I'll Be Your Blue Sky (Love Walked In #3)(18)

And then Zach walked into the room and saw me there, and in a low, dangerous, gritted-teeth voice said, “What the fuck is this?”

Because I felt small sitting, I stood up, planted my feet. “Look, I’m sorry, but I just can’t stay here.”

“What?”

“Zach, I’m not helping anyone here, not even you. You hardly speak to me. And the atmosphere, the air in this house feels poisoned. I’m going home.”

Zach snickered, the meanest sound I’d ever heard him make, and shook his head. “Yeah? Well, that’s where you’re wrong.”

“I changed my flight. I’ll see you whenever you get back, but I can’t be here anymore.”

“We’ll change it back.”

“You’re not hearing me. I don’t want to be here anymore. I’m leaving.”

Without taking my eyes off Zach’s face, I leaned down and picked up my carry-on bag.

“Stop saying that you’re leaving!” he said, loudly.

And then Zach—sweet, joke-appreciating, tailgating-averse, gift-giving Zach—took one step toward me, his face rigid with rage, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed, and fear started ringing in my ears like a siren. I’d seen Zach angry before, but never this angry, and never at me. I tried to remind myself that he loved me, but the fear just rang louder.

“Please don’t tell me what to say. Or do,” I said, my voice shaking. “I am leaving.”

“Shut up!” he hissed.

Then, he picked up my suitcase, tossed it onto the bed, unzipped it, and threw it against the wall. As the suitcase hit, it opened like a mouth and vomited out my clothes. For a second, I stood frozen, stunned, then some animal part of me kicked in, and I tore open the bedroom door and ran, down the hallway, out the front door, and blindly across the lawn, my teeth chattering, the frozen ground bone-jarring under the soles of my shoes.

I didn’t know for sure that he was following me until I heard his voice breaking raggedly through the dark and cold. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

I swung around, brandishing, without really meaning to, my heavy carry-on bag. “Stay back!” I shouted.

But he had already stopped. He stood on the edge of the road, maybe twenty feet from me. When he dropped to his knees, a blade of moonlight lit up the tears on his face. The cold bit into my cheeks, my bare hands. The cloudy sky low as a basement ceiling overhead.

“Clare,” said Zach. “I don’t know what just happened, but I know I would never hurt you.”

He sounded so sad.

“The cab is coming soon,” I said, my voice shaking. “And I’m getting in it.”

He nodded. “Yes! Definitely, you should go home. I should never have brought you here, and I’m so sorry.”

I wrapped myself up in my own arms.

“I love you,” he said, starting to cry. “You’re the only person I love.”

He pressed his hands to his forehead. “I don’t love my father, but I can’t imagine him being dead or, like, a world without him in it. Isn’t that strange? It’s messing me up, this place, my family, his dying. I’m not myself.”

I could feel my fear ebbing and gentleness opening up inside me, but I didn’t let myself give in to it. “I realize that, but you can’t keep me here. You can’t try to scare me into staying. It’s just wrong.”

“I know. So wrong. I hate myself right now a lot more than you hate me.”

The despair in his voice coaxed the last bit of fear out of me. I walked over to where he sat. “I don’t hate you,” I said, softly. “I know you’re having a hard time.”

He didn’t look up, just ran a hand lightly down my shinbone, then let it fall onto the ground. “I love you so much. Nothing else matters to me.”

“I hear the cab coming,” I said. “I need to go. If you could just bring my clothes when you come back?”

He nodded, miserably. “Ugh, of course. I’m so sorry about your clothes and everything. I’m sorry about everything.”

As the cab pulled up, I rested my palm on top of his head, then combed his hair with my fingers. “I’ll see you when you get back.”

“More than I deserve,” he said, bitterly. “Thank you, Clare.”

He was still sitting there, eyes on the ground, when the cab drove away.



Just as I finished talking, a bird began fluting complicatedly on a nearby low-hanging tree branch, and since it would have been discourteous not to listen, we listened.

After the last firework trill dissolved against the summer sky, Edith said, “Turdus polyglottos.”

“Excuse me?”

“An unfortunate name but the one Linnaeus bestowed on the northern mockingbird, and I do have a soft spot for Carl. However, I think the folks who later changed it to Mimus polyglottos made a wise choice.”

“I agree.”

“I think that particular member of the species must’ve spent some time listening to Mozart.”

Her eyes locked on mine. “Back to how you got here. If you don’t mind my saying so, it’s difficult to trace a clear path from that lake house story to this wedding day of yours.”

I sighed. “After his father died a few days later, he came straight to my apartment from the airport. He asked me to marry him as soon as possible. He would’ve eloped right then I think.”