My Favorite Half-Night Stand(71)
And I don’t know what it is about this in particular, but I just burst out laughing. At first unsure, Ed finally grins. And then he throws his arms around me, pressing his face to my shoulder. “I missed you so much. I’ve felt like complete shit. I’m so, so sorry, man.”
I reach up and pat his back. Forgiveness is so fucking freeing. I feel immediately like I can relax my shoulders for the first time in weeks. I feel the tiniest bit closer to not only the freedom of forgiving Millie, but the relief of being near her again, too.
From: Millie M.
Sent: 1:11 am, May 10
I guess you need an update on the Elly/Dad situation if you’re going to understand the rest of this ramble, so here goes.
Dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease about a year and a half ago. I should have told you, I know. We hadn’t known each other long, and diseased parents turn conversations serious, real fast. I’m shitty at talking about personal stuff not only because I feel awkward talking about myself, but also because I don’t like turning a conversation into a downer.
Anyway. From the start, they started Dad on a medication called Sinemet, which I’m sure you know all about. So, for a while it was okay—it helped.
But as the dopamine cells in his brain continue to die, the Sinemet is less effective, right? Because it relies on the remaining healthy cells in order to work? I’m trying to understand the science behind all of it. Anyway, his neurologist is recommending deep brain stimulation, and he’s resisting, even though Elly really wants him to try it.
Elly has been managing whatever he needs help with, but with the twins she’s exhausted. She’s asked me to come home a few times, and I have—for a weekend here and there—but she wants me home for a good month so that she and Jared can take a vacation, and probably also just so that Dad has some time with me.
I’d been resisting because I hate being home. Do you remember that time we went to Hendry’s Beach to watch the dogs in the water? You knew something was off, and you didn’t push me to tell you what was going on, but I’d just found out about the diagnosis. I lasted maybe four hours after I found out, and then flew back here. I felt so guilty, but I hate being there, and hearing that Dad was sick was like getting Mom’s diagnosis all over again.
So, there are two things I’m telling you. One, I started therapy two weeks ago. I’m going twice a week and so far it’s been really great. I’m actually talking. Her name is Anna, and she’s funny and seems to get me, and is helping me fix my stupid emotional brain.
Two, I’m going home for three and a half weeks in July. Dad’s having the surgery on June 22, and I’ll be there when he gets out of the physical rehabilitation facility on July 2 until the 25th.
I don’t even know what else to say. I’m dreading the trip, but I feel relieved, too, like I’m finally doing the things I should have been doing all along. It feels really good to tell you this.
I love you,
Millie
For eleven days I’ve read her messages and let them sink in, let them carefully smooth over the jagged damage her betrayal caused, but I can’t stay away anymore. I slam my laptop shut and grab my keys as I jog past the counter. If I was asked to recount the drive from my place to hers, I would describe only a blur of scenery punctuated at the end by the high-pitched squeal of my tires coming to a stop in her driveway.
I can barely pull in a deep breath, and when she opens the door in her pajamas, with her hair messy, and eyes red from crying, I think I stop breathing entirely.
She doesn’t say anything before she bursts into tears, and melts into me when I wrap my arms around her.
chapter seventeen
millie
It’s about twenty minutes before I can pull myself together and stop crying, but throughout all the sobbing, and hiccupping, and senseless babble, Reid guides me inside, pulls us down onto the couch, and holds me. When he presses a kiss to the top of my head, it just makes me cry harder.
He’s here, at two in the morning, which means that he read my last message and came right over. It means he’s probably been reading all of my messages—just like I hoped—and that I wasn’t just throwing my words into the vast internet void.
It also means that he doesn’t want me to be alone after everything I told him in my last note. He read what I said about Anna, and my dad, and heading home this summer.
He made me wait over a month, but isn’t going to make me wait anymore before telling me what he’s decided. Relief is in the distance—even if he tells me he needs to move on, at least I’ll know.
I sit up, reluctantly pulling out of his arms, and wipe at my face with the bottom of my pajama top. When I drop it, I realize I’ve just flashed my underboob at Reid. He blinks up to my face, a little dazed.
“Oops. Sorry.”
He gives a wicked half smile that makes a flurry of bombs go off in my belly. “No red silk.”
“I hoped you’d remember that detail.”
The smile slowly straightens into something more pensive—but thankfully still fond—and he reaches out to tuck my insane hair behind my ear. “There’s a lot to respond to in those messages, but after the one you sent tonight, I had to come over.”
An opening. He’s just given it to me, and I don’t want to mess this up. Sure, it’s easier to write all this to the computer and hit SEND, but the important piece happens when he’s this close to me, his hand resting on my knee.