Page 106 of Caught Up In You

But Francie’s reply is calm. Too calm, maybe.

“Are you at home?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t move. I’ll be there in an hour.”

“Francie, you don’t?—”

But she has already hung up.

The first thing she does when she walks through the door is envelop me in a hug. And I really do feel enveloped, even though she’s barely five feet tall and her head doesn’t even come past by chest. We always called Francie “the tallest women in the world” back in medical school, and this is one of the reasons why. Her presence isbig.

And this hug is warm and reassuring.

I don’t realize how badly I need it until my eyes grow watery.

Without a word, she leads me into the living room and pushes me down on the couch. She’s in her pajamas, her hair tucked into a pink silk bonnet, her dark skin shiny and smelling like cocoa butter, like calling me was her last task before bedtime. She settles in beside me, tucks her feet beneath her, and places a throw pillow on her lap.

“Okay, walk me through it,” she says.

“Through what?” It’s not that I don’t know what she’s asking. It’s that suddenly there’s genuinely too much to tell. My emotions feel like a broken spigot, ready to spray in an unexpected direction at any moment.

“What happened with Wyatt?” she asks, patient.

I sigh, slumping back into the couch. “I don’t know, Francie. Everything just …” I scramble for words, but they only recede even further into the recesses of my brain. My heart begins to pound, sweat pricks at my temples, and then suddenly the words are there. They’reeverywhere, loud inside my head.

You lost focus. You tried to do too many things. You broke it. You broke her. It’s your fault. You messed it up. You need to pay attention. Focus. Try harder next time. Don’t?—

“Owen.”

I realize my hands are in Francie’s hands. She’s squeezing gently, the pressure pulling me out of my spiral.

And then I’m talking. About Eden and that night in the hospital. About what happened in the hotel room before that, how Wyatt finally said she loved me. About her history and how we exposed that clown Griffin Stone for the phony he is. About walking into the bar that night in January when I was supposed to meet Francie for a drink but instead my life changed.

I tell her about how Wyatt protects her people so fiercely, always takes care of them.

And about how I couldn’t do the same.

Francie listens to all of it, nodding andhmmm-ing but otherwise not saying a word. And when I finally stop, she waits to see if there’s more before she speaks.

“Did you ever tell Wyatt about Dylan Anders?”

My stomach curdles. “No,” I say, but then the memory surfaces of her begging me to talk about it right here in this room, asking about third year like she had any idea. And Iyelledat her.

I feel like I’m being run over by a truck repeatedly, by bones being ground to dust, my insides flattened into a noxious goo.

“Well, she asked me about it at the engagement party. Apparently that witch Mina mentioned it but didn’t spill the details. So Wyatt asked me.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I said it wasn’t my story to tell,” she answers, her eyes sad. “But I saw how close you were, how much you cared for her. I assumed you’d tell her eventually.”

“I didn’t,” I say, then shift uncomfortably. “It wouldn’t have made a difference.”

“Why not?”

“I guess it would have helped her understand why I ended things with her, why I can’t be in a relationship.”

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