I stood in the doorway while they hunched over a spreadsheet on Patrick's screen, and waited. Shannon noticed me first, and then elbowed Patrick. "Hey, what's up?" she asked. She settled into her chair and he sat on the edge of her desk.
"I can't be here anymore," I said.
Shannon and Patrick exchanged quick glances, and she grabbed a pen from the silver jar beside her laptop. She was a compulsive tapper; it was what she did when the silences turned uncomfortable.
"Would you care to explain that one?" she asked.
I shifted the bag to my other hand with a sigh. "I'd like to take some time off. I've finalized designs and detailed notes for all of my projects, and I've left them all for Riley. Everything is on my desk, and backed up on the server." Shifting again, I ran my hand through my hair and the motion immediately brought back every memory of Tiel's fingers sliding over my scalp. "I need to be away from here. Please."
Shannon and Patrick exchanged another glance, and spoke simultaneously.
"How long are we talking?" she said.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
Patrick sent her a scowl over his shoulder, and she murmured, "It's not an unreasonable question, Patrick."
"No, I'm not okay." It was good to get it out, give it voice. I'd been pretending to be all right for so long, it felt like a vindication to finally say it out loud. "I'm really fucked up, and I need to go. I'm not sure how long."
Shannon tossed her pen back in the jar. "But Riley—"
"Riley is more than capable. Matt trained him well, and we don't need to treat him like an idiot. He can do this, and he deserves the opportunity to succeed on his own. I've written a letter to the Turlans—it's on my desk—and they'll be happy with Riley's work. This project will make his career."
She clasped her hands on her desk and stared at them, nodding slowly.
"What do you need from us?" Patrick asked.
I shook my head. "Nothing. Just…time. Time to get my shit together."
"Where are you going?" he asked.
I rubbed the back of my neck and hesitated. I didn't want my well-intentioned siblings to show up and ruin the solitude I required, but I knew boxing them out wasn't fair either.
"I'm going camping. I'm thinking Acadia, but maybe the Kancamagus. I haven't decided, and I probably won't until I hit the road."
"You'll let us know if you need anything? If there's anything we can do?" he asked.
"There's nothing, Patrick. I just need to be alone."
The city was as empty as I felt, and the drive home was oddly quick. I went straight into packing mode. I kept all of my gear in one of the closets alongside the original fire truck bays, and soon I had everything loaded into the old pickup I reserved for these adventures.
I didn't need much else; some clothes, some books, enough medical supplies for several weeks. Maybe months.
I was tossing my rucksack into the truck when Riley walked in. He pointed to the equipment in the truck's bed. "What is happening here?"
I lifted a shoulder and shrugged into my fleece jacket. "I'm taking off."
"Oh no you're not," he laughed. "Go on. Tell me another silly story."
Leaning against the truck, I slipped on my wool socks and hiking boots. "I'm heading up north. I want to spend some time in the woods. Breathe some clean air. You're in charge of Turlan, and the rest of my projects. Keys to the Range Rover are on the kitchen table. Utilities are paid for the next—"
"Stop. Stop." He held up his hands and advanced on me. "This is crazy. Turlan is your baby, and Patrick will never go for me managing any project that important, and you were having a seizure in the fucking hospital one week ago, and if you'd just fucking listen to me, we could figure out how to fix things with Tiel."
"He already knows, and you can handle it." I turned away to tie down the gear.
"Sam," he said. "Are you even going to tell her?"
"No," I murmured. "She's better off without me. I think that's abundantly clear to everyone."
His shoulders dropped and he shook his head. He watched as I secured the truck and shut the closet, silent. "Do you have enough insulin? Glucose tablets? What about replacement parts, and those little batteries?"
"All set."
"What about food? Do you need cash?" He reached for his wallet and offered up sixty dollars. I refused, but he shoved it into my coat pocket anyway. "Do you have a phone charger? You better fucking call me every day, or I'm going to find you and kick the snot out of you."
I smiled in spite of myself. "There's terrible reception up north. Most of Maine is a dead zone. I couldn't call you every day unless I was camping in downtown Portland, and I'd rather not talk to another person for at least two weeks."
He crossed his arms and glared at me. "Are you going into the woods to detox from Tiel, or are you going to do something stupid?"
The keys dangled from my fingers while I considered my response. I didn't know what was going to happen when I got in the truck, and I liked it that way. I just wanted to go and be gone. I'd figure out the rest later.
"I need to listen to the earth for a little bit," I said. I never understood what Tiel meant until I needed it, too. "That probably sounds really lame, but I need less noise. I need to understand some things, and I can't do that here."
He crawled into the bed of the truck, pawing through my gear. "Call me. Just fucking call me. I won't tell Shannon or anyone, but dude, you can't go all Into the Wild on me now."
"I won't," I said, and Riley pulled me into a bear hug. "Take care of my properties. I'll tear off your arm and beat you with it if you fuck up Turlan."
He smiled, clapping me on the back in a tight man-hug. He watched as I pulled out of the firehouse, waving from the curb.
I didn't know where I was going or how long I was staying there, but soon Boston was only a speck in my rearview mirror, and I was on my own.
This was different than eating lunch in the bathroom when my high school's cafeteria was hostile territory. It wasn't talking to my mother's tombstone. It wasn't watching a woman's lips cover my dick but feeling nothing at all.
I was completely, thoroughly, enormously alone for the first time in my life, and forcing myself to feel all my broken pieces was absolutely terrifying.
28
Tiel
"This is highly unusual."
I pulled my lip between my teeth while the Dean scanned my transcript. He had to say yes. It had to work out.
"It appears you have more than enough credits to finish ABD," he said, his pen roving over the words on the page. "In fact, you've had enough credits for two and a half years. You're only missing a dissertation defense."
"Yes. Right. I know I'm All But Dissertation. That's why I'm here," I said.
I was trying to keep my impatience in check, but this guy was not listening. He was the fourth person to completely misunderstand my request today, and now I was vibrating off my seat with edginess. I'd also had seven cappuccinos today, and that was on top of the ones I drank last night, and if I thought about it, I couldn't remember the last time I slept.
But it was fine. Really. Everything was fine. I was researching and writing, and playing until new blisters formed on my fingers on top of old blisters and then playing some more, and that was keeping me too busy to think about anything else.
Except coffee. But I was totally fine.
I was always worried about more coffee. I memorized all the twenty-four hour coffee shops in town. Somehow, I presumed there would be a greater degree of all-night coffee availability considering the volume of colleges in the area. Someone should do a study on that: the ratio of college students to twenty-four hour coffee in a given area.
"I just need to know if I can schedule my defense. I'm almost finished, and I can present as soon as next month. That's all I need to know."
"Well," he said, drawing the word out while my heel bounced against the chair leg. "That seems rather quick—"
"But I've been working on it
all this time," I said. "All this extra coursework," I leaned over his desk and pointed to the transcript. "It's helped my research. I'm ready. I swear."
"I don't usually agree to last minute dissertation defenses." He reached for a leather-bound book and thumbed through the pages, stopping on each one to underline the dates with his finger as if he was unfamiliar with the sequential nature of time. I could have jogged to Baltimore and back in the time it took him to find the right page. "The committee meets again during the first week of May," he said, and then went back to the elaborate page-turning routine. "And then again the second week of July."
He glanced up in question.
"May," I said. That gave me two and a half months to pull together an entire dissertation. I was going to need more coffee—pronto. Maybe I could move in at Voltage Coffee & Art in Kendall Square. "May would be perfect."
Once the details were ironed out, I hurried down the stairwell—I didn't do elevators anymore—and onto the street. I was headed for the T station when I realized my phone was buzzing in my hand.
Not recognizing the number, I ignored the call. Within a few seconds, a text came through from the same number:
Unknown: You don't know me but I know Sam, and you need to hear about what's happened to him. I want to talk. Please meet me at Pavement on Newbury this afternoon. I'll be there until 5.
The fear came first, quickly followed by longing. I hadn't heard from him since his cryptic late night texts two weeks ago—fifteen days, but who was counting?—and something was wrong.
I only indulged in my feelings—the raw, thorny pain that lingered right below the surface—on selected occasions. I couldn't let myself get trapped underneath that while I was scrambling to finish my degree, and I couldn't let it take me down now, either.
Panicked, I turned in a circle, then started down Boylston toward the Prudential Center. I didn't want to meet this person, and I wasn't entirely certain why I was, but my legs were intent on carrying me to the quaint coffee shop.
When I stepped inside, flustered and breathless despite the quick walk, I didn't know where to look. I glanced at the door to confirm I was at the right place, and then reread the text as if it would offer some new information.
"Are you Tiel?"
I jerked my head up and found myself face-to-face with a beautiful redheaded pixie, the kind who required tailoring for her clothes because even size zero was too big. "Yes," I said slowly.
"I'm Shannon Walsh."
So this was the infamous Shannon. I expected the pricey suit, the chic accessories, the insane heels. I didn't expect her to be tiny, or look so tired.
"Thank you for meeting me," she said. She gestured over her shoulder toward a table. "Can we talk?"
"Can you just tell me what happened with Sam? Is he all right?"
She tucked her hair over her shoulder and paused. "Can we sit? Just for a few minutes?"
Hopefully she didn't bring me here to mention that Sam had chlamydia. That seemed like something he'd delegate to one of his many platonic lady friends.
I nodded and followed her to a table. She summoned the barista and ordered a latte and a sugar cookie for herself. Another cappuccino for me.
Shannon didn't say anything while our coffees were brewing, and once I stopped being annoyed at her manipulating me into meeting, I noticed she was nervous. She was gnawing on her lip and stealing quick glances at me, then started dismantling her cookie when it arrived on a rustic plate.
"Is Sam all right?"
Her fingers continued breaking the cookie into smaller and smaller pieces until a small pile of sand started forming on her plate. "No, he really isn't okay," she said, and tears sprang to her eyes. They spilled over, and ran down her perfectly applied makeup. There were freckles under all that foundation, and they were pretty.
I grabbed her wrist to slow the cookie decimation. "Honeybunch, you need to start talking."
She nodded and blotted her tears with a napkin. After a shuddering breath, she said, "He's abandoned all of his projects. He left town, and we aren't sure where he is, but he said he was going camping." She returned to the cookie. "I thought it would be a long weekend. I didn't think he was serious when he said he needed to be away from here."
He wasn't sick or injured, and he wasn't spreading the clap. For that, I could be thankful, but…I didn't think there was a place for me in his life anymore, regardless of whether I wanted one. "And you're telling me this because…?"
She held out her hands and sent me an aggravated look. "Because…because I want to know why! I want to know why he walked away from everything and what happened to make him so miserable."
Carefully setting the cappuccino on the table, I sat back and laced my fingers together. "You presume I had something to do with it?"
Her eyes widened as she stared at the cookie sand on her plate. "As a matter of fact, yes. I believe you were dating my brother at one point, and now that you're not, he finds it necessary to vanish into the woods."
Great. I was going to offend another Walsh today.
"Shannon, I'm not clear how that's any of your business. Sam is an adult and he does not need you or anyone else managing every one of the minute details of his life. Anything that transpired between us was just that—between us."
For a second, her eyes flashed with fury and I expected an authentic ginger tantrum, but it morphed into sadness. She held the crumpled napkin to her mouth and burst into tears. This was not what I expected from Shannon Walsh.
She cried for several minutes, and I waved off the coffee shop's staff every time they ventured toward us with concerned frowns. We were probably scaring away their regular clientele.
Eventually it came to a sniffling, gasping stop, and she excused herself to the ladies' room. When she returned, her eyes were puffy, her nose was reddened, her foundation wiped clean, but her seriousness was now mixed with a stripe of sad.
"My mother," she started. "She died when we were young." She motioned toward me with her coffee. "Did you know that?"
"Yes." I didn't mention that Sam shared it last summer, or that I knew exponentially more about her and her family than she knew about me.
"Right, of course."
She nodded to herself and ran her hand through her hair, ruffling the smooth, styled wave she had going. I liked it better messy, but that was my preference for most things.
"I raised my brothers and sister. I've been Head Bitch in Charge since I was nine. All I have ever done is manage the minute details of their lives. When they were kids, I made sure they were bathed and wearing clean clothes. I sewed buttons and fixed hems because there was no one else to do it. I took care of them when they were sick. I signed their report cards and paid bills. I went to work selling houses when I was eighteen so they could go away to college. I got them through it. And now that we're adults? I'm still getting them through it. I schedule their doctors' appointments. I file their taxes. I register their cars. I can't remember a time when my life wasn't about taking care of them. I meddle in their lives because I have been a lot more than their sister for nearly twenty-four years."
I traced the edge of my cup as the minutes passed. I didn't know what to say. I only knew how to handle these situations with kids, and I usually had an instrument to fill the silence.
"They don't need me anymore, not the way they used to. I thought it was a good thing, but I can't find the balance between being there too much and not enough. I've been trying to focus on myself."
She laughed as if it was a ridiculous endeavor and twisted the skinny silver bracelets on her wrist.
"It began with online dating a few years back. That's pretty much the worst invention in the world." Shannon rolled her eyes and shuddered. "But then Matt started dating Lauren, and now she's my best friend. I didn't know how to be friends with girls before her, and Lauren taught me," she said quietly. "She says nice things about you."
"I bet she does," I murmured.
She ruffled her hair again,
and now it was borderline wild. "I started seeing someone last summer. 'Seeing' probably isn't the right word. It's more like scheduled sex. Really, really incredible sex." She looked up, disoriented. "I can't believe I just said that out loud."
"Keep going," I said. If she could demand the details of my relationship, I could ask the same.
"So, this all has been occurring," she said primly. "And I've been trying to maintain everything else, but I haven't been able to. I keep thinking that I should have been there for Sam when your relationship ended, but instead I was six states away for scheduled sex. I was supposed to be ending it, but…that didn't go as planned."
"Do you swoop in when all your brothers' relationships end?"
She lifted a shoulder and sipped her coffee. "My brothers don't have many relationships. Patrick kept his a secret for months. Matt holds me at a distance. Riley's still a toddler in my eyes. And Sam…well, Sam changed this year, and I didn't notice. I wasn't paying attention, I wasn't there, and I let him down."
"But the sex? It was decent?"
She blushed—hard—and pressed her fist to her mouth to cover a huge smile. "I haven't been able to get on a bike for spin class since." She laughed, but the happiness was gone. "If I'm not taking care of my brothers, I don't know who I am anymore."
I drained my cappuccino and shifted in my seat, hoping I could make an exit. I didn't have the right words for her, and it wasn't like I'd ever see her again.
"May I ask what happened? With you and Sam?" Shannon said.
She cared about him, and I appreciated it deeply because I'd dedicated the past few months to disliking her. That didn't mean I was rehashing anything. "I hope he finds what he's looking for, wherever he is."
It sounded pretty and tidy that way, but in reality it was a gigantic fucking mess.
Shannon frowned, clearly hoping for more, and that was my cue to leave. I gathered my things and dropped some cash on the table.
"I'm sorry you're going through this," I said. "I know you're trying to do the right thing. I hope it gets easier."
The Walsh Brothers Page 83
