Page 34 of The Significance of Moving On

Now I’m pissed, hitting the call button before I can think better of it. She answers on the second ring. “Didn’t you hear a damn thing I said to you?” I say into the line instead of hello.

“I. Well—yeah. I heard you.”

“Then why in the hell are you leaving me voicemails saying you miss me?”

“Because I do.”

“No, Tal. Youdon’t.”

“Don’t tell me how to feel. I’m a big girl, I know how I feel.”

“Then you’re stupider than I thought.”

She sucks in a sharp breath. “Don’t be a dick.” There’s hurt in her words. “You don’t want me to call. Fine. I won’t call. But dick Casey isn’t you. I’ve got a summer’s worth of proof of that.”

Why can’t she see that this is all I’ve got to give her? Safety away from me.

“I had Tom and Kelsey. Then I had you and Kelsey. Now I’ve got no one.” She tries to cover the sounds of her sniffles, but I hear them as loud as if she were in the same room as me. “Now I’m just…alone.”

She didn’t say lonely, she said alone. Those words, those are the same damn words Luke used before we fought. I don’t know what to do. Standing doesn’t help. Pacing doesn’t help. I’m too far away from her.

“Donotsay you’re alone.” I bark at her. “You hear me?”

“Are you wheezing?”

Am I wheezing?Get a grip, Casey.You fought the panic before, you can do it again.

“Don’t change the subject. You aren’t alone, do you hear me?”

Her panic rises as mine does. “What’s wrong? I’ve never heard you like thisbefore.”

“Tell me you’re not alone.” It’s not easy, but I try to calm my voice.

“I can’t tell you what’s not true.”

Please, Lord. Not again. I won’t let it happen again. No. Not with Tally. I go back to pacing, one palm to my forehead while the other clutches a death grip on my phone. Pushing her away doesn’t work which means I have to keep her close, if only for her not to hurt herself. “You always have me, Tal, even if I’m being a dick. Now please tell me, do you feel alone? Because fuck the job, I’ll be there in two and a half hours.”

She pauses before she speaks and it kills me anticipating how she’ll answer. “No,” she finally says. “I guess alone isn’t the right word. Lonely, maybe?”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

After we hang up I crash face-first onto the bed to decompress. Could I have handled that any worse than what I did?

I lay there for a while longer, until I hear Jesse huff and I look up.

“We gonna work?” he asks.

We haven’t started the mockup for tomorrow’s presentation, so yeah. I guess we better work. I forgot he was even in the room.

Chapter Sixteen

I thrust the shovel deep into the soil and pressed down with my foot before bending it back and forth to loosen the dirt and toss the pile over my shoulder into a wheelbarrow. Sweat dripped down my brow and I used the sleeve of my thermal to wipe it from my eyes. The dirt on my thick, gloved-covered hands smells strongly of manure. We might not make the deadline, which to the best of my knowledge, the company has never had to do before.

Time just doesn’t seem to be on our side no matter that Jesse and I are up and out of the hotel before dawn and finishing up well into dusk.

Things definitely started going downhill when Jesse hit a pipe that according to the schematics we followed, wasn’t supposed to be there. Apparently about five years ago, the owner had some work done that he neglected to apply for permits for. We weren’t dinged, but the cleanup set us back.

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