Anything Between Us (Starving Artists Book 3)

by Mila Ferrera

  Nope. “Hey, Aunt Cathy,” I say as I pad into the kitchen.

  “Is that the police?” Dad calls out.

  “It’s Cathy,” I tell him.

  “The police?” Cathy asks.

  “He’s been more paranoid lately,” I whisper.

  “Mom got like that,” she says, sounding mournful, which sinks my mood. “You should watch him more closely—he may start to wander more, too.”

  Great. No more nighttime runs for me. “Will do. So, Dad and I can’t come for dinner on October 21st. He has his Ann Arbor appointment that day, and it’s always tiring for him.” And completely exhausting for me.

  “Are you sure? It might be nice for you to get a little support after such a hard day.”

  No way. I usually just want to curl up in my bed and cry. “Maybe we can do it the week after?”

  “I’ll check with Bob,” she says, then pauses before asking, “Have his doctors talked to you about getting tested?”

  I laugh, but even to me, it sounds hollow. “Why on earth would I want to do that?”

  “I know it’s hard, Sasha. I know it’s frightening. I’ve been through it myself.”

  I want to end this conversation so badly that I have to force myself not to punch the icon to end the call. “What’s going to happen is going to happen. Knowing won’t change a thing.”

  “You could get some peace of mind.”

  Or a death sentence. “I’ve got peace of mind. Ignorance is bliss.”

  “But it keeps you from living your life,” she replies.

  Anger blooms like a poisonous flower inside me. “What did you just say?”

  “Nothing,” she says quickly. “It’s your choice.”

  “That’s right, it is. Let me know if you guys are available on the 28th.”

  “You could come the week before—the 14th”

  “No, I’ve got a party, actually. I was going to ask you about that.”

  “A party? That’s wonderful!” Her too-bright excitement makes me roll my eyes. “You need me to watch Tom?” she asks.

  “Could you?”

  “I’d love to! What kind of party?”

  “Birthday party for a friend.”

  “A special friend?”

  I groan. “No, Aunt Cathy. Just a friend.” It’s Daniel’s twenty-fifth, and Stella is tying herself in knots to make it perfect. But I’m pretty sure Nate will be there … I bite my lip. “If it’s too much trouble—”

  “It’s no trouble at all,” she says, sounding way too enthusiastic, another reminder that she thinks I have no life. Which is, sadly, true.

  I end the call with Cathy and check my phone. Nate hasn’t replied to my impulsive invitation to hang out, and I stomp down a swell of disappointment. I’m only trying to make sure he’s safe and sound. There’s nothing more to this than that.

  The text comes through at 3:34 p.m., as I’m sponging dust off a set of bone dry bowls in preparation for a coating of terra sigillata: Did you mean that?

  I drop my cloth and grab my phone. He’s been on my mind from the moment I opened my eyes this morning. I did. Where are you?

  A second later, I hear footsteps on the stairs, and Nate walks into the studio space. His gaze darts from stall to stall, as if he doesn’t want to be spotted. His hands are jammed into his pockets. But when his eyes find me, his face breaks into a sweet, gorgeous smile. “The shrink’s office is just up the street,” he says when he reaches me. “What are you up to?”

  I pat the bowl I was working on. “Getting these fellas ready for their coating of terra sig.”

  “Is that like a glaze?”

  “Sort of.” I walk over to my shelf and pull a bowl from the top rack, a powder blue one with a swirling design inside. “It gives it this buttery sheen, kind of muted. I was thinking of doing a couple of fall collections, some with terra sig and others with a more vibrant glazing.” I offer him the bowl, but he takes a slight step back as if he’s afraid it’s going to bite him. His hands haven’t come out of his pockets since he walked in. “You okay?” I ask.

  “My hands are a little shaky. I’d feel awful if I dropped it.”

  I put the bowl back on the shelf. “Let’s take a walk.”

  “You don’t have to, Sasha,” he says, glancing at his brother’s stall. “I’m meeting up with Daniel later. I’m fine.”

  “Does he know?” I ask.

  He bows his head. “Therapy isn’t really a thing we do, in our family. But he sort of hinted at it last week, like he thinks I’m nuts.”

  “But Stella …” I close my mouth. All I know is that she had some kind of breakdown at a show several months ago, and the rumors were that she was totally housebound. But now she seems fine, and I have trouble believing she did that without some professional assistance. Still—it’s not really my story to tell. Just like I won’t tell Daniel about Nate. “I think you might be surprised about his attitude these days,” I tell him as I wipe off my hands and grab my bag. “Let’s go.”

  Nate still looks hesitant. “You were working when I came in.”

  “And I’m done now.” I could have spent another hour here, but all of my bowls can wait until tomorrow, and my heart is beating faster than it has all day as I look him over. “Come on—this isn’t for you. I need the fresh air. Take me for a walk.”

  He smiles. “I’ll go get your leash.”

  I take his arm as we hit the top of the stairs, and Nate’s muscles go taut, but he doesn’t say anything. As we reach the bottom, though, Caleb strides out of one of the classrooms. His attention drops from our faces to our linked arms, and his eyebrows rise.

  “Hey, Caleb,” I say breezily as we walk past.

  “Hey,” Nate mutters. He’s quiet until we reach the sidewalk, and then he stops short. “Sasha …”

  I let go of his arm. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t want to be some project for you.”

  “What would make you think that?”

  He laughs, but the sound is sad. “Are you serious? Texting me multiple times a day just to make sure I haven’t found some creative way to off myself?” He takes a step away from me, turning his electric blue gaze to the sky. “I shouldn’t have come.”

  “I wanted you to.”

  “At least be honest. This isn’t about me.” Our eyes meet. His are so blue that I want to dive in.

  “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad,” I say quietly.

  He grimaces. “Don’t get me wrong—you’ve been really nice. And I’m grateful for that. I’ve needed it. But it’s hard for me, because I fucking light up inside every time I get a text from you, even though I know you’re not doing it because you want to know me. We both know that.”

  Frustration twists inside me. “Why else would I be texting you, Nate? You’ve noticed I’m kind of busy. It’s not like I make a practice of wasting my time.”

  He nods. “I get that. Which is what makes this feel even worse.”

  A pang hits me—how did I miss this, with all our playful texts this week? He was putting on a friendly show, maybe because he felt bad about how things went down last Sunday night. But the whole time, he’s been thinking I … what? That I was doing it out of some weird sense of obligation? “Did you come here to tell me to leave you alone?”

  His body is emanating tension. Like he wants to run but his feet are superglued to the ground. “That’s the last thing I want, Sasha. But this feels shitty. If it’s guilt that’s making you do this, I don’t want it.”

  “I don’t feel guilty,” I say, but it’s an obvious lie—the incredulous look on Nate’s face screams it loud and clear. “You think this is about Ryan.”

  “I didn’t want to say it, but yeah.”

  It feels like I’ve been punched, and I blow a breath from between my lips. “Okay. Let’s walk.” I stalk across the street, headed for the path that leads to the river, realizing what I need to do. It’s a risk, but I’ve decided Nate is worth it.

  I turn around to
see if he’s following. He’s not. He’s still on the sidewalk, hands in pockets. “You coming?” I ask.

  “I’m not talking about therapy, if that’s what you want me to do.”

  “You don’t know me well enough to know what I want.” I put my hands on my hips and tap my foot.

  He sighs and shakes his head, as if he’s questioning his judgment. When he moves toward me, it feels like I’ve won. “I’m kind of a mess, Nate,” I tell him when he reaches my side. “I don’t like to admit it, but I am.”

  His hand are still in his pockets as we trudge up the walk. It’s a gorgeous day, cool but bright, the leaves just starting to turn, and people are out in droves. Students play frisbee in the grassy lawns of Becker’s campus, and couples meander along the riverside path. Nate’s gaze scans back and forth as if he’s trying to spot snipers in the trees or behind the benches. I wonder what happened in that therapy session, but I’m not going to ask, not yet.

  I feel like I owe him this explanation first, because I understand what he’s saying about me feeling guilty. And he’s a little bit right. “Ryan and I started dating when we were juniors in high school,” I tell him. “He was my first everything. First love, lost our virginity together, all of it. But he enlisted after we graduated, and I went off to college. I was heartbroken at first, even though my mom said it was for the best.”

  He lets out a quiet laugh. “I did that to my high school girlfriend. Didn’t end well.”

  “We stayed together for years. Long distance relationship. He’d come home on leave, and we’d make up for lost time.” I pull the scrunchy out of my hair and let the wind blow it around my face as we reach the river’s edge. The water’s a deep navy color today, sparkling under the fall sunlight. “He was actually the one who first noticed there was something wrong with my dad.”

  “Yeah?” Nate flinches as a car door slams nearby. He seems to be listening to me, but another part of him seems far away.

  I continue, hoping that confessing my own sins will bring him back. “He told me that my dad kept forgetting his name. He thought it was funny. Said that on the fifth time, he just started telling him different names. Like it was a joke.”

  “For real?”

  “Honestly, it might not be fair, but that’s when my feelings for him really started to change.” My fingers clench around the strap of my purse. “My granny had Alzheimer’s too, so I knew what it might be.” I remember how badly I wanted Ryan to be wrong. I also remember deciding that I could never be with someone who would do that—making up names just to mess with someone who genuinely seemed to have memory issues. And that was about more than my dad. “I should have broken up with him then, but he was about to deploy, and we’d been together for so long …”

  “I’ve heard this part a few times before,” Nate says.

  “Oh, am I boring you?”

  “Not what I meant,” he replies, and for the first time, he pulls a hand from a pocket, just to poke me in the arm.

  It makes me smile, even though I’m talking about a miserable stretch of my past. “I wanted to support him, even as my doubts grew. And besides, he was right. My dad was officially diagnosed about six months later.”

  “Must have been hard.”

  “I didn’t tell Ryan about it. I didn’t want to upset him or give him more to worry about. He was in a dangerous place, putting his life on the line. He was in an armored vehicle that got hit by an IED—”

  “Shit. He was injured?”

  “Just shaken up.”

  “Just shaken up. Got his bell rung but he was fine. Yeah.” Skepticism drips from every word.

  “He said he got checked out and okayed for duty. We all wanted to believe he was okay. Am I bothering you, telling you about this?”

  “I’m good as long as we keep walking.”

  So we keep walking, though I can’t tell if he’s here with me or somewhere on his own, deep in his mind. I don’t know if I’m driving him further away or drawing him out, but I press on. “He came home on leave in late August of that year. I had just graduated and was trying to decide whether to get a job or try to make it as an artist. And he asked me to marry him.”

  “Was he different, after the deployment?”

  “Maybe? Honestly, everything seemed different. I was different, too. My mom had moved to Kalamazoo with her new boyfriend. My dad had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s—and he was only in his mid-fifties. And me, I was kind of a mess, trying to figure out how to adult.”

  “So you turned him down.”

  “Right on this river walk, to be specific.”

  “Shit,” he says again. “You want to walk somewhere else?”

  “Five years ago, I would have said yes,” I tell him. “But I forced myself to walk here every day until it felt okay again. I’ve always loved this place.” It’s my lunchtime escape when the lakeshore is too far. “I didn’t want to lose it.”

  “My therapist told me I’d have to learn not to avoid places and people that remind me of what happened,” he says, looking spooked. “He also said I’d have to talk about what happened to me over there.”

  I’m quiet for a moment, giving him space to say more, but his hands are jammed in his pockets again, like he regrets even saying that much. “Ryan had told his parents we were getting engaged,” I say after a minute or so of silence. “They were so happy.”

  “Wait—before he even asked you?”

  “We’d been together a long time,” I explain. “Everyone expected us to get engaged as soon as I graduated. I wanted to support him, and I hadn’t told him everything that was going on with me. And he hadn’t asked, because he’d needed to focus on himself.” The wave of sadness and guilt rises inside me, overcoming the detachment I try to cling to. “I guess I was being dishonest, but at the time, I was trying to do the right thing.”

  When my voice cracks, Nate’s hands come out of his pockets again, but it looks like he’s not sure what to do with them.

  “I’d been trying to figure out how to break up with him,” I continue. “And I guess it was so real in my head that I didn’t realize he didn’t feel it, too. He knew something was wrong, but he thought he could fix it by proposing.”

  “Ouch,” Nate whispers.

  “His parents had arranged a whole engagement party for the day before he shipped off again.”

  He grunts. “It was a trap.”

  “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to hurt him or his parents. They treated me like a daughter, and to be frank, neither of my parents was really there for me at that point.”

  “So it was like you had to break up with all of them at once.”

  “Except I didn’t. He said it would be too hard on them if we broke up right before he left for Afghanistan again. He asked me to give them this one thing. He begged me to play along. He said we’d deal with it when he got back.”

  Nate stops so quickly that I’m a few steps ahead before I register that he’s not looming by my side anymore. “He asked you to pretend to be engaged to him?”

  “I felt so guilty that I agreed,” I admit.

  “Oh, fuck,” he says. “Then he …”

  “Shot himself, yeah. That night, after he dropped me off.” My eyes burn, and I rush to the railing that separates the sidewalk from the riverbank. My cold fingers wrap over it, drawing heat from the sun-warmed metal. “He survived, though,” I murmur as I stare at the water.

  Nate stands next to me, his hands on the railing next to mine. “But you said—”

  “I said he killed himself, and he did.” I grit my teeth and then force myself to speak the real, unforgivable truth. “But it took him a week to die. His parents had to decide to take him off life support. They asked me to help make the final decision.”

  “Because they thought you were his fiancée.” Nate sounds like he’s going to be sick.

  “If they knew the truth,” I say softly, “I don’t think they’d ever forgive me. Because they were so grateful to me, Nat
e. So grateful for sticking by him for those years, and even that week. They thought I was some kind of saint when I was anything but.” I’ve never admitted this to anyone. Not to a single soul. Not even to my parents. I barely know why I’m telling Nate.

  “His parents bought me my kiln,” I add. “The one in the studio—anyone can use it and all the students get to fire their pieces in there, but it’s actually mine. It’s so expensive it would have taken me years to be able to afford one myself.”

  “And let me guess—you feel guilty every time you use it.”

  “I don’t know anymore. It’s more like … a penance. A reminder of what I did. I can’t avoid it because it’s right there.”

  “That’s fucked up,” he says. “But I get it.” He seems to be looking down at the tattoo on his arm, confirming some of my suspicions. “Did you go to therapy?”

  My silence is his answer.

  Nate nudges me with his shoulder. “I’m not gonna call you a hypocrite, but …”

  “The truth is, I never felt like I deserved any comfort, okay? I didn’t get deployed. I didn’t get attacked by the enemy. And I didn’t get broken up with by the person I expected to spend the rest of my life with. Can you get that?” My fingers are gripping the railing so hard that my knuckles hurt, but it feels like I’ll spin away into nothing if I let go. I glare at the water as I admit every sin, even as I realize that I’m not telling Nate this for him, not anymore. I’m spitting it all out like he’s my confessor, and a damned good listener at that.

  “I got to sit at home, living my life, planning a future that didn’t include him. I got to decide how it would go, and I waited too long. I was a coward.”

  “You were going to beat yourself up no matter how it went,” he says.

  I turn to him, my cheeks hot. “You think you know me?”

  “Not as much as I want to.” He looks down at me. “But enough to know that you think of everyone else before you think of yourself.”

  My mouth opens and shuts. “Well. No. That’s not—”

  “I know what I see,” he says, turning his body so we’re facing each other. “I’ve listened to every word you’ve said.”