Page 115 of The Keeper

He dragged a hand over his face, his expression tortured. “Fuck. I’m screwing all of this up. Everything. I—” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, they were raw with remorse. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Ever. I care about you more than anyone except Evie, and I understand why you’re upset. But I’m not a talk-it-out kind of person. That’s not how I deal with problems. I shut down. I compartmentalize. I don’t…I can’t be the person you want me to be. Not now. Not when it comes to this.”

I stared at him, my heart splintering into pieces.

We’d gone from a couple who couldn’t keep their hands off each other, who shared their deepest vulnerabilities and who could stay up all night talking about nothing at all, to this. But that version of us had existed in a bubble, protected from the weight of real life and the consequences of our choices. Was this what we devolved into when we ran into our first major obstacle?

I tried to breathe through the knot strangling my lungs. My mind was reeling, and I couldn’t make sense of the thousand emotions crashing through me. In a truly ironic twist, I was suddenly the one who needed alone time to work through my feelings.

I wasn’t ready to give up on Noah, but I also couldn’t be the only one fighting for us.

“Asher and Scarlett get back tomorrow night. Maybe I should stay with them for a while until…until we figure this out,” I said. “It’ll be good for us to get some space.”

Noah swallowed hard. His jaw tightened, and for a second, his mask fractured. But then the walls went back up, and the flash of emotion was gone. “I agree.” Other than a slight crack in his voice, his response gave nothing away.

Our breaths mingled in the painful silence. A tiny part of me still hoped that he would…what? Beg me to stay? That wasn’t his style, and we’d already said everything we needed to say.

So, not for the first time, I turned and walked away.

Except this time, I wasn’t sure when I’d be back.

CHAPTER 47

NOAH

“Hi, Daddy.” Evie’s face filled the screen. It was uncharacteristically solemn.

“Hi, sweetheart.” I tried to smile. “Did you have fun with Nana today? She said you helped her bake cookies for the neighborhood bake sale.”

“It was okay.” She picked at the sleeve of her shirt. “How’s your shoulder? Does it still hurt?”

“It’s much better. In a few weeks, it’ll be like new,” I assured her, my smile faltering at the worry in her voice.

It was Friday night—four days after my fight with Carina, three days after she moved out, and several hours after my second mediation session with the Andersons. The session had gone as well as the first one, which was to say, not well at all. I hadn’t lost my temper, and Oswald hadn’t accused me of anything new, but we hadn’t agreed on anything except the date for our next meeting.

I asked Evie about the rest of her day. She answered me with a fraction of her usual enthusiasm, and I knew that despite my best efforts to shield her from the current chaos, she was feeling the ripple effects all the way in Michigan. She was almost twelve; my parents could only keep her off the internet so much. She must’ve seen all the news stories about me.

My heart clenched. I was FaceTiming Evie in my bedroom since I couldn’t bring myself to go downstairs. I was the one who’d pushed Carina away, but without her, the house felt unbearably empty. Her presence haunted every room I entered and every corner I turned. I couldn’t even drink a damn mug of tea without thinking of her.

I’d thought talking to Evie would fill the hole in my chest, but her visible upset only ripped it open wider.

“Evie, sweetheart, I want to talk to you about something,” I said when she finished her story about searching for my parents’ neighbor’s dog, whom they’d finally found under a pile of old blankets in the garage.

Our conversations had skirted around the elephant in the room all summer. I’d liked it that way, but Carina’s words had struck a nerve.

You’re so determined to take on the weight of the world that you’ve forgotten you’re not the only person living in it.

I’d reacted with knee-jerk defensiveness at the time, but she hadn’t been wrong. My problems affected people around me too. I wanted to protect Evie, but it didn’t seem fair to keep her in the dark about things that would primarily affect her. I kept saying she was mature for her age. Maybe it was time I treated her accordingly.

“Is it about you and Carina?” she asked.

I startled with surprise. This was the first time she’d brought up our relationship all summer. I guess I wasn’t the only one who was tired of avoiding the elephant in the room.

“It is,” I said cautiously, trying to gauge her reaction. She didn’t give away much. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you earlier. We wanted to keep it under wraps until we were sure it was serious.”

“Does that mean you’re serious now?”

“We’re…talking about it.”

The half-lie scraped up my throat like barbed wire. I’d be lucky if Carina ever talked to me again. We hadn’t broken up, not really, but she’d walked away with a sense of finality that’d cleaved through my chest and hollowed me out.