Anything Between Us (Starving Artists Book 3)

by Mila Ferrera

Cathy puts her arm around my shoulders. “This is the nicest place in town,” she tells me. “They take really good care of the residents. Mom loved it here.”

  “Did she even know where she was at that point?” I mutter.

  “Greg, tell Sasha about the garden.”

  “Oh, we’ll take you out there after we tour the unit, but we’ve got a thriving veggie garden in the spring and summer. Flowers, too. Residents love spending time out there, with views of the grounds and the river beyond it. It’s like its own little paradise! And volunteers from Becker’s landscape architecture program maintain it for free, and they do all sorts of programs for our residents, too. It’s really a wonderful system.”

  Cathy nods and smiles. “And tell her about the food.”

  “We also partner with Becker for our culinary program,” he says proudly. “I hope you’ll join us for meals in our dining room. It’s like being in a four-star restaurant, for every meal!”

  “And Medicare pays for this?” I ask.

  “Along with your dad’s long-term disability insurance,” Cathy reminds me. “Thank God he got that when Mom was diagnosed.”

  I blink at her. “Wait. He knew?”

  She shrugs. “He knew there was a family history—his grandfather went senile young.”

  “His grandfather killed himself, didn’t he?” I remember this story pretty well. My mom told it to me when I was way too young to hear it.

  Greg the clinical director looks pained as we reach the locked doors of the Neuro unit, still chatting about Dad’s grandpappy and how he ended his life. This unit is the place for people like my dad, people who don’t know where they are, who are too paranoid to stay put.

  Ten days ago, I installed a child safety lock on the front door, just like Nate suggested.

  Two days ago, Dad took a hammer to it at six in the morning.

  Greg types in a code, and the doors slowly swing outward, beeping steadily as they move. “Only fourteen residents live here,” he says in a hushed voice. “We keep the numbers low so they can have all the attention they need and deserve.”

  I look around. There’s a central desk, at which sits a jolly looking woman with pink cheeks and shiny skin. “That’s Rebecca,” Greg says. “She’s the shift manager and our registered nurse for the day.”

  “Isn’t this nice?” Cathy asks me. “Look, the skylights!”

  Because I’m trying not to be a bitch, I glance upward. “Yay,” I say weakly. “Nice.”

  It’s not bad, actually. There’s a large aquarium along one wall, filled with colorful fish and undulating plants that may or may not be plastic. The windows are nice. The light is good. When Greg shows us to the empty bedroom that could soon be my father’s, I take in the hospital bed, the chair, the table, the private bathroom.

  Greg tells me how they try to help the residents stay independent for as long as possible but provide assistance whenever it’s necessary. He talks about safety and mobility and social programs when residents feel up to it. He talks about “cognitive exercise” sessions supposed to help keep aging brains going for as long as possible.

  All I can think is that I’ve failed.

  Oh, and that this is my future. Probably sooner rather than later, because I won’t have anyone to take care of me. I’ve been madly painting myself into a corner for the last several years. And the one person determined enough to make his way to me—two weeks ago, I stabbed him right in the heart. I made damn sure he’d never want to reach out to me again. So here I am. Looking at my future bed. In my future room. In my future locked ward.

  Assuming I can afford it.

  “Sasha, are you all right?” Cathy asks. She sounds so far away.

  “Maybe she’d like to sit down?” This is Greg, leaning into my field of vision, waving his hand in front of my face. He looks like he’s standing at the end of a long, narrow tunnel.

  Before I realize what’s happening, I’m sitting on the empty, unmade bed and Rebecca the nurse is strapping a blood pressure cuff around my arm. I jerk to my feet, startling all of them. “I’m fine,” I say in a shrill voice.

  “You’re pale as a sheet,” Cathy says, clutching at my arm. “I thought you were going to faint.”

  “I just need some air …” I tug the blood pressure cuff off my arm and hastily shove it at Rebecca before jogging from the room. Greg rushes past me, mumbling about the security code, and he punches it in to allow me to escape the unit. By the time I hit the hall, I’m running. I burst into the snowy day in a flurry of flakes. It’s only a few days before Thanksgiving, but Christmas lights are already up all along Main Street and in the windows of the houses and businesses along this block, which is closer to the river and just two blocks away from the co-op.

  I’d be able to come over here every day and visit Dad.

  The cold descends, icy breeze slipping up my sleeves and down my back. But I barely notice—I’m just trying to breathe. I double over, bracing my hands against my knees as stars dance in my vision.

  “Sasha?”

  I raise my head and feel my heart stop. Nate is striding toward me, his eyes wide. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” I squeak. A blast of winter air buffets us, and I shiver. “I … left my … coat.” I incline my head toward the building I just walked out of. The Riverside Manor.

  I sound like I’m losing my mind. Between the last two weeks and the gut punch of having Nate next to me after days of grief, I can barely speak. In fact, I sound as confused as my dad.

  Nate doesn’t question this state of affairs. He glances at the building while he unzips his coat, strips it off, and wraps it over my shoulders. Then he flashes a devastatingly sweet smile that almost makes me burst into tears. “You’ll probably be able to talk a little better when your teeth aren’t chattering like that.”

  I look him over. He’s wearing jeans and a long sleeve black athletic shirt that says U.S. Army down one arm. His blond hair is still growing out, revealing a slight curl against his temples and the nape of his neck. Did I fail to notice these little changes before? It hasn’t been that long, but it feels like a lifetime. I have the urge to take his face in my hands and examine every curve and angle, every freckle and flaw. “Thank you,” I murmur.

  Why are you being nice to me?

  His smile fades as he gestures at the manor’s facade. “Is Tom …?”

  “He will be.” I pull Nate’s jacket closer around me. It’s still warm from the heat of his body, and it smells like him. It’s all I can do not to press my nose into the fabric and inhale. “He got so paranoid a few days ago that he bashed the safety lock with a hammer.”

  Nate’s mouth drops open. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s in the hospital,” I admit. “He fell in the driveway.” I heard the commotion and made it downstairs a few seconds too late.

  “Shit. Did he break anything?”

  “Just bruised, thank God. Twisted his ankle a little. They’re going to discharge him straight here.”

  Because I couldn’t handle it. I wasn’t enough.

  He looks up at the building. “Is it a good place?”

  “Seems okay,” I mumble.

  “Close to the co-op.”

  “Yeah.” I look up at him, wondering what would happen if I closed the distance, coiled my arms around his waist, and pressed my head to his chest. Would he push me away?

  Why on God’s green earth would he do anything else? I remember every word I spat at him that night, each one a bullet. I have no doubt he does, too. But Nate is polite. And he doesn’t always show people what’s going on inside him.

  Only people he trusts, and people he loves.

  I’m neither, anymore.

  “You have plans for the holidays?” he asks as Cathy comes bursting out the front doors, her eyes wild. My coat is slung over her arm.

  “Sasha, are you all right?” Her gaze slides between me and Nate and settles on his coat, wrapped tight around my body. A flicker of a smile pulls at her mouth.
“Nate,” she says. “It’s so nice to see you again.”

  “Hey, Cathy,” he says, giving her a little wave.

  “You’re such a gentleman, but you must be turning to a popsicle,” she says to him, grinning.

  “Oh, crap, I’m sorry.” Reluctantly, I shuck Nate’s coat and hand it back to him, exchanging it for my own.

  “I was afraid you’d already be at the co-op,” she says.

  I pull my phone out of my coat pocket. I have a class of middle schoolers in five minutes. “I’d better get going.” I turn to Nate. There are so many things I want to say, but none of them are appropriate in front of Cathy.

  He gives me a remote, friendly smile. “Good seeing you. Hope you have a great Thanksgiving.”

  I parrot the words back to him, tell Cathy I’ll see her tonight to go over the manor’s payment agreement, and then flee to the co-op, still seeing stars.

  I zombie-walk through my class, instructing the kids to sculpt something that makes them think of the holidays. I mumble comments and give a few pointers, and as soon as the class is over, I flee to my studio without staying to talk to their parents like I usually do. I check my phone to see if anyone has placed an order over Etsy—when I threatened to pull my pieces from her boutique, Yelena backed off her ridiculous request to take a cut on all my work—and I settle in to pack a few orders.

  I’m bubble-wrapping a set of blue-glazed bowls when a shape looms in my periphery. Startled, I glance over to see Daniel leaning against my work table. “Have a minute?” he asks.

  “What’s up?”

  He sits down on the floor across from me, his shaggy blond hair falling over somber blue eyes. “I want to preface this by telling you that if Nate knew I was going to say any of this, he’d most definitely kick my ass.”

  My heart picks up its pace, and my cheeks bloom with heat. “Daniel, did he—”

  “He didn’t say much, okay? He respects your privacy. So do I.”

  I relax a little. “So maybe you should respect his, too?”

  He laughs and shakes his head. “Oh, no. I don’t work like that. I’m still his big brother. And these days I’m aiming to at least be slightly above average in that department.”

  Looking at Daniel hurts, because now that I know them both well, his resemblance to Nate is apparent in the angle of his jaw, the slope of his nose, the color of his eyes. I focus on taping the bubble wrap. “Nate and I aren’t really hanging out anymore,” I say quietly. “So …”

  “Yeah, Sasha. I know. And whatever your reasons for that, it’s fine. Your business. But when he told me about how it went down, there was something I couldn’t let go of. And trust me, I’ve spent the last two weeks trying.”

  I look over at him.

  “Whatever you think of him,” he says. “You have to know how strong he is. He’s always been that way, a kind of strong that’s not loud, and not braggy or obvious. He was this quiet, serious kid who only opened his mouth when he had something real to say. He never trash-talked anyone, but goddamn if he couldn’t hold his own even when he was outweighed and outmatched. Just gutted it out each time. And then he turned into a quiet, serious man who has dealt with some seriously scary shit and doesn’t back down from anything.”

  I flinch at the word man. It tells me Nate told him that I called him a boy. It confirms what I already knew—that bullet hit home, in the way I intended but never meant.

  “He said you didn’t think he could handle himself,” Daniel continues. “He said you didn’t think he could handle whatever’s happening between you two. And I just needed to say—if that’s what you think, you never really knew him. And you’re seriously underestimating him.” Daniel gets to his feet and scrapes his hair out of his eyes. “That was it. Thanks for letting me say it.”

  He turns back toward his own stall. “Oh. And can I ask you a favor?”

  I raise my eyebrows, unable to speak quite yet.

  “If you happen to mention to him that I said any of this to you, can you give me a heads up? I need to flee the state before he hunts me down.”

  Despite myself, I laugh. “Yeah,” I whisper. “I’ll text you.”

  He grins. “Excellent. Stella extends her gratitude and will be by with cookies tomorrow. She was afraid for my life.”

  “Not sure I deserve those, but thanks.”

  His smile fades a little. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on for you, but I’m here, okay? We’re all here if you need us. Me, Stella, Romy, Caleb—you have friends, if you want them.”

  My chest aches as I absorb that sincerity. It reminds me so much of Nate that I have to turn away before I tell him that I’m considering giving up this space and working out of my house to save money. “Thanks, Daniel,” I say hoarsely, wishing I were better at holding myself together.

  “Hi, guys,” says Nora as she breezes in, mercifully breaking the tension. She’s bundled in a giant puffy coat, boots over leggings, scarf and gloves and a hat with ear flaps.

  Daniel laughs. “It’s barely snowing.”

  “I’m from the desert! This is like the Arctic.”

  Her buoyant smile lifts my mood. “I can already tell that Nora’s going to need the space heater more than the rest of us this winter,” I say to Daniel.

  She unwinds a woolly purple scarf from her neck and the lower half of her face. “You guys are the best. My hands get stiff in the cold, which is bad when I’m trying to work.” She waves a pair of needle-nosed pliers at us before fixing me with a bright, wide-eyed gaze. “And I have all my holiday orders to make.” She waggles her eyebrows at me. “So I guess I’d better get to work.”

  I exchange baffled looks with Daniel. “Great,” I say. “Me, too.”

  I lose myself in etching and stamping three sets of leather hard bowls that’ll be headed to the kiln for their first firing the day after Thanksgiving. My music thumps in my ears as I work, and in these minutes, I forget everything else. I haven’t lost this yet. With any luck, I won’t for a long time. They told me I had no cognitive symptoms, and that staying healthy and active might help me stave them off for longer. They told me new medications are coming on the market every year. They told me there was a lot of reason to hope.

  It’s hard to feel that, when I’m with my dad. It’s hard to feel anything but grief and fear. But he needs me, and I won’t abandon him. I’ll stay next to him until he forgets me, and then I’ll be the friendly stranger who still shows up every day.

  Somewhere in there, I have to figure out how to live this life.

  Slowly, I resurface, checking the time to make sure I can get to the hospital to visit Dad before he goes to sleep for the night, and then it’s off to Cathy’s to talk finances. It’s after six, and I’d better get going. My back aching and my neck stiff, I pull the earbuds out.

  And I instantly hear Nate’s voice again. I poke my head out of my studio and see him standing in Nora’s stall, leaning on her work table. His head is bowed, and I can’t see his expression. She’s looking up at him with an adoring gaze. Her hand is on his arm as they talk quietly.

  Swallowing the lump in my throat, I quietly slip on my coat and scoot for the door, praying neither of them see me.

  My phone buzzes as soon as I hit the ground floor, and I look down at the screen. It’s a text from Aunt Cathy, asking me about my ETA for tonight. At the end, she tacks on one more comment: What an adorable, handsome boy!!!

  I slip my phone into my purse without replying. I know who she’s talking about.

  She’s right about two things and wrong about one. Nate is adorable. And he’s handsome, though that word doesn’t really begin to describe his appeal, physical or otherwise.

  But he is most certainly not a boy.

  Nathan Van Vliet is a man. One whose heart I broke in order to protect us both.

  And with every hour that passes, I wonder if that was the biggest mistake of my life.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Nate

  I
show up at three o’clock sharp, because I know she’s teaching over at the co-op now. Her class lasts forty-five minutes, so that’s the time I have.

  I’m not doing this to upset her. I’m doing this for me. And for him, for whatever it’s worth. It’s the third time I’ve been here this week.

  “It’s so nice of you to visit the day before Thanksgiving,” says the attendant as she leads me down the hall. My little visitor badge flaps against my chest. “So many people travel for the holidays.”

  “My family is local. It’s not a big deal.”

  “I saw you were on a list of friends,” she says to me. “How do you know him?”

  “Met him over breakfast a few months ago,” I say, smiling.

  She’s polite enough not to ask more questions, which I appreciate.

  The door of the locked unit swings outward, revealing its quiet residents and their enclosed world. Tom sits at one of the small tables, his walker at his side. His hair is wet but combed. I smile as I approach him. “Hey, Tom. How’s it going?”

  He blinks up at me. “Do I … know you?”

  “I’m Nate, sir.”

  “Ah.” Doesn’t look like it rings any bells.

  “Want to play some checkers?”

  “Why … not,” he says.

  I walk over to a shelf and pull the game from a stack. When I return to the table, he says, “What’s your … name?”

  “It’s Nate, sir. Which color do you want?”

  He looks down at the board and taps a red checker. I set us up. Cathy said he liked to play, so it’s now our game. I gesture for him to go first, but he says, “Black first.” His voice is halting, like he has to dig around for every other word.

  I make my move, and then we’re playing. “What’s your name?” he asks after a few minutes.

  I let out a breath. “It’s Nate, sir. I’m the guy who’s in love with your daughter.”

  He grunts. “You’re the … one, eh?”

  My gaze flicks from the array of checkers to the man in front of me. “Well. I wish I was.”

  “She love you back?”

  “I honestly don’t know, sir. I’m also not sure it matters. I feel the way I feel.”