Page 114 of Sloane

“Why not?”

I shot him a look, then waved my hand down the left side of my body.

“This is why not.”

“The people who care about you don’t care about that.”

“I care.”

“So, does that mean you’re just going to cut everyone from your past out of your life?”

“Nope. I promised Missy and Dr. Noland I would see my friends and accept help.”

My friend snorted. “You also told them you were going to live with me while simultaneously trying to convince me to lie for you.”

“That wasn’t fair of me to put you in that position. I’m sorry. Thank you for working with Travis and arranging the beach house.”

“Not gonna lie, I’m jealous. Grace says that place is nice.”

“I just hope…” I stopped short, prompting Ryan to prod me to finish.

“You just hope what?”

“That I’ll be able to take advantage of being on the beach.”

He opened the top drawer. “You will. You heard Judy. You’ll be running before you know it.” His voice got lower when he asked, “Have you thought about calling Ashley?”

“I owe her an apology, that’s for sure. But maybe I just need to let sleeping dogs lie.”

He waved the unopened letter from her that I’d hidden in my underwear drawer.

“Is that what this is?”

I offered a sad smile. “No, that’s my Schrödinger’s cat.”

Ryan furrowed his eyebrows. “Schrödinger’s cat?”

“You’ve never heard of Schrödinger’s cat? It’s named after a physicist who created a thought experiment. It asks you to imagine a cat in a box with a mechanism that has a fifty percent chance of killing it within an hour. Until you look inside the box, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time. Its fate is linked to an event that may or may not have occurred.”

“I know what Schrödinger’s cat is. I just don’t understand what that has to do with a six-month old unopened letter.”

“Well, at the time I got it, there was still a chance that it was a love letter and not her telling me to go fuck myself. Although, enough time has passed that now it wouldn’t matter. The cat is dead, and she’d definitely tell me to go fuck myself.”

“Yeah,” Ryan replied wistfully. “You really screwed that one up. I was certain she was the one for you.”

Bittersweet memories of our week together came crashing back in my head.

“I was, too.”

Then, I pulled my shoulders back. “It’s for the best.”

“Is it, though?”

“It is. She deserves better.”

Ryan raised his eyebrows at me, so I replied defensively, “Look, I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I’ve accepted this is how I look.”

“That’s great that you’ve accepted it. It doesn’t mean you’re not angry about it. And you know what? You’re entitled to be angry.”

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