Page 104 of Caught Up In You

I freeze. Libby’s on the couch, a steaming mug of coffee in her hand. She’s still wearing her clothes from last night.

“What are you doing up?” I ask.

“I was waiting for you in case you came home.”

I search her tone for her trademark sass. She loves to tease. But what I find there is so much worse. It’s not pity.

It’s empathy.

I thought I was all cried out. I thought I’d need to drink a bathtub’s worth of water before my body could form more tears. I thought I was too tired, too broken—hell, too stubborn to cry anymore.

But the tears pour out of me anew, great heaving sobs, and suddenly I’m rushing across the carpet and into Libby’s open arms.

“Mom,” I cry, the word on my lips nearly as comforting as her hug.

“Oh, sugar, I’m so sorry,” she whispers into my hair as I sob on her shoulder, mourning everything I’ve lost. To Owen. To Griffin. To my own stubbornness.

And to my own hardening heart.

CHAPTER 42

MONDAY, JULY 17 AT 8:22 AM

Owen

I’m sorry, Wyatt

CHAPTER 43

OWEN

August 4

The long, slow trudge through the rest of the summer begins. The first two weeks of August are usually slow, with kids out of camp and not yet sharing germs at school.

But it doesn’t feel slow. Not to me. I keep myself busy, staying late to see extra patients and do follow-ups. I ride so many miles on the Peloton that I think the thing now sighs when I get on it. I offer to help my brother work on the sixty thousand half-finished house projects, even though I have the carpentry skills of hyperactive puppy. I even pick up a few shifts at my dad’s hardware store.

Anything to distract myself from the constant low thrum of stress that now exists beneath my skin.

Wyatt’s absence is like a wound I have to work not to pick at. I skip drinks with my brothers at the Half Pint. I make sure Fatima does Eden’s RSV follow-up.

But mostly I throw myself into work. I refer Avery Madison to an allergist for his persistent sinus infections. I send Kayla Marshall for a bone scan after two broken legs in six months. Itake every open volunteer slot at the after-hours clinic and all the extra on-call shifts Fatima will give me.

And I wait for my life to go back to the way it was before Wyatt, when I filled my days with answering texts and calls from my patients’ parents, before I knew how fragile everything was.

Before I knew how destructive I could be.

I’m in my office planning an HPV vaccine clinic when Fatima pops her head in.

“Yo, I’m here to snag the on-call phone,” she says.

It’s sitting on my desk, the screen already lit up with messages. The office closed only twenty minutes ago, and I’ve already fielded a call about poison ivy exposure from Joseph Blake’s mother. He’s had it twice before, and each time it gets a little more gnarly, spreads a little more aggressively, so I told her I’d stay late and she could bring him in for a steroid shot.

“I can just keep it,” I say, clenching the phone in my fist. “I don’t mind.”

Fatima shakes her head. “Nope. You’ve had it all week, and while I appreciate the break, Daphne wants to watching2001: A Space Odysseythis weekend. Do you know how boring that movie is? I’m fighting for my life to stay awake. The on-call phone is my ticket out.”

“Come on, that movie’s a classic,” I try, but I can hear the edge of desperation in my voice. I try a smile, but Fatima frowns.

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