Page 13 of Coming Home

The guest room door was propped open. She'd changed out of the soaked clothes, draping them over the shower rod, and was now swimming in the dry gray fleece hoodie I'd pulled from the linen closet. It was mine—old, thick, and it swallowed her. The sleeves hung well past her fingertips and the hem hit mid-thigh, and she was sitting on the edge of the mattress, working the cuff of the sleeve between her thumb and forefinger.

She looked up when my shadow crossed the floor. Her face did something I couldn't read fast enough. Relief, maybe. And something guarded underneath.

"Thank you," she said.

I set the mug on the nightstand. "It's just hot chocolate, Em."

Her eyes darted around the room. Scanning it. She was clocking the exits. I recognized the look—I did the same thing in unfamiliar buildings now, except for a different survival reason.

"You okay?"

She nodded. It meant the exact opposite.

Her hair was still dripping, leaving dark, bleeding spots on the fleece collar of my hoodie. Without thinking, I grabbed a plush towel from the adjacent bathroom, sat down on the edge of the mattress next to her, and started working the water out of the ends.

The exact thing I'd done hundreds of times at fifteen after brutal swim meets, when she'd emerge from the locker room with her hair soaked and Theo would toss her a towel she'd forget to use because she was too busy talking about split times or what she wanted for dinner.

I'd always take the towel and wring the water out for her while she ranted, and neither of us thought anything of it because we were just kids and it was simply the mechanics of our life.

We weren't kids anymore.

For about three seconds, she let me do it. Her eyes closed and her shoulders dropped, and I could feel the tension leaving her body through the damp strands of hair between my fingers. Her hair was thick, black, and longer than I remembered, and she smelled like cold rain, soap, and something a bit floral—a scent I hadn't realized I'd permanently memorized until it was directly in front of my face again.

"I've got it." Her hand shot up, snatching the towel from my grip. A blush climbed from the collar of the fleece to the tips of her ears.

"I mean, I c-can do it," she said, pressing the towel against her skull, looking at literally any object in the room that wasn't me.

I pulled my hands back into my lap. "Sorry."

"No, it's..." She shook her head fiercely. "Thank you. For everything. For actually coming. I didn't expect you to answer the phone. I didn't expect you to show up."

I leaned back against the frame, keeping my eyes on her. Her eyes were blue—deeper than I'd remembered. Her face was fuller now. She carried herself differently.

I caught myself staring and blinked.

"Why wouldn't I show up?" I asked, my voice leveling out.

She didn't answer. She just twisted the heavy towel in her lap, studying her knuckles.

"I'm glad you called, Emma. You should've done it a long time ago."

She snapped her head up, searching my expression with an intensity that surprised me.

"If you're glad I called, then why did you pretend you didn't know me?"

I went still.

"Outside the medical clinic." The words carried a hurt so pristine and perfectly preserved I knew she'd been bleeding from it since the moment it happened. "You walked right past me in the lobby. You asked me to move like I was just some random stranger blocking your path."

My brain scrambled backward through the last seventy-two hours, trying to locate the moment she was describing. The clinic. Camilla's office. I'd been there every Wednesday for my evaluations.

The woman by the glass doors. The blurred silhouette. It had been her?

The confession was right there, pressing hard against my teeth. I didn't pretend, Em. I couldn't see you. I can barely see anything anymore. My world is closing down and your face was just outside the shrinking frame of what I have left.

I parted my lips to say it. Then I clamped my jaw shut.

Because telling her the truth meant explaining the entire catastrophic diagnosis. The tumor. The clock. The slow, public execution of my career that the sports blogs hadn't sniffed out yet. Even Theo didn't know. Telling her meant dumping my tragedy directly onto a night that was already drowning in hers. She was sitting on my guest bed in my oversized fleece with mascara stains still tracking her cheeks. I was not going to pile my wreckage on top of hers. Not tonight.