Page 158 of Score
Back to my girl.
She needs me, and I know she worries her diagnosis will be a burden, that one day it will be too much. What she still doesn’t realize is how much I needher, but I’ll make that shit real clear. My mind, derailed by the possibility I sabotaged a second chance with my first love, comes back online little by little. The details to execute this relationship rescue mission form a list in my head.
Book the flight.
Pack.
Call Cutter to cancel our studio time for the rest of the week. He’ll befurious, and I won’t blame him, but youngin’ is lucky I’m helping his wet-behind-the-ears ass. He’ll be alright.
Verity is my priority.
I’m rolling my suitcase into the living room, when the doorbell rings. Weird because our aggressive doorman guards the building’s lobby like he’s Gabriel at heaven’s gates. Only people I’ve preapproved on my list downstairs are allowed up without calling.
I peer through the keyhole and my heart slams against my ribs. I fumble like a newborn trying to get the door open.
“Hi,” Verity says, uncertainty creasing faint lines in her forehead. She clenches the hem of her sweatshirt in one fist like she might float away if she lets go.
My tongue feels clumsy and swollen in my mouth. I slow blink like I’ve been drugged, and her standing on my doorstep is a hallucination. When I come down, she’ll disappear, but Verity is still waiting expectantly at my door. We stare at each other in the protracted silence. I was ready to jump on the next plane to see her, but now the argument, the issues left unresolved when I flew here, revive the tension between us. I’m not sure what to say, how to fix this, but I have enough presence of mind to open the door wider and invite her inside.
“Shit. Sorry,” I say. “Uh… come in.”
I close the door behind us when she crosses the threshold and turn to face her. My logical mind is wondering what the hell she is doing in New York, but my instincts kick in and I don’t care. I wrap my arms tightly around her before either of us can say another word. She burrows into me, melts like the last words we exchanged in LA weren’t contentious. Like she’s felt as anxious as I have since we went our separate ways.
“Sorry to barge in like this, all unannounced,” she mumbles into my shoulder.
“No,I’msorry about how we left things, Vee.”
“So am I. You were right.” She blinks at the tears filling her eyes. “I just didn’t want you to be. Ihavebeen slipping. My sleep, mindful thinking,even my meds a few times—with everything going on, I wasn’t doing the things I know keep me stable. Sorry I got defensive and angry.”
At her words, I close my eyes and release a breath that feels like it’s been trapped in my lungs since Valentine’s Day.
“I shouldn’t have pressed you like that,” I say. “I just… I wasn’t there for you the last time, and I want to be now. I want to be in your life if you’re up, down, manic, depressed—I don’t care. I want a life with you.”
She wipes a stream of tears from her cheeks. “I didn’t think I could expect that, that I could ask that of you. Of anyone.”
“You’re not asking. I’m telling you I’ll stay if you let me.” I tuck her head into my shoulder. “Please let me, Vee.”
Her curls brush my chin when she nods, and voice thick with tears, she finally says, “Okay.”
We stand like that for a few moments. I’m reacquainting myself with the feel of her; with how perfect it is when we have each other this way.
Her gaze goes from me to the suitcase parked in the middle of my living room. “Were you leaving or—”
“I was going back to LA.” I bring her hand to my lips. “Back to you.”
“I can’t believe that,” she says, a small smile chasing away vestiges of the strain on her face. “We almost missed each other.”
“What areyoudoing here? I mean, I’m glad you’re here, since it obviously saves me a trip,” I say, trying to lighten the atmosphere. “But are you okay?”
“Tessa’s in the hospital.”
“Issheokay?”
“She is now, yeah. Or she will be. It’s a long story.”
“Come sit.” I link our fingers and tug her by the hand, sitting down on the couch beside her. “Tell me.”
She recounts the terror of Tessa’s close call and her plan to remain here in New York with her while she recovers.
