Page 6 of Coming Home

"Because you sound like a guy standing alone in a dark kitchen staring at food he's about to throw away." He knew me too well. "Get some sleep, Ralph. You have a lot to prepare for." The grin was audible. "Can't have this year's Olympic champion looking like he lost a round with his own pillow."

This year's Olympic champion. He said it with such casual certainty that my name might as well have already been in the record books.

"Yeah," I said. The word came out rough. "I'll rest."

The line went dead. I set the phone on the marble island and stood there. I needed this Olympic cycle. Not for the legacy, or the sponsors, or any of the garbage the media prints about aging champions and farewell tours. I needed it because it was the last thing on earth I could control. Every morning, the world lost a little more detail, a little more color, a little more edge.

I stared at two neat place settings, the steam still rising off the food Athena had made.

I sat down at the table. Pulled the plate toward me. Picked up the fork.

"Shit," I muttered.

CHAPTER 3

Emma

Nadia picked up on the second ring, her voice arriving with that familiar, high-velocity energy that usually managed to vacuum up all the oxygen in a room.

"How did the session go? Tell me everything."

I pulled the scratchy motel comforter up to my chin, bracing the phone against my pillow.

"Full disaster. Mascara to my collarbone."

"I'm sure you slept good after that." Nadia let out a low laugh. That was her superpower. She refused to treat my worst moments like tragedies, and somehow that made them survivable.

I gave her the abbreviated recap while my fingers traced the faded floral pattern on the bedspread. The suffocating warmth of Camilla's office. The ridiculous homework assignment I'd been given.

"Which you're not going to do," Nadia said.

"Obviously not."

"What was it, anyway?"

"Find one thing I used to love. Just one small thing, and sit with it without judging myself."

I closed my eyes against the harsh glare of the motel lamp. Here was the part I couldn't bring myself to say out loud: I'd tried. After the session, I'd sat on the edge of this sagging mattress for an hour, scraping the bottom of my own memory for a single interest that hadn't been swimming.

I scrolled through my old playlists. Nothing. I tried to remember a restaurant I used to love, a dish that made me close my eyes on the first bite. Nothing. I thought about books, movies, places, any small piece of a life that used to belong to me. And I came up blank.

There was nothing left to find. James had been thorough about that. Every time I'd shown enthusiasm for something, he'd find a way to make it small. You're still listening to that? That's kind of sad, Em. Bit by bit, I stopped playing music. Stopped cooking. Stopped reading. Stopped wanting. Until I was exactly what he needed me to be: a woman with nothing of her own.

"Nothing," I whispered. "I can't come up with a single thing."

The line went quiet for a beat. Rare for her to hesitate, to brake before speaking.

"That's okay," she said, her voice dropping low and fierce, the one she kept for my bad days. "We'll figure it out. We'll make a new list."

We. That word always took me apart. I didn't deserve her. She'd crashed into my life eighteen months ago during my absolute worst week and simply refused to leave. I had been sitting in my car in the parking lot of my rheumatologist's office, fresh off a devastating appointment with Dr. April.

The news was bad: the lupus was flaring again, and the medication adjustment meant I was going to gain more weight and feel exhausted before things got better. I was crying into a crumpled fast-food napkin with the windows fogging up, when a sharp knock rattled my glass.

There stood a total stranger, holding two iced lattes, looking at me like she couldn't decide whether to laugh or call someone.

I rolled the window down out of sheer bewilderment.

"One of these was supposed to be for my aunt, but she just got pulled into an emergency consult and now I've got a spare," she'd said, thrusting the plastic cup through the gap. "And frankly, you look like you need the caffeine more than she does."