Chapter 12

"S o…what?"

I shrugged. "Not what you're thinking." I took a sip of coffee, which I'd been buying every so often. It wasn't breaking the bank and it made me feel better, actually, to know that I could spend a little. Sometimes. Rarely. I only got the small size, with no extra shots, no whip, no caramel. Those overloaded extras had been in the big drink that Gigi had bought for me the last time I'd seen her, right here in this coffee shop when she'd recruited me to work for her boyfriend's employers. No, that hadn't been the last time. Because I'd seen her dead…

Addie was looking confused. "Still just friends? You spend a lot of time together."

"Still friends, but that's pretty awesome for me," I said. Yes, Beckett and I were spending a lot of time together, like, we hung out at his "house" almost every weekend. It was full-on summer now, so to have a friend who lived on a lake? That was why we were together so often, which was what I explained to my sister. "We go out in his boat and swim. We swim," I repeated. "It's a big deal."

"Is it?" She sounded confused, because I hadn't told her what had happened to Beckett's mom and brother. That felt too personal to share, so she couldn't understand how hard it was for him. In the shallow water, we even took off our life jackets (sometimes, and only after he checked for strong currents).

I kept trying to convince her. "We talk forever, we cook—"

"What did you just say?" she interrupted. "Did you say that you're cooking?"

"I am. Just following recipes," I clarified. "It's not like I'm lighting pans on fire and flambéing dessert." Fire had happened once, but it hadn't been on purpose. Beckett (being Beckett) had a handy extinguisher, so it had all turned out fine.

"So, you're friends," she said, but now she sounded doubtful. "At Mom's baby shower last winter, you had a lot to say about him. You said so much that we asked if there was anything happening between the two of you and you said no, no way. You said that you hated him. Remember?" she prompted.

"I didn't know him then. I only knew that he was making a lot of changes, including that we suddenly had to work really hard and that sucked because our former boss hadn't made us do anything at all. Also, he came off kind of like a jerk," I admitted. "When you first meet him, he doesn't seem very approachable. He looks at you without smiling and he also talks in this funny, formal way. He chooses every word instead of letting them run on without any thought."

Addie still looked skeptical. "It sounds like he's showing off."

"Back then, I thought so too, but he isn't. He's just so smart that everyone can see it but he's also funny. He makes jokes but again, if you didn't know him, you might not realize it. It's because he's so deadpan." Now, I found it very endearing that there was so much going on in his mind. I wanted to learn about all the interesting things happening behind the handsome features that he kept so impassive.

"Well, that's all very promising," she encouraged, and I nodded hard.

"He's considerate, too," I continued. "He got a little cake from this amazing French bakery for my birthday and he cleared his throat all seriously before he sang to me. He put twenty-six candles on the top and lit them all, and the cake looked like a meteor."

My sister smiled. "That's cute."

"He's always interested in what I'm having for lunch, because he thinks my diet is abhorrent, so he orders in for me a lot," I went on. "He's never lived with anyone, not a girlfriend or even a roommate. He's totally unused to people doing things like leaving stuff on the kitchen counter or borrowing his clothes, but he's getting comfortable with it now. It's really cute, actually."

"Are you borrowing his clothes?" she demanded to know. "If I were Nicola, I would tell you to stay out of his closet. That's a girlfriend move."

"No, it isn't in this case. It happened because my own shirt got wet when it fell into the bottom of the boat when we were swimming, and then later I convinced him to make s'mores—he ate one graham cracker square, but I was roasting a lot of marshmallows and I got cold wearing only my bikini top. He lent me a shirt," I said. The fact that I hadn't given it back yet…yes, Nicola would have had something to say about it. "I can't stay at Brenna's on the weekends because she never leaves the place. Do you know how much time she spends sewing and putting clothes on that dress form she has?"

"The old mannequin thing she named Cleo? I remember when she got that on her birthday. Grace spilled grape juice all over it just as we sat down to eat the cake that Sophie had made."

I shuddered as I remembered that, too. Grace had been lucky to escape with her life and I bet she still had bare patches on her scalp where Brenna had torn out her hair. "I can't live there anymore," I said. "I've already overstayed my welcome and I've been looking, and I know she likes the rent money, but I have to move. No, no," I immediately added. "Please don't suggest that I live with you and Granger. Thank you, but no." It was bad enough being where I wasn't wanted when the person who didn't want me was only Brenna. She hated me—well, maybe she loved me somewhere deep down, but I knew that the surface was layers of loathing. Addie loved me absolutely and would have let me move in without question and tried to make it a great experience. Her fiancé would have gone along with it because he loved her absolutely, too, but neither of them wanted the intrusion. What were my other options? Grace hadn't left our childhood home, Patrick was MIA. Nicola was out, of course, because her baby was coming soon. There was hardly any time left until she was due.

That meant I would need to live on my own. As scary as that was, I would have to until I moved away to New York or wherever, which had started to seem less than appealing lately.

But speaking of no time, I had to go back to the office because I didn't have any more of that to spend sipping coffee with my sister, as good as it was to see her. We hugged and then out of habit, I hesitated at the door before rushing out onto the street and I scanned the area several times. I was looking for anything that seemed out of the norm or scary and I was especially looking for Gigi's boyfriend, Val. I was pretty sure that I would recognize him if I saw him, but would I recognize any other threat? I didn't know, so I stared around carefully before I ran back to the office, hoping that my speed would somehow save me from a bullet.

It was a little crazy there lately. My co-worker Peggy had quit (as I'd anticipated). One of the new paralegals that Beckett had hired had gone out on medical leave, too, so we were back to being short-handed and extremely busy. In fact, I was pretty sure that I'd be staying late tonight, and I was also pretty sure that we wouldn't be going out on the boat this weekend, even if it was going to be another gorgeous Saturday. That was ok by me, though, because I didn't mind spending time together in other ways, even if we were only doing work. It was fun to look up and see him reading carefully and it was fun to listen to the keys on his laptop clicking away so quickly beneath his fingers. He did have such nice hands—

Gigi had that funny thumb, and Gigi was dead.

I shook my head and refocused. At the end of the day when the floor had emptied out, Beckett asked me to come to his office so we could decide what we were going to do over the weekend. "I purchased a grill," he announced. "I'm thinking about trying chicken breasts."

"A grill? That sounds great!" I was already thinking about the recipes I would look up. "Are you planning for skinless and boneless chicken?" I asked, and he nodded confirmation. "That would be good, and we could also do ribs. Those are delicious." I watched him swallow and lose the healthy flush he'd developed due to all our time on the lake. "Beckett, are you ok?"

"I'm fine."

"Chicken's also good," I said, but he shook his head.

"Let's discuss it later. I need to get…"

"Hey!" I said, and walked around the side of his desk. He had stood up and then sat down and he was totally white, not a hint of color in his face anymore and like he was going to faint. I put my hand on his shoulder and then on his cheek, and he was both shaky and clammy. "This is the second time you've been sick and I can tell you've lost weight, too. Maybe if you were eating more than tasteless chicken—"

He picked up his garbage can and vomited into it, a lot. A lot of vomit.

Oh, sugar. I put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn't throw up myself. The sound, the smell, the…I ran toward the bathroom just in case I was also heading for pukedom, and when I was back to my non-nauseated self, I went to the lunchroom and got a glass of water and some wet paper towels. There could have been spillage and the thought of that made me sick to my stomach again.

By the time I made it even partway back down the hall, though, I saw that he was gone, and so was the offensive wastebasket. I ran to the stairwell and listened for footsteps; when I didn't hear anything, I hurried to the elevators but he wasn't waiting there, either. I texted, asking if he was all right, but it wasn't until I was almost at the restaurant for my shift that I got an answer: "Fine." There was nothing about grilling, or meeting so we could work together, or anything other than that single word. I asked more questions, but nothing new came while I poured wine, talked up appetizers, or passed out dessert menus, either.

Brenna wasn't at her studio when I got back, a rare event, so it was only me and her weird dress form. I looked at my phone, mostly at my debt list, and I spent a while devising various ways to rid myself of it faster. I texted my sisters but no one answered. It was late, after all, but usually someone was around. I sent more messages to Beckett but he was silent, too. I felt really sorry about running out on him but seriously, I could have thrown up myself. I'd always been the worst about injuries and illness, and I was especially unsteady when fluids were involved. I remembered how one time, a girl in my high school relay team (backstroke leg) had taken a fin to the face in practice and gotten a bloody nose, a gushing fountain of…ugh. My stomach flipped and I had to go to the bathroom again, just in case.

I checked my phone when I returned to the couch. Yes, it was late, but no one had answered me yet and I got a terrible feeling. It was pressure that squeezed my chest: something was wrong. I called my mom but she was probably asleep and my brother didn't respond at all to anything, ever. What was happening? I was very, very worried and was writing to Addie yet again when I heard from a different sister.

"Come to the hospital ASAP," Sophie ordered. "Nicola is just about to give birth."

I ran, forgetting that I didn't have on shoes and forgetting my purse, and I drove the new car faster than it was probably meant to go. I ran into the hospital, too, and right up to the labor and delivery unit, and there were four of my sisters. Within about a second, it became clear that they'd all been here for hours, hanging out together and supporting Nicola with their presence. She'd been in labor since the afternoon but no one had contacted me, not even when I'd been begging them to answer and saying that I knew something was wrong.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, and they didn't have much to say. Addie avoided my eyes, Brenna rolled hers, and Grace's were absent because she'd disappeared, which was all too typical for my youngest sister.

Finally, Sophie admitted the truth. "We couldn't let you know because you'd have told Mom. She announced that she wanted to be in the delivery room, and Nicola and Jude don't want her there. She would have shown up anyway and caused a scene but this isn't about her. It's about Nicola and her baby."

"Mom wouldn't have done that!" I protested. "And if you'd asked me not to tell—"

"You wouldn't have kept it secret, Juliet, and we knew that we couldn't trust you," Sophie said curtly, and walked away.

She hadn't meant to be mean, she was only worried, Addie explained when she came to smooth over the situation. But Addie had kept me away from here too and I didn't want to talk to her either, not if she wasn't saying sorry and explaining why she'd made such a terrible mistake. She didn't mention any of that, so I sat down in a chair away from them and tried to keep my stomach calm by not thinking of all the blood and gore that existed in a hospital. They clustered together and ignored me, and then Dad came running in—just as Nicola's husband also burst into the room where we were all waiting.

"It's a girl!" Jude told us and we started hugging and crying, and I temporarily forgot that I hated all of them. The night was long and happy, and I was glad I'd made it for the end. But I should have been there sooner, and I couldn't forget that.

And it wasn't an exaggeration to say that my mom was wrecked. She absolutely couldn't comprehend why my sisters had done this to her. "I'm the grandmother," she sobbed to me, and I nodded because I understood. They had tried to keep me away, too, so I knew how much it hurt. She insisted that everyone had to come to her house to discuss what had gone down and I told my sisters that the least they could do was show up after how they'd behaved.

"Mom, think of when we had the anniversary party for Grandma and Grandpa," Sophie said as we gathered in our parents' kitchen on Sunday morning. "Do you remember how you had a sound system set up so you could sing to the guests in French? They were burlesque songs and it was totally inappropriate, even if no one understood many of the lyrics. It wasn't your turn to shine, but it always becomes—"

"Your grandparents enjoyed that performance!" Mom told her, and Sophie stopped talking.

But Brenna chimed in with a story about one of her birthday parties going sideways after Mom had dressed as a clown. Even though she had scared a bunch of the little guests, she'd refused to take off the costume and the wig. Then Addie asked if I remembered how our mother had shown up at a graduation party that Patrick and I had attended. Mom had gatecrashed to hang out with teenagers, and had tried to lead everyone in a line dance. I hardly remembered and anyway, it had been a million years ago!

"You're deflecting to the past because you don't want to admit how mean you were just this weekend," I said angrily. After that, we were all yelling at each other and Brenna was particularly a brat to me. I was moving out of her studio today, I decided, and let her know, and she said it wasn't a moment too soon and also? She hated me.

Addie had already run away to the back yard, where Sophie's "friend" Daniel had Esme, and Sophie headed there as well. Things here in the kitchen were not going the way Mom wanted them to. No one was apologizing and no one was admitting any guilt. They seemed proud and glad about how terribly they'd treated her, and how they'd treated me. They were defiant and unrepentant and they didn't care about anyone's feelings at all.

Then it got worse.

"Patty's home," my mom said, checking her phone. Somehow, she was now able to see his location (which I was sure my brother wasn't aware of). She jumped up, leaving the breakfast she'd made but no one had touched, and hurried out to the front of the house. I followed and saw that unfortunately, my dad must have heard the arrival too. He'd come out of hiding in his office and was already standing in the driveway with his arms crossed. He and Patrick had never gotten along very well, because my brother had always been—well, Patrick wasn't actually a disappointment, but my dad acted as if he was.

I looked at my twin, seeing his red eyes, his dirty clothes, his greasy hair, and his shaking hands, and I felt my own sense of disappointment. I also felt a shaft of relief that he wasn't the one responsible for Esme because, holy Mary, he was a wreck. Dad was already laying into him about how Patrick was neglecting his responsibilities but they were both forgetting about Nicola, and I got furious.

"Nic had her baby!" I interrupted. "I told you about it, Patrick, and you didn't even come to see them! Why?"

He mumbled something about not wanting to go to the hospital and our father said it was just what he expected. "Can't you be an adult? Can't you grow up?" Dad asked bitterly, and our other sisters showed up from the back yard just in time to hear those humiliating questions.

"Fuck you!" Patrick suddenly screamed at the top of his voice. "Fuck you! You can't tell me what to do anymore."

"I've never been able to tell you anything. You never listened," Dad said, and Mom tried to intervene by explaining how Patrick had been suffering from a terrible situation.

"If he has, it's because he made it that way. He put himself exactly in this spot," my father answered.

"I'll never be good enough, right?" Patrick shouted. "I'll never be the son you wanted."

"That's not true, Patty!" Mom shot back, but Dad didn't say anything and I realized that my brother was going to break down. He had never let anyone but me see him do that, not since we were kids. He liked to pretend that he didn't ever cry but not too long ago, I'd been the one to hug him while he silently sobbed on my shoulder as he'd been hit with the realization that Liv was really gone from his life forever.

"Patrick, we can fix this," I said quietly, and held out my hand to him.

But then his expression flipped from sadness pure anger. He shoved Dad really hard and Sophie stepped right into the middle of it. She started bossing them and trying to control everything, just like she'd done at the hospital when they were hiding Nicola. Patrick swore again and shoved her, too—I had no idea he would put his hands on anybody, and now he was doing this?

"No!" I told him, but Sophie lost it. She hit him right in the face and he fell back onto the driveway. That was when all hell broke loose. Events occurred which I didn't want to think about and would never recount due to the shame of them.

An hour later, I was in my car on the way to Brenna's studio; not too long after that, I was driving away again. This time, the interior of my vehicle was so packed that I couldn't see any of my mirrors and the only visible window was the one in front, because I'd shoved some of my belongings in between the driver's seat and door, too. I drove as carefully as I had when I was delivering the envelopes but this time, I had no destination in mind.

I couldn't open the windows due to the stuff piled against them and it also blocked the vents, so I got hotter and more and more uncomfortable. I found my way to Grosse Pointe, a place I knew a lot better now, and I stopped at one of their nice parks. Families played and people were out to enjoy their summer weekend. I wondered what I should do next, and I didn't have a good answer. I was upset and tired and honestly, feeling a lot of pain in my face.

Then, thank goodness, I finally heard from Beckett. "What is your schedule like today?" he texted.

"It's totally open!" I answered, all too enthusiastically. "Be there soon." I was definitely interpreting his question as an invitation, but he didn't say no to that.

It was less than five minutes after that when I pushed the button on his gate, and just in case he was looking through the camera, I tilted my head away so that my face wouldn't be immediately visible to him. He was outside as I drove up, though, and I couldn't hide the injury for much longer.

When I opened my door, a makeup bag, several shoes, my purse, and a little folding table fell out onto his driveway, and he walked down the broad stone steps. "What is all this?" he asked. "Why is your car…Sweet Jesus!" he exclaimed, and I'd never heard him so loud. I had turned to look at him and he'd seen the result of the fight at my parents' house, and I knew that it was pretty bad. "What happened to you? What happened to your eye?"

Brenna had happened. I had jumped on Sophie so that she would stop hitting Patrick, her boyfriend Daniel had grabbed me, and the Brat had tackled me as I was being restrained. My chest and stomach were going to bruise, but it got worse. When I'd stood up, coughing, she'd hit me across the face. "We got in a fight," I started to explain, but there was a lot more than that. "Everyone is mad, and Sophie tried to kill Patrick. Brenna attacked me and my mom sprayed us with water." I tried to pick up some of my things as I talked but I kept dropping them back onto the carefully weeded pea gravel of the driveway, and my words emerged in a stuttering, jiggly stream that was probably hard to understand.

"Juliet, stop. Leave all that and come inside," Beckett told me, and now his voice sounded very gentle. He took the makeup bag from my hand and helped me to my feet. Instead of walking toward the "house," though, I leaned against him.

"They all hate me," I said. "My sisters and my brother. My mom, too, and my dad."

"What?" he asked, but when I didn't answer, he started making noises like "shh" and a little clucking sound. He patted my back a few times but he mostly let his arms hang at his side, and then he said, "There, there."

That was what made me straighten up and stop forcing him to comfort me. The awkward pats and the weird "there, there" showed that he just wanted me to get away and leave him alone. "Sorry," I announced, and cleared my throat. Sure, we were friends, but he was also my boss and although I was having trouble recalling the exact section in the employee handbook, I was sure it had something about "no hugs."

"It didn't bother me," he said.

"I'm also sorry about what happened on Friday at the office, when you were sick and I ran off. I have a weak stomach and I thought I might puke, too."

"I don't want to talk about that. Come with me and explain what happened today."

He still held the makeup bag as we walked slowly inside, where it didn't feel dark and depressing anymore. Maybe I was getting used to this house, because I was so glad to be here. I still wouldn't sit on any of the fancy furniture, but the couch in the study was perfect. I sank back into it and closed my eyes.

"I'm getting ice for you," he said.

"A bag of frozen vegetables works well," I called, but he only had fresh ones, and the ice he gave me was probably made of organic spring water. It felt great when I cautiously pressed the cold towel against my face. He got me a glass of that water to drink, too, and some unsalted pretzels, and a bowl of raw carrots (they crunched, but did not provide the comfort of chips).

It was so nice that I couldn't speak for a moment, not even to say thank you. When he ordered, "Explain, please," I finally pulled myself together.

I started with what had happened on Friday. I talked about Nicola going into labor and how no one had let me know until the last second. "Even Grace was there," I said bitterly. "They told everyone except for me and Mom." I talked about the meeting this morning, how my mother had wanted it to be pleasant and had very kindly made delicious pancakes, but how my sisters were unmoved. "They're not sorry for any of it," I told him, even more bitterly than before. Finally, I described how the family meeting had devolved into violence, and how several of us were bruised and battered.

I waited for his response and as I did, I decided that I shouldn't have said any of it. As time stretched, I also wondered how I was going to face him at the office tomorrow after I'd shamed myself.

"That's quite a story. It sounds…" But he trailed off, and seemed at a loss for how to express it.

"Low class," I filled in. "Trashy. Unbelievably embarrassing."

"I think I was searching for the word ‘hurtful.' Not just physically," he clarified. "I meant how you were excluded."

I nodded, because that was exactly right.

"Why would your sisters have done that?"

I'd been considering it as I sat at the park with my face pulsing in pain. "I used to think that they were jealous of my relationship with our mom. You know, I'm better friends with her than they are."

"They don't seem to even like her. Why would they want to be friends?"

"Exactly!" I said triumphantly. "Why wouldn't they like our mother? It's because they're so callous and mean!"

Beckett was a good lawyer. Carefully and skillfully, he asked more questions and drew out a lot more information, things I hadn't thought were important or even really remembered. I heard myself admit that our mother had given over a lot of child-rearing responsibilities to my oldest sister Nicola, as Mom had focused her time and energy on having more babies and on Patrick. I got some attention too, but it was only because everyone had considered us a package deal. I went where he went, which was how I'd started swimming. Mom had thought that my brother would like to be on the team but when he'd quit, the coach had told her that I needed to keep doing it. Nicola had arranged rides to get me to the practices.

I also told Beckett how I may have spilled a few secrets in the past. I had let our mother in on Sophie's plan in high school to hitchhike up north to see a gross cemetery. I'd found out about Addie wanting to dye her hair dark brown and had shared that as well. I'd let Mom know that Patrick's former hook-up was expecting a baby and that Nicola was pregnant, too. But she'd needed to hear it—she'd needed to know everything I'd told her over the years.

Beckett took in all that information and sat for a moment, thinking, before he spoke again. "You're a tattletale," he finally stated.

Of all the things I never expected to come out of his mouth, the word "tattletale" was near the top of the list. It took me a moment to recover from the shock of it before I could respond to the accusation. "What? No, I am not!" I told him.

"You are, but it's understandable," he stated. "You've been trying for years to attract the same love that your mother lavished on your brother. Her inattention was probably even more difficult for you than for your sisters, because you were able to witness first-hand that she was capable of care and affection. You were close to it but couldn't attain it for yourself. It's a very sad situation."

"No! No, that's not right!" I moved the ice away from my face and sat up straight to glare at him. "She loves me very much. She loves us all!"

"In her way, she does," he concurred. "You must admit, however, that she's a terrible parent. Now that you're an adult, you should be able to see that, and you'll have to relinquish your desire to be more important to her. You and your sisters are second-rate and you'll never be anything more, no matter how many times you betray their trust and tattle."

What was coming out of his mouth hurt a lot more than my black eye. "You know what? I hate you, too. I'm sorry I came here," I said. My voice was choked with anger.

"What? I can't understand you. Juliet, are you going to cry?"

No, I wasn't. I shook my head and stood up.

"Where are you going?"

Nowhere, that was the answer. I had nowhere to go since I'd alienated my family and I had no friends. Not even Beckett liked me anymore. I'd believed that I'd caught him looking at me in my bikini in a way that might have signaled interest (interest in something other than affirming that I'd properly buckled my life jacket). But obviously, that had been only wishful thinking on my part, because he hated me like everyone else did. I was a tattletale, an over-spender, a bad gambler, and an idiot. Just dumb.

"I can't imagine that you're returning to Brenna's apartment." He stood, too, and picked up the towel-wrapped ice. When he offered but I didn't take it back, he carefully held it to my eye. "She's clearly out of control."

"No, she isn't," I managed to say around my fingers. I had clamped my hand over my mouth when my lips had started trembling weirdly. Maybe Brenna was a brat, but she was still my sister and no one was going to insult her but me.

"In any case, you shouldn't go back there. Should we look for a hotel room?"

I shook my head. Hotels were too insecure. You never knew who might have been next door. "I'll stay with a friend." That meant my mother, but she had also been furious with me when I'd left their house because I'd participated in the fight. I had (by mistake) given Sophie's boyfriend a bloody nose with my head, just before Mom had turned the hose on all of us.

"You could stay with this friend," Beckett said.

"You mean yourself?" I asked. "You just finished saying that you hated me."

"Don't twist my words," he admonished sternly, but then his expression softened. "I was trying to explain why your sisters might be angry. I don't think that they hate you, either. They wouldn't have summoned you to the hospital if that were true. They also came to talk to your mother about the problem, so they clearly don't hate her."

"And she loves me," I reminded him.

"Of course she does," he agreed. "She unevenly distributes and inappropriately withholds her love, but she does feel it. She loves you whether or not you disclose your siblings' private information, and that strategy is ineffective at best. You should stop it, and they'll be much happier. You will be as well when your arguments with them decrease."

I swallowed. "I could stay here," I said, but it was more of a question.

"You could. I would be pleased to have you."

"Are you sure you have enough room?"

He laughed and I started to smile back before that trembling started again in my lips, and I had to cover them.

Beckett sat down on the couch. "I purchased a rack of ribs," he mentioned.

"Really? Can we talk about them now, or will you feel sick?"

"I'm fine," he told me. "I'm not sure about cooking them or whether they're fit for human consumption in the first place."

"They are. I looked up some recipes already." I sat down, too, but then hesitated. "Did you mean that, about me staying here? You really don't mind?"

"No. I wouldn't have said it if I minded. Do you want to see the grill?"

I did, but in a minute. I felt so tired—no, I felt drained. "Want to look at pictures of Nicola's baby first?"

"I would be pleased to see the latest cherry tomato in your family."

I scooted closer to show him, and it made sense (for spatial reasons) for his arm to go around my shoulders. It also made a lot of sense (for reasons I didn't determine) for me to put my head on his chest again and to close my good eye.

"There, there," he said and this time, it sounded soothing. It also felt that way when he carefully placed the ice against my bad eye and used his other hand to rub my arm.

He didn't hate me. I valued his judgement, too, and I decided that he might have been right about some of the things he'd said. "Thank you," I told him sleepily.

"For you, anytime."

I thought he added another word: "anything." But I was very tired. I was probably only hearing what I wanted to, rather than taking in the whole truth. And that was an issue I needed to fix in myself before I did something stupid again.