off.

“I can’t,” she said. “I’ve rented a karaoke machine.”

I held my hands out, like,So?“Unrent it!”

She mirrored the gesture. “Nonrefundable deposit!”

We were eating enormous taco salads in bowls made of taco shells.

Kit went on, “Plus, I’ve got a batch of kids popping in early to cut construction paper hearts, I’ve got a guy named Rodrigo bringing his garage mariachi band to play for free, I’ve bought the decorations and over a hundred heart-shaped cookies, I’ve invited everybody on the floor and all the nurses, and I frigging love Valentine’s Day. And so should you.”

“It’snotValentine’s Day,” I said.

“That’s a bad attitude, right there.”

“Damn right it is.”

“You don’t have to like it,” Kit said. “You just have to come.”

“I’m not coming.”

She stopped chewing. “You have to!”

I shook my head. “I have one week left. There’s no time for parties. I am not screwing around.”

“But it will be my last night—and yours!”

“That’s why you should cancel the party and spend it with me.”

***

SHE DIDN’T CANCELthe party. I spent the following days meeting my new PT, working with my new PT, and doing tutoring in the evenings with my new PT—and Kit spent them cutting heart decorations out of construction paper.

The new PT was Rob-with-the-Man-Bun—the one I’d wished for early on. Without a doubt, he was the perkiest and flirtiest of everybody. He had huge energy and a laugh like a trumpet blast. I’d heard it a million times in the background in the gym, and I’d always assumed he was laughing like that because something was wildly funny. I had often wondered how he and his patients had managed to generate so much comedy from activities like riding the stationary bike, and I confess I’d mentally criticized Ian for being so serious.

But now, in this final week, working with Man-Bun-Rob, I came to realize something: That laugh was fake.

He wasoverlaughing. He was pretending things were a thousand times funnier than they were. I’d crack the tiniest little nonjoke, and he’d throw his head back and absolutely bellow. That was worse—far worse—than not laughing at all.

Within hours of first starting to work with Rob, I grew to hate that laugh so much, it drove me to silence. I didn’t want to do anything to provoke it. But even that didn’t work. When he couldn’t get anything out of me, he’d turn to other patients and other trainers—and pretend to laugh attheirunfunny jokes.

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