Page 64 of My Mistake To Make

With a soft smile curving my lips, I make my way back inside and head upstairs.

I had a sofa and a bed delivered to the house as well as some bedding and a few other essentials to get me started. I’m ready to get to work setting it all up, but when I reach the bedroom, I’m stunned to find the bed not only built but made. The pillows cased, the duvet covered. Did he do this? No, he must have brought his sisters up or something. My stomach twists and knots uncomfortably, and my throat tightens because deep down, I know his sisters didn’t do this, and it all just confuses me even more.

I pack up mythings from the cabin and load up my car before handing the key back to Zoe and paying the outstanding amount, then drive up to the house. I sit in the car on the drive staring up at the work-in-progress. It’s home. I just hope it starts to feel like it soon.

Inside, I potter around, put the few things I had with me away, and clean a bit. I knew I was moving into a work site, so I’d have to make my peace with dust, but I still want to do what I can.

I have a glass of wine and some toast, then head up to take a blissfully high-pressured shower and change.

I don’t have a tv yet, or Wi-Fi, so my entertainment options are limited. I plug my phone in and play some music while I sit at the kitchen island to look over the catalogs that Doug had left out and tabbed with Post-Its for the decisions I still need to make.

I try to decide between almost identical doors, bathtubs, and paving slabs, but I can’t focus. I haven’t been able to focus for days. My mind always drifts back to how it felt to open my eyes and be completely alone, and the hurt starts all over again.

Take The Pie, Please

Doug

What am I doing?

I look up at the house, noticing the kitchen light on. I shouldn’t be here. I’m pretty sure she’s going to rip me a new one. The only reason I escaped with both my balls earlier today is because Bo was here. I know that—I saw the murder in Cara’s eyes before my baby girl saved me.

Goddam, she looked beautiful when I saw her getting out of her car, her legs bare between the Converse High Tops and jeanshorts, and an old, well-worn Foo Fighters tour shirt, one much better fitting than the huge one she had on the other night, I felt like I’d been punched in the gut, and between Leo and my sisters, I’ve been punched in the gut enough times to recognize that feeling. And Jesus, seeing her with Bo, I’m done for. Nothing has changed. I still can’t let this happen, not that Cara would let it now after the shit I pulled, but I want her. Shit, do I want her.

I glance at the Tupperware on my passenger seat and take a breath before grabbing it and climbing out of the truck.

Outside the front door, I open the box and, as per my instructions, light the candle before knocking on the door.

My blood rushes as I wait for the door to open, and when it does, against my better judgment, it drops south. Holy shit, if I thought she looked good in an old band shirt, she looks fucking incredible in a low-cut tank and tiny little shorts.

‘Hi,’ I manage after I don’t even know how long while she just stares up at me. ‘Bowie wanted me to bring you this—demanded that I did, actually. I told her we could bring it tomorrow, but she wanted you to have it on your birthday, so, as a dad who always does what his daughter tells him to, here I am. Make a wish.’

I don’t think I’ve said that many words to her the whole time I’ve known her, but I couldn’t seem to stop talking.

Cara looks from me to the pie in my hands, then back to my face.

‘I know you don’t want to see me, but I promised I would do this, so could you just take the pie, please?’

She reaches out and takes it from my hands before turning and walking into the kitchen, leaving me standing at the open door. Tentatively, I step inside the entrance hall and wait for her to come back, and when she does, my breath hitches—she’s something else. Her bare feet on the unfinished stone floor do something to me, and she looks smaller somehow.

‘Thank you, and thank Bowie for me, please,’ she says, her tone cool.

‘Cara, can we…’

‘No,’ she cuts me off and moves to the door.

‘I know you are pissed at me, and I get it. I’m pissed at me. I just—I owe you an apology and an explanation.’ I turn to look at her, pleading for the opportunity to talk to her.

‘I don’t want your apology or your explanation, Doug. I don’t want them.’ I hear the tremble in her voice, and it cuts through me. She turns away from me and sits on the bottom step of the staircase, but I stay planted in my spot, afraid that if I move, she’ll stop talking, and I’ll need to leave.

‘I don’t have friends back home. I never have. People think I’m peculiar. It’s okay—they’re right. I am. I know I’m boring. I’m thewhat-ifgirl, the one who assesses the dangers of every situation. I’m not the fun one who leaps feet first in the name of fun. I’m the one who says it’s too cold to go out without a coat and that the water is too shallow to jump into.Risk-averse, that’s what my dad called me, and he’s right. I avoid risks at every turn because I’m terrified of making a mistake, and nobody wants to be friends with someone who isn’t free and fun, someone who always plays it safe.’

She leans back and gazes up at the ceiling for a moment, and I find myself taking a tentative step in her direction.

‘I never even colored my hair until recently because what if it fell out, what if it never grew the same again, what if, what if, what if. My whole life is one big bloody what if, but somehow, God only knows how, I managed to get myself on a plane to a country I’ve never been to, to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere and a derelict house with my name on the deed, and all I wanted was to make friends. I just wanted to make friends, Doug.’ The shake in her voice tugs at my heart, but when she looks at me and I see the tears in her eyes, I feel crushed. I didthat. I made her feel like that. ‘Because my whole life, I’ve been rejected.’

She reaches up to wipe away her tears before they can even fall, and I take a deep inhale.

‘My own parents referred to me as a mistake because I wasn’t planned. Not an accident, not a surprise, amistake.’ She almost laughs at the word, but the heartbreak behind it is unmistakable. ‘I know they love me. I don’t doubt that, but can you imagine being told that you are a mistake? Something that gets thrown on the reject pile or in the bin because it’s no good to anyone.’

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