Put Me Back Together(51)

Think, I urged myself, think. Who can I call?

I didn’t even consider the alternative. I couldn’t be here alone with Ethan. That was out of the question. I hadn’t babysat a child, not in six years. And there was a very, very good reason for that. I clutched my thighs, squeezing them so hard I left bruises. This was not happening, not again. I couldn’t let it happen. I needed somebody to come and take care of this kid right now, but who?

Emily.

Burrowing through the pile of purse crap on my bed, I finally located my phone and dialed Em’s number, trying to think of where she might be at that moment. What day was it? Wednesday? Didn’t she have yoga at dinnertime on Wednesdays? But sometimes she skipped. A lot of the time, actually. She and Anita sometimes went out for burgers instead. But apparently not today. I left several incredibly frantic and probably alarming messages on both of their phones and then started pacing the room again, tapping my cell against my stomach. As I passed the door I pressed my ear up against it, but I could only hear the movie playing from the other room. Good, good. He was fine. Unless he’d already choked to death.

Who else could I call?

I didn’t have Melissa’s number. Sally would probably set the place on fire herself. My parents were too far away. I shook my fist in the air, cursing myself for insisting on running four thousand kilometers from my past. Wouldn’t thirty have been enough? Then they could have been here in half an hour. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d wanted my mommy this much. I thumbed through the measly list of contacts on my phone. There was only one name left.


I stared down at his number then pressed my forehead into the windowpane, gazing out at the dark street below. He was my only option. I could either call him or spend the evening with Ethan by myself. Just the thought of it made my breath hitch in my throat and I had to spend five minutes with my head between my legs again.

I didn’t consider what he would think when he saw my number on his phone. I didn’t think about how pathetic it was that I was calling him now, or how pathetic he would think I was, or how pathetic I thought I was. I didn’t think about anything at all. I just closed my eyes, pressed my thumb down on his number, and listened to it ring.

“Hello?” Lucas said, speaking loudly due to the background noise. Just the sound of his voice made tears spring to my eyes.

“Lucas?” I squeaked, holding the phone with both hands. “Lucas, I’m sorry to be calling. I—”

“Katie?” he said, and the noise around him receded. I wondered if he’d stepped into a closet or something.

Silence spread between us as I tried to think of the right words to say that would make him come. How could I explain this? I’d sound like a lunatic. He had no reason to care about my problems now, after I’d left him standing on the street alone in a storm and then ignored him for two weeks straight. What could I possibly say to fix all of that and express my desperation at the same time? There weren’t words enough in the English language.

“Lucas,” I repeated, my voice breaking, “I need you. Please come.”

There was a pause. I held my breath, waiting for his reply.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he said, and then hung up.

They were the longest ten minutes of my entire life. I spent them pacing around the kitchen eating marshmallows and peeking over the back of the couch at Ethan playing with his dinosaurs on the coffee table. Every time the toy dinosaur came on the screen, he cheered and held up his Tyrannosaurus rex and I ate another marshmallow. The only time we interacted was when he asked me if he could have some marshmallows, too, and I gave him ten. His eyes lit up like it was his birthday, and he’d been quietly stuffing his face ever since.

Finally the front door buzzer went off and I rushed over to press the button. Standing in the living room, I noticed all my dark paintings hanging on the wall in an alarming cluster and quickly pulled them off the wall, leaving them in a pile by the couch. That done, I swung open the door and stood with one foot in the hall and one in my apartment. I didn’t really start breathing freely until I saw him hurrying down the hall toward me. I’d never seen him hurry anywhere before. At the sight of him, my chest started heaving as though I was the one who’d just run up the stairs.

He stopped in front of me, his eyes full of questions, and before I realized what I’d done, I was pressing my cheek into his chest and breathing in his Lucas smell.

Oh my God, I was throwing myself at him, just like I’d said I wouldn’t do. And now he was going to push me away.

But, surprisingly, he didn’t. His strong arms came around me, the fingers of his right hand running down my back, his chin resting on the top of my head. I noticed he wasn’t wearing a jacket, and it was barely five degrees outside. His arms were cool, but they heated up quickly as I stood inside them. I heard him make a hmm noise, kind of like a sigh, and it had an amazing calming effect on me. Barely a minute had passed, but a minute in Lucas’s arms was like a lifetime in anyone else’s. They were magic healing arms.

“What’s wrong, Katie?” Lucas said into my hair, and I shook myself back into the present moment, remembering there was a five year old in the room with us.

Pulling out of Lucas’s arms, I pointed at Ethan, who, thank God, didn’t seem to have been paying us any attention.

“Th-this this is Ethan,” I stuttered, and Lucas glanced at the kid, who waved a dinosaur, then back at me. “He belongs to Mariella.” Had I ever mentioned Mariella to Lucas? “She’s my neighbour and she had to work and I’m watching him until nine thirty or maybe ten and these are his dinosaurs,” I finished in a rush.