Page 62 of Love Out Loud

Chapter 22

Lennon

Quiet mornings, doing simple things for Lark while the sunlight warms the apartment and she bustles around, clinking bottles and clattering hair products in the bathroom, are a privilege. I stare down at my bare feet, tan against the white of the kitchen tile, wondering how many days like this we could have had if I had gone back to her like I wanted to ten years ago.

I had surprised her. She was turning thirty and caring for an eight-year-old Devin mostly by herself. Her divorce from Richard had just been finalized the month prior, and he was headed to New York. His job was ultimately the nail in the coffin. She didn’t want to leave Michigan, and he was being transferred to New York. Their divorce was amicable; they both knew it was over long before they finally called it, and they had been separated for most of the year before filing for divorce. But Lark fought hard to keep Devin with her. In the end, Richard agreed it was best for her to stay with Lark during the school year and visit for a few weeks over the summer and on some holidays. That way she wouldn’t have to adjust to a new school or have to try to fly back and forth too often and miss time with her friends.

Lark had been bound and determined to make sure Devin’s life was as normal as possible, but I know she struggled with being the single parent in a sea of couples at school functions. Even before she and Richard finally split, she was the one taking her daughter to classes, cheering her on at science fairs, meeting her teachers, and all the other typical parent things one does. Knowing what I know now, I don’t like Richard, and I think he could have done more, but Lark was always jumping in. She liked being the default parent, I think, and Richard was happy to let her.

But it was a lot to shoulder. I could see all of it weighing on her, even over the phone. So I thought surprising her for her thirtieth birthday would give her a lift. I wanted her to know there were people who cared about her enough to make her feel special on her birthday. I arranged for a dinner with her parents, got on a plane, and took a cab to her townhouse.

She opened the door wearing a fluffy robe and what looked like clown makeup, her hair a bird’s nest of butterfly clips. There was glitter everywhere. I gripped the handle of my suitcase, scanned her up and down, bit my lip against a giant grin, and said, “Surprise.”

She slammed the door in my face.

I couldn’t stop laughing. It had been a long time since I had laughed that hard, and that was when I knew I made the right decision coming out to see her.

When the door opened again and a string-bean version of Devin—her dark hair in twin braids over each shoulder, a gap in her teeth, and her long skinny legs poking out of shorts that looked like she had almost grown out of them—was the one pulling it open, that’s when I realized how much I had missed.

I never told Lark that even with Devin’s dress-up makeup on, she was stunning. I should have. Instead, I spent a supremely normal weekend with them. They let me in on their routines: blueberry pancakes on Saturday morning, sitting on lounge chairs at the community pool and chatting while Devin splashed around with her friends, eating grilled cheese and baby carrots for lunch and ice cream for dinner. But the moments I loved the most were the ones where we sat face-to-face, leaning against the back of the couch, mugs of steaming tea and coffee between us, talking in the early mornings while Devin slept.

“What’s wrong, Songbird?” I asked.

Lark’s eyes remained unfocused as she stared out the window, her legs curled up underneath her and her hands cupping the mug of tea resting on top of her knees. “I wish I never married him,” she said quietly. Her gaze snapped to mine, her blue eyes wide with worry. “I would never wish I didn’t have Devin, you know? But Richard…”

Anyone who knew them could see they were a bad match from the start, but I didn’t say that. That wasn’t what she needed.

I rubbed her bare foot gently with my hand. “I know what you meant.”

She tilted her head thoughtfully, her eyes bouncing back and forth between mine as if trying to gauge my reaction before she added, “I can’t help but think of all the things I could have had if he and I hadn’t spent eight years trying to make it work.”

I shake my head as if to wake myself from the foggy memory. At the time, I remember wishing she had been talking about me, but I never asked. We carried on with our normal weekend, and I got on that plane back to LA with a giant hole where Lark had been.

I didn’t tell anyone. Noah knew I was off, and he knew where I had been but didn’t say much about it. After a week of ambling around my apartment, my roommate at the time invited me to go to the beach with some of his buddies. We drank some beers, smoked a bit. We had a great night, and even though I sat there, looking up at the stars and wishing Lark could be there with me or that I could point out some of the different constellations to Devin, I knew I wasn’t leaving LA. Lark and I were worlds apart.

The next week, I got those little larks added to my tattoo. I wanted them on the inside of my arm, closest to my heart. The quote from Midsummer had been there for years already—it was the first tattoo I had gotten in college. Those birds, though…they were just for her.

Maybe we could have made up the physical distance somehow back then, but emotionally, she was so vulnerable. I had seen it in those moments on the couch. She let me in when Devin couldn’t see. I didn’t want to show up like a lost puppy, knowing she’d open her heart to me but never knowing if she had been truly ready to.

But when she walks up behind me and wraps her arms around my middle, it sure feels like she’s ready. It feels like I’m ready. Maybe I thought I was before, but now I can’t imagine living another minute without her next to me.

“I got an interesting email the other day,” she says into my back.

I dip her tea bag in and out of the water. “Oh yeah?” I ask. She lets go of me, and I turn around to hand her the mug. The edge of the counter bites into the skin of my lower back as I fold my arms and give her my attention.

She sips her tea, looking into the mug as if it holds some kind of answer for her. “Yeah. From Carl. My boss at Arbor Hills?”

I nod, silently watching as she fiddles with the tag on the tea bag. She creases it between her fingers and runs a fingernail over the edge.

“He said they’re having a hard time replacing one of the older professors who retired at the end of last term. And that this audiobook is creating a buzz. Luminaudio’s advertising must be pretty widespread.” She pauses and tilts her head as if she’s considering something. “Or maybe Hannah is talking it up on campus. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“That’s exciting.” I turn around to stir some more cream into my coffee. I don’t really need more, but I can’t help the dread pooling in my chest, and I need something to do with my hands. I hope this isn’t going where I think it’s going, but I breathe in slowly and count to four in my head before letting it out in a futile effort to calm my thoughts.

“Anyway, he offered me those classes on a trial basis. I think I told you I had asked for them before the term ended? He said I needed more field experience before he’d consider it. I guess this counts.”

When I face her again, she’s watching me carefully. If I didn’t know her so well, I’d miss the stiffness in her posture, the slight set of her jaw, the hopeful way her eyebrows curve upward. She wants this. She might be conflicted about what it looks like for us, but there’s no mistaking that at least part of her is excited about the possibility of something she’s worked so hard for finally playing out.

As much as I want to beg her to stay, tell her there are community colleges here that would jump at the chance to work with her, remind her that Noah has more audiobooks lined up, I can’t make this decision for her. I don’t even want to sway her choice. Every decision she’s made in her adult life has been for someone else. She shouldn’t make this one for me.