Sweet Forty-Two(82)

“The what?” Regan came around the counter and stood next to me in the living room. I knew he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. I wouldn’t have believed it myself.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t say shock therapy. That’s kind of tacky, isn’t it? The ECT.”

The Please be quiet and go away for five minutes vibes I was sending my mother with my bugged-out eyes were not being received by her, but they were loud and clear to Regan.

“I didn’t realize, Mrs. Ha—”

“Please, call me Amanda.” She smiled, though it was starting to fade as it became clear Regan’s lack of understanding was more like a lack of knowledge at all. “Oh ... I’m going to ... excuse me.”

My mom left as gracefully as possible, closing the door behind her.

I looked at Regan who was, as I’d expected, watching me. “Let me explain.”

His eyebrows lifted as he held out his hands. “Shock therapy, did she say? Like to her brain?”

I nodded. “Yes, for the past four weeks she’s been—”

“Four weeks?” His nostrils flared and he dropped his hands to his hips.

“I can explain, Regan.”

He snorted. “Sure. Just like you could explain her existence at all, right? How you were going to tell me she was alive.”

“I was going to tell you. I just needed—”

“Needed what?” he snapped. “Time? Did you need more time to watch me come apart and expose every inch of my soul to you before you deemed me worthy of knowing what makes up yours?” He brushed past me, grabbing the bottle of champagne and pouring it down the drain.

I caught up to him and put my hand on his wrist. “Regan, you don’t understand. Don’t cut me off—just listen. I’m not made like you. I don’t trust like you do. I’ve never had a reason to.”

He pulled his hand away. “I thought I was reason enough for you, Georgia. For weeks you were the only one who knew about the most heartbreaking letter I’d ever received. Jesus, I cried with you. Hard tears, Georgia, not the sniffles of some dumbstruck * trying to play on your emotions to get in your pants.” His face turned red as he continued. “Then ... then I asked you to hold my hand as I said goodbye to her. As I threw that f*cking letter into the f*cking ocean! Explain to me, please, how that gave you reasons to keep something like this from me? Damn it, I could have helped you. Been there for you somehow.”

“I was scared, Regan!”

“Scared? You were scared? Georgia, we’re all f*cking scared. This is life! It’s scary. People divorce, disappoint us, die, walk away. I thought we had something here.” He pointed between us.

I held out my hands. “We do. Don’t you see? You’re the only person who has made me become more of myself. You pushed me to open the bakery—”

“Don’t even get me started on the bakery, Georgia. That’s when I thought we were getting somewhere. I thought that was you letting me in. The last bit of the real you that no one else had seen yet. I felt special to be in there with you, to be part of the process. Was the last month with me in the bakery so awful for you that you knew you just couldn’t open up to me all the way? Even after that kiss? The one you initiated, I might add?” He clenched his jaw.

I refused to look away from him. “Forty-two days.”

“What? Enough with the goddamn riddles, already.” His face screwed up incredulously as he tried to sew my words together, walking past me again and heading for the door.

I sucked in breath and demanded confidence from myself. “You’ve been in my bakery with me for forty-two days. And, each day for those forty-two days you’ve broken down more barriers than I even knew I had. Please, please listen to me. I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, stopping my train of thought. “I’m tired, Georgia. I’m tired of the games, of the riddles, and the half-truths not quite bold enough to be called lies. Rae taught me a lot of things during her short time in my life, and the most important was, you know what? Sometimes there really is such a thing as too late.” Regan opened his door, staring at me with eyes so empty there wasn’t even a hole for me to jump into in a final appeal.

“Regan,” I pleaded, my eyes filling with tears.

He stared at the space around the door, not able, it seemed, to look at me.

I wanted to grab him and tell him that I loved him. That I really, truly did. He’d view it as the Hail Mary I didn’t intend for it to be, though, so I had to leave. I pursed my lips to keep my mouth closed as the tears started to fall. When I walked past him at the door, I took a deep breath, taking in the molasses smell of rosin that always seemed to linger on his skin.

As the door clicked behind me, without so much as a goodbye, I forced myself to dry my tears. If this love stuff was real, and I believed it was, and if we both felt it, which I believed we did, then I had to trust that he’d come around.

I believed in him. Now, I needed him to believe in me.





Regan

“So...” Bo cracked his knuckles and leaned back in his chair, sipping his beer.

“So.” I took a swig from the anger bottle.

Ember rolled her eyes. “God, you two could take a century having a conversation. Regan, it’s been a few days. Are you ever going to return Georgia’s texts ... or go home?”