Page 54 of One Last Thing Before You Go

“My girls’ night out,” she cuts him off, an urgent look in her eyes. She shoots her brother a glare before gazing back at me. “It’s just a regular girls night out with my sister, Jenn, and a couple more people. Nothing super special.” She fidgets in her seat.

“Right…” I stop myself from pushing, from asking what she’s hiding, because I know it will only make things worse. “Well, I think it’s great you’re getting out. You’ve been working really hard. Hope you enjoy yourself tonight.” But the disappointment is clear my voice, no matter how hard I try to sound happy for her. For some reason I thought today would be the day I'd convince her to take a chance on me. For some reason, after hearing her conversation with her brother, I thought she'd want to try.

I have to remind myself that I have a history of people not really wanting to be invested in me, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

LOTTIE

Iabsentmindedly listen to Adri and Bonnie drone on about who-knows-what while I nurse my cosmopolitan. Normally, I’d probably go for a martini like I did the first night I met Knox, but it’s my uterus’s going away party, and only pink drinks are allowed tonight—as per Jenn’s rules. I don’t mind it though. The drink is sweet and cold and perfect and it takes the edge off of listening to my sisters passionately discuss something I couldn’t care less about. Maybe some issue concerning their kids’ Little League team? Honestly, not to sound like a horrible person, but shouldn’t the topic of children be banned tonight? Isn’t it a little off-brand for the occasion?

Suppressing a sigh, I try to keep myself entertained with the paper cocktail napkin, doing my best to shape it into a butterfly despite the material not being optimal for origami. It was a habit I picked up to help with my anxiety when I first started trying for kids, but as the years went by and Finn and I were still childless, keeping my hands busy worked for shit at managing my anxiety and depression. When the IVF isn’t working for you or a surrogate and the door to adoption has been slammed shut in your face due to your husband’s youthful indiscretion of cocaine possession during his time in college, there is little that can help in that regard. No amount of paper butterfly-making could keep my mental health in check. At a certain point, it became less of a therapeutic tool and more of a constant, glaring reminder of my body’s failure—my failure. Hundreds of paper butterflies all over my home and office, each one reminding me of a missed shot, of my inability to reproduce, of how things were my fault.

Yeah, origami didn’t help much.

That’s the thing about coping mechanisms: they’re helpful in the beginning, but if the problem in question goes untreated, they’re nothing more than a Band-Aid for a stab wound.

Just as I mull this over and make my final fold, Adri’s hand comes over my work of art. “What the hell, Adri?” I whine, watching her crumple my butterfly in her fist.

“Where the hell are you, Lottie? We’re all here for you, we organized this party for you, and your head is anywhere but here. Can you please involve yourself in conversation, at least?”

I glare, doing my best to keep from going off on her. There are so many things I wish I could say right now. Like, for example, whether she thinks I would truly be interested in talking about her kids’ baseball league mommy drama, because literally no one else cares—especially on one of the few nights out we get. I want to tell her that, even though I’ve come to terms with my infertility and my hysterectomy, I don’t really think talking solely about your kids during my uterus’s goodbye party is really appropriate.

But I stop myself, knowing that anything like that will have her questioning my decision to have the surgery again, begging me to cancel it or live to regret it. And I just don’t have that fight in me right now. Not tonight. I’m too tired from all the work we’ve been putting into the store, too tired from the flare-ups. Too tired from the emotional rollercoaster I’ve been on this past month.

So I force a smile and say, “You’re right. We had to drive forty minutes to get to the nearest nice-ish bar just to have a girls’ night. So we may as well enjoy it. I was just thinking about the bookstore.”

“Girl, please do not bring work up while I’m on my night out,” Jenn groans, taking one of the three shots in front of her.

I wince as I watch her do it, dying for the days where I could still wake up fresh as a daisy after a night of drinking. Not because I’d kill for a night of shots and dancing, but because I miss the body I had in my twenties. My endometriosis and PCOS weren’t horrible back then—things were bearable. Also, certain body parts hadn’t yet been affected by gravity, if you know what I mean.

“I know, sorry. I was spacing out. Sorry. Just wondering what kind of place is going to replace the bookstore, you know? I feel like it’s been there forever.”

“God, maybe they should put in one of these places so we don’t have to make this damn trip every time we want to have a girls’ night out. I feel like coming here every time involves vacation-level planning and coordination.”

Adri snorts. “Right?”

“I doubt we’ll ever get something like this in Ceres Cove, even if it would help with tourism. We’re not cool enough for it.”

Preach. Finally, someone on my side.

“What was that space before Walter came to town?” Jenn asks. “I don’t remember.” The rest of us chuckle at her.

“I forgot how young you are,” Bonnie says, gently patting Jenn’s hand.

She pulls it away with a glare in my sister-in-law’s direction. “Well?”

“It was still a bookstore; it just belonged to someone else. It wasn’t really super successful at the time, but that was more so because we had much less tourism then. I’m not sure whether it’d do so poorly nowadays, if I’m honest. It wasn’t like Walter’s shop; the old owner actually stocked popular books and some bookish merch.”

Jenn nods thoughtfully.

“How’s the reno going, by the way?” Adri asks.

“Great. We’re making a ton of progress, actually. The demo went off without a hitch.”

Despite the emotional toll watching my safe space getting torn down to its bare bones had on me. Or the near-heart attack Knox gave me. Seeing him shirtless and sweaty, sledgehammering away, reached my most basic instincts in the most cliched way, I know. I was a flustered mess the entire time. I am 100% sure he submitted himself to working for my ex during the process just to get me to pay attention to him.

He knew what he was doing, though. But it isn’t his body that’s been keeping me up at night, no matter how amazing it is. It is how he has been my constant throughout this. At first glance, Knox looks like a tatted-up young man with a free spirit, no real responsibilities, who could never be able to help in running a business, much less take on a significant role like he has.