13. Leyland

Leyland

FRIDAY—3:42 A.M.

Please forgive me. I can’t go out with you.

With my foot propped up on the table in my studio, I read her text a few times, trying my best to understand the message buried beneath it. Because there was one; I had no clue why I felt that way, but my gut told me so.

I typed out a few responses, but none of them felt right. After the last attempt, I decided to call her instead. The phone rang for so long I almost thought she wouldn’t answer, but then it stopped and a soft sigh filled my ears.

“Hi,” she muttered.

There was a tremble in her voice that made me drop my foot to the floor.

“What’s wrong, tiny?”

“Um…” Clementine cleared her throat. “I’m okay. Just exhausted and in need of sleep, but I didn’t want to do that before answering your phone call.”

I sat quietly with the phone pressed to my ear, not knowing what to say but wanting to keep her on the phone for as long as I could until I figured it out. And she didn’t say a peep about it, which made me wonder if silence was all she needed from me.

Same as before , I thought.

There hasn’t been a detail about her personally that I’d gotten wrong yet.

So, I attempted to try something and pulled my phone away to send a text after placing it on speaker.

You don’t have to say it, but I know something is wrong. I feel it even though I can’t see your face.

It only took a second to see she was replying, and the message came shortly after.

Is this something we’ve done before?

Whenever we had an argument and couldn’t express ourselves face to face, we sent texts instead. It worked.

I propped my foot up again and waited patiently. As long as she stayed on the phone with me, it meant she wanted to talk—to open up about what was bothering her.

Did you ever raise your voice at me?

Never. It’s one of your deal breakers.

She sighed into the phone and said, “I really don’t like to feel cornered; it reminds me... maybe you already know.”

It reminded her of foster care.

Not everyone has bad experiences in the system, but Clementine’s wasn’t ideal. She spent a lot of time in survival mode, never sure when her foster dad would wreak havoc on the household. And because he wasn’t physically abusive, she and the other kids there refused to speak up about it.

Being yelled at was better than being touched , she’d said one time.

“I want to learn you again, tiny. Whatever you think I might know, pretend I don’t.”

She snorted.

“That won’t be easy, but I can try.”

“Nothing beats a failure but a try,” I mused, choosing then to ask one of the two questions wracking my brain. “Why can’t you go out with me anymore?”

“Are you upset?” she asked instead of filling me in on the change of heart.

It made me smile; Clementine had always been a strong deflector, but I was her biggest adversary when it came down to it.

“How could I be? I want to spend the day with you, but sometimes shit happens. The primary goal hasn’t changed, whether we see one another tomorrow, next week or next year.”

“Remind me what the goal is?”

“First, I want you to see me as your confidant,” I said without hesitation. “Someone you can tell anything to without fear of judgment.”

“You want my deepest, darkest secrets to be yours.”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I do, but only when you want them to be.”

“But you already—”

“Aye, what I say?”

She burst into laughter and it had so much soul to it, so much of everything that made my delusional mind believe it had healing properties. Like it could heal me in ways neither of us could fathom.

“Right, you know nothing yet,” she mused wistfully. “I want to go out with you, but tonight I was reminded how ethically wrong dating a former patient is.”

I nodded as if she could see me, understanding her plight.

“All of my paperwork and prescriptions had Dr. James Roker’s name on them,” I reminded her softly. “You saw to me on his behalf and I know it’s like straddling a fence, but the selfish part of me had to say it.”

She was silent for what felt like a lifetime.

“Truthfully, the patient-doctor thing didn’t bother me. I know deep down that even though we are straddling a fence, this wouldn’t become an issue for the hospital. But…”

I frowned.

“What else did he say?”

“Who?”

“You know who, Clementine. Only one person would want to remind you I was a patient, but there’s this feeling he did or said something else that has you ready to bolt on me.”

She sighed, and it was deep, so full of frustration.

“I can tell you anything, right? That’s what you said.”

I dropped my foot and sat up a little.

“That’s what I said and meant.”

“James said we should take a break, and I agreed,” she revealed. “It felt more final than us simply taking time to figure out what we want; he’s moving out and yesterday he was here when I got home. We had… a talk.”

An argument is what she meant.

He more than likely raised his voice since she asked if I’d ever done it.

I looked around my studio, contemplating my next move.

“You’re feeling off about the conversation, is that it?” I asked as I stood and moved to the other side of the room. “Now, maybe you feel off about me too?”

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

“No apology needed. I’m not asking to make you feel guilty, only to understand how I should move going forward. Do you want to meet for coffee at six?”

I looked at my watch and then grabbed my keys off the hook.

“It’s almost five,” I went on as I locked the studio door and ambled off to my truck. “Jasper’s is about to open and it’ll be empty for the first hour or two.”

“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of canceling the date?”

My lips curled at the sassy note dancing in her tone as my phone connected to the stereo.

“Not if you look at it as two people meeting to discuss business.”

“Two people meeting to discuss business,” she parroted slowly. “What business do we have?”

I drove toward home, needing to wash the scent of paint from my body before seeing her.

“The kind that requires me to look the other person in the eyes. I need to see you in order to see you …” I shook my head. “I don’t know if that makes sense but—”

“It does,” she cut in. “And because I understand, I won’t be able to tell you no.”

“Go ahead,” I coaxed gently, thumb brushing the steering wheel incessantly. “Tell me yes, baby.”

Time moved slowly, but then there was a soft release of breath and just as softly, she responded with a definitive, “Yes. I’ll meet you at Jasper’s in an hour.”

Maybe we wouldn’t get our full day on Saturday, but I had this weird, stirring feeling that our encounter this morning would be worth so much more.

Clementine and I ended our call just before I made it home. If I’d been thinking clearly, I might’ve remembered I had a guest who was an early riser, which meant there was someone padding around my home waiting to be all up in my business.

“Well, well, well,” Ophelia sang with a coffee mug in hand as I tried to pass the kitchen without stopping. “Look what the cat drug in.”

I paused and backtracked a few steps to address her.

“I have about ten minutes to spare. Ask me now or never.”

She took a few sips before jumping up to meet me across the room.

“You don’t look like you’ve been working all night.”

“Is that a question or…”

“Come on, Ley,” she all but whined, reminding me of how spoiled she could be. “You said you met your person, but then you shut down all my attempts to learn more about her. Duke wouldn’t even reveal anything, and that says a lot because he’s a big gossiper.”

I looked at my watch, and she huffed.

“Will you let me meet her soon?”

“Yeah,” I said, starting for the stairwell. “But only after you and Duke stop pretending. I know you’re afraid he might not feel the same, but I saw the way he looked at you yesterday before I left.”

Like he was waiting for her and not the other way around.

But that wasn’t for me to help with, not when I had my own love life to fix—to rebuild from scratch.