Page 111 of If All Else Sails
How did he know? I take another sip. How—
“I was cleared to sail before we left,” Wyatt says finally.
“I know. That’s why we’re here. Sailing.”
He shakes his head. “No. I was cleared to resume normal activities. Like: sailalone.” When I still don’t say anything because he seems more upset about this than I am, he adds, “I lied to you.”
“You didn’t lie. I mean, I suppose it’stechnicallya lie of omission since you didn’t tell me,” I say slowly. “But it doesn’t bother me.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No. It wouldn’t have made a difference to me,” I tell him. “I wanted to come.”
“Really?” Wyatt smiles again, and it feels too early in the morning for the onslaught of such things.
I take another sip of my latte. “But whydidn’tyou tell me?”
He shifts, then fixes his gaze on his feet. “I wasn’t sure you’d come if you didn’t have to.” Now he peeks up at me. “And I didn’t want to come without you.”
This makes me smile. I put a hand over my heart. “Aw—this coming from the man who wanted to have me arrested.”
Wyatt closes his eyes and shakes his head. But I don’t miss the smallest twitch of his lips. “You’re never going to let it go, are you?”
“I told you—never.”
It’s only when Wyatt’s in the shower and I’m taking Jib for a walk that a realization hits me like the slap of a rogue wave. Wyatt’s been cleared for all activity.Allactivity, he said.
Which would include hockey.
I asked him last night if he thought he would go back, and he said yes. Which felt theoretical. But it wasn’t theory. Wyatt already knew.
My mind scans back a little earlier in the day yesterday, when I talked with Jacob on the phone. Jacob—who didn’t ask about Wyatt’s recovery for once.
I thought it meant we were just having a nice conversation. One with zero business mixed in. But no—it meant that Jacob didn’t need to ask. HeknewWyatt was coming back.
I’m not necessarilymadthat neither of them told me. I have no right to be. Not when I’ve told Jacob I don’t want to hear about his work. Not when Wyatt and I almost never discuss his hockey career. Except last night. And Wyatt did say he planned to go back. Maybe he honestly thought thatwastelling me.
This knowledge feels like a lead weight settling between my shoulder blades, pressing me down. Boston. Wyatt will go back to Boston in probably a matter of weeks. And I’ll go back to my apartment and its fake plants. The physical distance doesn’t bother me so much as the figurative distance that will once again be between us. Two very different people living very different lives in very different places.
His return to hockey will be a period at the end of the lastsentence of the final chapter—the chapter I didn’t want to talk about with Wyatt. And this is exactly the reason.
Then the hockey star went home to play hockey while the school nurse went home to keep living all alone. And they lived unhappily ever after. The end.
No, I tell myself,this is good to know. Because I was starting to crumble, starting to think that maybe this could be something. But up until a few weeks ago, Wyatt couldn’t stand me.
Did I really think we could move from mutual dislike to—I struggle to even let my brain think the word—love? Or very strong like?
I would do good to remember all this. The reality check— crushing though it may be—will help me keep my head on straight and keep Wyatt firmly at arm’s length. At least in the romantic sense. On a boat, arm’s length isn’t really a thing.
As Jib and I head back, I resolutely toss my still half-full latte in the trash while silently weeping over it. Telling myself it’s a symbolic gesture. That I can make it through the rest of this trip remembering the end and staying strong, putting my heart back in its protective glass case where it’s safe.
But then I get back to the room and find Wyatt fresh out of the shower in only a towel, his skin a warm olive and glistening, and a giant breakfast tray in the middle of the small room. “I ordered your favorite,” the man I need to keep at arm’s length says. “Belgian wa?es with whipped cream.”
My resolve turns out to be about as firm as a sopping wet roll of paper towels.
Sharing a bed—and sharing my history—apparently threw open a cracked door. Blew the thing right off its hinges.
Because now Wyatt can’t seem to stop touching me. Every single chance he gets. Which is a lot, considering our close proximity.
