Page 38 of Wild

"But you have friends, right? Back in New York, I mean. Some people have a hard time making them, but once they do—"

"Maybe one."

"Maybe?" Nell opens her water bottle and studies her, intrigued.

Erin doesn't know what to say, so she goes with the only truth she has.

"Like I told you, I basically raised my little sister. From twelve to my early thirties, I made sure she had everything she needed. And when Brooke started depending on me a little less, my mom got sick, and I took care of her until she died two years later. Between school, work, and the two of them, there wasn't much room for anything else. So I've always been pretty much on my own."

"There's a huge difference between being a solitary person and being a person who's alone, Erin," Nell says. "And I think you're in the second group. Have you ever been in a relationship?"

"A few, but they never lasted long. I could never figure out how to split my time, and eventually I'd crash. Being with someone created more stress than it relieved."

"And when your mom died?"

The doctor pushes her empty coffee cup to the edge of the table and runs a napkin over the dark ring it left in front of her.

"It's hard for me, Nell," she admits, because she knows where the woman is headed and she'd rather not answer questions to get there. "When I was younger I didn't make friends because I didn't have time, and now that I do, I don't know how it's done. I guess I'm at an age where it's harder."

"You've spent your whole life taking care of other people, honey," Nell says. "First your sister, then your mom, and on top of all that you're a doctor, which means you take care of everyone—including her," she adds with a tilt of her head toward Mia's table. "What I keep wondering is who takes care of you, Erin."

The doctor feels something like a blunt blow to her sternum that turns into a knot pressing from the inside. No one has ever been this direct with her, and even though she already knows it somewhere deep down, hearing it out loud from someone else makes it so real that a sudden pressure builds in her throat. She takes a few seconds to let it sink in—that she's turned her life into a kind of servitude toward everyone else, that she's always giving and never receiving even a little. Erin doesn't ask for much; her sister's support would be enough.

"I don't need anyone to take care of me, Nell. That I can do on my own."

Nell leans back in her chair and fiddles with the leather bracelets on her wrist.

"I got into this business because of my husband," she begins, and Erin looks at her with curiosity, because until now Nell has never shared anything personal. "He was in all of this when I met him. I fell in love and we got married within months, and Ihad the best years of my life with him until he died. I've stayed in this world ever since because he was passionate about it, and if I leave, I feel like his passion dies with him."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm not looking for sympathy, and I don't feel sorry for you either. I just want you to understand that life is so much better when you have people beside you who you truly connect with—people who care about you and who matter to you. The ones who don't, you leave behind. I had him, but I made friends along the way too, and if it weren't for them I would've fallen apart when he was gone. You're not too old to make friends, Erin, or to meet someone. All you have to do is be more open and more willing. Sitting alone every day isn't going to get you there, that's for sure."

"You sat down," Erin points out, meaning it as a smile to finish the joke, but what comes out is a sad little grimace.

"And I'll keep doing it if you let me—but there are other people around here, Erin Dooley. Put in a little effort."

The doctor smiles at her and gives a small wave as Nell stands and walks away, already answering a call. Now would be a good time to sit with what she just said, but Erin's mind doesn't have space for it, because she's still turning over the argument she had with Mia yesterday. She doesn't even know how they got there—how they went from just starting to eat to not being able to finish. She hadn't expected the singer to call her out on the way she treated her, and she knows she didn't handle it well.

Maybe she could have been a little more empathetic, or tried to explain herself differently—though when she thinks about it, she doesn't actually regret it, because she was honest with Mia. Almost entirely, anyway, because there was one small part she chose not to share, and it's probably the most important part, the one that unsettles her most: what comes naturally with Mia is treating her with the warmth she didn't hide when the singerneeded her most. It's the rest of the time that she holds back and runs cold.

She's been up all night asking herself whether she should let Mia see how she actually feels around her, and she's talked herself out of it every time—because she knows Mia is interested in her, in taking her to bed, and Erin has no intention of giving her anything that might make her think she has a shot. She's clear on the fact that she has no interest in the singer, and what she feels, if anything, is curiosity. Nothing more.

She glances at her from across the room for a moment, then looks away immediately. Mia is still as closed off as she was this morning when Erin stopped by her suite to check on her. The moment had been awkward—both of them polite, both of them cordial, but the tension from yesterday still hanging in every space they share.

When she sees Mia and Noah stand up, she checks the time and does the same, because they have a meeting with Jude in ten minutes in the singer's suite, and Erin wants to swing by her room first to brush her teeth after breakfast.

"First things first," Jude starts once everyone is gathered in the singer's suite.

Mia—as always—is on the couch next to Noah. Nell sits to Noah's right, Jude is in a wingback chair across from them, and Erin stays standing, leaning against the wall, because the only open spots left are the other chair beside Jude—and she doesn't much like the man—and the left end of the couch next to Mia, and right now things between them are too strained for that.

"How are you feeling today, Mia?" her manager asks, without even looking up from the screens of his two phones.

"Fine," the singer says.

"Great, great." Jude glances up. "Perfect timing, actually, because I've got an interview lined up for this afternoon that we can knock out in an hour. We just drive over to the studio,you answer the prepared questions, and we're done. A couple hours, tops. And tomorrow morning we'll do a visit to a rehab center—great press opportunity. You'll perform a cappella, no instruments needed, just one song, because the show is that night and—"

"No," Erin cuts in, tired of listening.