Page 78 of The Checklist
“Hey.” The reticence in his voice stung. “What happened to you yesterday?”
Dylan’s heart dropped a few inches toward the snakes twisting in her stomach.
“I’m so sorry. Tim came up with this whole appreciation scheme, and of course it was doomed, and then I tried to text you, but I got interrupted and I forgot to hit send—which I know sounds bad. Then Tim kept me busy all day, and ... yeah.” Dylan let her insufficient, rambling explanation die off.
“So you couldn’t call?”
“No.” Dylan shook her head, trying to organize her thoughts, remorse threading through her. “I mean, yes.”
“It’s fine. It was just awkward. He had no idea why I was there.” Mike’s tone was so different from Jared’s. There was no screaming or threats. He was quiet, as if he was leaving space for her to say something that would make it make sense. The softness implied a reset button Dylan couldn’t find.
“I was so involved I lost track of”—Dylan squirmed in her chair, looking for an emotional loophole—“literally everything.”
“It’s just ...” Mike paused, and Dylan could almost see him rubbing the back of his head, his mouth quirking uncomfortably, as if searching for the right words caused him physical pain. “It just struck me as odd. Then our admin started calling other people on the list, and most of them had no idea who you were; they hadn’t even heard of Crescent.” The color drained from her face, leaving an empty gray to stare at her from the rearview mirror. Static appeared where her brain function should have been, the last of Mike’s sentence coming through as though muffled. “Do you know any of those people? Or did you just make the names up?”
The sound that cracked out of the back of her throat was supposed to be the wordI, but the vowel never materialized. Mike paused again, allowing more time for her gurgle to turn into a sentence.
Clearing her throat, she said, “I can explain.”
“Okay.”
“My friends helped me.” The fog over her brain seemed to thicken as her lungs tightened. Dylan turned her focus just outside the carwindshield, homing in on the little blue badge scanner near the front entrance to the office, and started again. “I thought I’d have time for them to make introductions, before everything went haywire. But I didn’t. I messed up. Big-time, and I owe you an apology. I’m sorry.”
“Why wouldn’t you mention that? I rearranged our biggest fundraiser betting on this.” A wave of genuine hurt washed over Mike’s words, halting as he tried to process the deception. “The event is two weeks away. There are actual children’s developmental opportunities at stake. You could have been honest with me about it. My job. My coworkers’ jobs. Why do this?”
Dylan’s heart collapsed as he pushed aside her apology. She could almost feel the weight of his lost trust seeping into her, scanning through the scattered bits of reason and trying to create a coherent story line for her.
She struggled to apologize to Mike again, feeling unable to find the phrase she needed. “I don’t have a good reason. I wanted to help you, but I got in over my head everywhere else. Honestly. That’s it. That’s the truth. I’m sorry.”
“Help me out here. I’m trying to understand what went wrong. Did I do something?”
Frustration took root in her chest and began creeping its way down her spine, numbing her senses as it went. She didn’t know how to explain her life. Couldn’t he just acceptI’m sorrywithout needing a PhD’s worth of understanding around her mistake?I’m sorrywas literally all she had left to give, and he just couldn’t accept it. She snapped, “Were you listening? You didn’t do anything. It wasn’t even about you.”
Mike drew in a sharp breath. Dylan imagined the tension pulling across his shoulders as she listened to him exhale. “You are right. I’m sorry I phrased it that way. What I want to ask is how can I—”
“No.” The word slammed against her brain so hard it felt like she hadn’t even thought it before it came out of her mouth.
Dylan was done with being manipulated. First, Nicolas with the thinly disguised threats that were supposedly in her own best interest. Next, Tim with the incessant need for cleanup on aisle stupid. Then Jared, shouting outsize demands.
Whatever nice-guy mental jujitsu Mike was capable of, Dylan was not in the mood. She’d messed up, and she’d admitted that. The last thing she needed was another person making her feel bad. There was no possible way that he was sincerely being nicer than she deserved. Not with their family history. This was just another ding in her fantastically shitty trip back to the hellhole that was her hometown.
“I got in over my head, in every possible way,” Dylan snapped. “I had to let something drop. Actually, I let everything drop. You were just the by-product of my own personal hurricane.”
“I ... I’m sorry. I don’t understand what’s happening.”
Did he have to apologize? Dylan seethed, her thoughts moving through her unfiltered. Ignoring the roiling in her stomach, she plowed on, her voice rising half an octave.
“I hold it together and follow the rules and be reliable. All those rules and all that order—what did it get me? A cyclone client and a bitch-ass boss.” Dylan slapped her hand against the steering wheel. “Worse, I break a few small rules, and I get a one-night stand who is too nice for his own good but can’t accept an apology without some long-winded explanation, which I don’t have, by the way. Oh yeah! And a floodlight in my decrepit ruin of a childhood bedroom window.”
The silence on the other end of the line felt like Mike was working on a mental Rubik’s Cube. He exhaled heavily. “Okay, let’s deal with those one at a time.” His tone was like that of a man talking to a child having a meltdown in the grocery store. Extreme frustration wrapped in a soothing balm. “I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m asking you to be honest with me. Where is this coming from?”
“It isn’t coming from anywhere. It is me. I’m a disaster. Just as destructive and dysfunctional as the rest of my family.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Then you’re an optimistic fool.” She laughed, the sound hollow. Clenching her jaw, she said, “I can’t with you.”
“I’m trying here, but I’ve got a mess on my hands at work.” Mike’s tone was clipped. Taking a deep breath, she prepared a retort, but this was his breaking point, and he did not leave her the room to continue. “I’m expending massive amounts of energy trying to reason with you right now, and I don’t think it’s getting anywhere. It sounds like you have some things you need to work out.” Mike paused, and Dylan could hear him pacing his office, attempting to regain composure. “Independently.”
