Page 61 of The Space Between
That’s what I meant.
But now I’m wondering if being here is enough.
When the crowdthins out and the last shuttle heads upriver with floaters and loud-ass college kids, I finally allow myself to do what I’ve been avoiding all day.
I head up the gravel drive, cross the narrow patch of grass between our cabins and knock once on her door.
No answer. I knock again. Nothing.
My stomach twists and I turn, scanning the dock. Empty.
I look over the riverbank. Still nothing.
Glancing down, I spot her flip-flops on her porch. Her keys are on the sill. And her is car still parked out front.
She’s home.
She’s just not answering. Something about it rattles me.
I sit on her porch steps like an idiot. I don’t pace. I don’t knock again.
I just… wait.
The same way I waited in the hospital bed, attached to machines after being told I needed major surgeries six years ago for someone to tell metheymade it. That Molly was breathing. That Aubree,my baby girl,was breathing. That they made it out of the water when I already knew they had not.
Panic fills my lungs, and I have to remind myself that this isn’t that.
This isn’t death. Death is final. There’s no coming back. When someone dies, they’re dead. Nothing can change that fact.
This is something different.
This is not knowing if the woman who looked me in the eye while I was buried inside her is now regretting every second she let me close.
This is a different kind of ache… of fear.
Her door openstwenty minutes later, and she looks like she’s been crying.
Her hair is damp. Her face is scrubbed clean. Her eyes widen when she sees me standing there, like she didn’t know I was even here.
“Sorry. I—I was in the shower,” she says quietly.
Relief hits me like a goddamn sledgehammer, but I don’t let it show.
Instead, I nod. “I knocked. You didn’t answer.”
She leans against the frame. “I know. I was in the shower. You could have come in.”
I flinch though she isn’t accusing me of anything.
I could have gone in. I think I should have. But I just don’t know what I’m doing here.
I mutter, “I know. But I didn’t know if I had the right to… do that. This morning, I left a note,” I say.
She lifts a brow. “I know. I got it. We talked about it on the dock.” She sighs. “Gruene, if anyone has the right to come in my home when I’m in the shower, it’s you. But I can’t make you not want to leave. I can’t make you not want to wait on the porch for me to open the door. “
I open my mouth to say something, but she shakes her head. “I’m not mad. I don’t want you to think I am. I’m not.”
I blink but say nothing. It sounds like she has more to say, and I want to hear what it is before I say a damn thing. .
