Page 15 of The Bright Side of Brooding
I shrugged.
She rolled them again, far more exaggerated this time. “Well, I need to talk to you about the travel timeline for the competition. Also, you should ask Summer to step in for Melanie.”
Irritation flared at that. We had a regional competition for FitCross coming up in a few weeks. The fitness organization ran these events internationally, and they gave amateurs and pros alike a chance to compete. The FitCross style paired well with military training since it focused on multifunctional fitness—the idea that an athlete should be able to go run a half marathon or carry a heavy load of hundreds of pounds, or anything else in between.
When you traveled to a larger competition with a team like we were, the organization required you to have a medical person on your team. I had basic medical training like all soldiers and a bit more with being an Eagle First Responder, but not quite enough to satisfy the organizers or myself. Our usual medic had a family emergency back in the States and was on emergency leave for a few weeks—no way she’d be able to take leave for the comp.
“You should. Summer’s awesome. She’s an RN, knows her stuff. She even has training with athletic injuries and did some kind of orthopedic rotation in her training or something—or maybe she dated an orthopedist? I can’t remember. But anyway, she’s awesome. I love her. Rob loves her. Arty will get on board if he doesn’t know her yet, and you don’t love anyone so it doesn’t matter.”
I bristled. I made decisions for the team. I’d make this one without her input, especially since I didn’t think I wanted Do-Gooder Barbie offering help all weekend.
Nicholas!
Gran’s censure rang clear. Or maybe that was my own conscience. I didn’t need to put Summer down in my mind just because she… bothered me.
Her lips flattened. “Okay. I’ll take your silence as a hearty agreement and expect the good news about Summer’s joining the team by the weekend. Thanks, Coach!”
She slapped my back and jogged to her car.
I sank into my own vehicle and slammed the door a little too hard, unsure why I felt so completely annoyed with Alicia’s suggestion. Summer would be over-qualified for what we needed, which amounted to someone to deal with nose bleeds and assess for signs of larger issues that’d necessitate a hospital visit. We didn’t need a person to actually treat muscle, bone, or joint issues.
And why would it matter if she’d dated an orthopedist? People didn’t absorb information by osmosis when they spent time with someone, when they—
I interrupted that idiotic thinking by cranking the key and turning the car on, glad I had a car that stillhada key. The last few times I’d rented a car to visit Gran, I’d ended up with new ones that started by push-button. Awful.
And there it came again. Thick laces of grief weaved between my lungs and cinched tight. I sucked in air and rested my head on the steering wheel, breathing slow. In, out. In, out. A few minutes of focused breathing, and I pushed through.
The drive home passed in a blur of lush green trees sparkling with frosty snow in the dusk. I’d left work early to get to my end-of-day appointment, so it was the first time I’d driven home before dark in a while. The orderly farm fields stretched out on either side of the road, broken up by lines of towering pines. The pale yellow or brown fields left in neat lines looked like if someone could pick up the scene and stretch it on a canvas, it’d be something out of a Van Gogh painting, swirling and yet orderly on the page.
I parked in the driveway, locked the car, and did not glance to my left to see if Summer’s car sat in her driveway. I’d just left the clinic—she wouldn’t have beaten me back. I made it all the way to the door, even unlocked it, before my head compelled me to look. Not home yet. Probably out delivering meals or kissing babies or some other altruistic BS she did to keep up appearances.
No one was that beautiful and that niceandthat good. No one.
A murderous rumble came from the depths of the living room as I entered the house. No greeting today, evidently. He held a grudge better than me.
I unloaded my lunchbox in the sink, rinsed my coffee mug, filled a tall glass of water, and drank it down. I peered in the fridge and retrieved the container for tonight’s meal—I prepped everything ahead each weekend. Summer’s insistence on feeding me had thrown my meal planning and prep for a loop. After the first letter and her blatant disregard for my request, I neverreallyknew if she’d show with a meal. Well, I did know, if four straight weeks counted as proof—and it probably did—but I didn’t like the idea of failing to plan and ending up without a meal.
I scooped the food out on a plate, eager to put something warm inside me and fill up. The hollowed out, aching sensation wouldn’t leave. Based on the low pulse in my heart and head, nothing would get this nagging feeling gone today. But food, some writing, a little extra sleep… these would help.
While my meal heated, I opened a small can of cat food. Just the sound of the tin lid summoned the little grump.
“Finally deigning to acknowledge me, huh?” I said as the furry snowball on legs trotted into the kitchen, tail high behind him.
I smiled, a small swell of gratitude rising in my chest. This tiny beast and his moods had grown on me. When Rob shoved him at me two months ago, I’d sworn to myself I’d take him back to the store or wherever Rob had found him. But Rob evidently knew me well enough to put a stop to that by microchipping him and never telling me at which shelter specifically, he’d found the small pile of fur, skin, and bones.
Waverly had shown up on my doorstep four days after I’d gotten back from the funeral. He’d seen me for one workout, given me a once-over, and told me how sorry he was. He couldn’t have been that sorry, because he didn’t know what losing Gran meant. He knew I’d lost my grandmother who lived in a nursing home in Massachusetts. At some point, I’d explained she had dementia, and even though she never knew me when I visited this last year, it was where I traveled whenever I took leave.
He couldn’t know she was the only person left on earth I loved. No one knew that. And he wouldn’t understand that I’d been grieving her for years as her cognizance slipped away, while at the same time the loss of her now felt utterly crushing. I could barely admit that she was the last person who shared my blood, and now she was gone.
What did that make me? An orphan, sure, but I’d been that for decades now. There was no other word for when everyone was gone, nothing but alone.
Despite his ignorance of those things, Rob had found me this crusty bastard of a cat, shoved it in my arms along with a small litter box and a bag of food, and said, “You need a companion. Since I’m pretty sure you’re not the dating type, a girl or boyfriend won’t work, and so my wingman services are useless. So here. Take him.”
My little companion licked around his lips, already having destroyed the serving of wet food. Now he’d mow down some dry stuff, and then he’d decide acknowledging me wasn’t a bow puncture to the ship of his feline integrity.
I sat at the table, not tasting the meal, listening to Butter chomp his kibble. I tasted food more lately, but it didn’t surprise me that tonight, I dined on cardboard. It was one thing that made me feel like a glutton when Summer fed me—it all tasted so good. So damn good, and I couldn’t stop myself until I ate it all. Even the little cookies she’d included the second time, which I’d normally leave since I didn’t have much of a sweet tooth, had tasted good. Amazing, in fact.
Was it because someone else had cooked it? By that logic, any meal I ate outside those I cooked for myself should’ve worked. They didn’t. Only her food came alive, brought me to life, like she sprinkled it with the bereft male equivalent’s version of catnip.
That thought had me shoving aside my plate and reaching for the book where I wrote. After my parents passed when I was sixteen, Gran had insisted I write down my feelings. Every six months, she gave me a new journal, and I used every page. At first, I’d let loose all the angry, selfish thoughts. But slowly, over time, the pages became a place to think and process, and to create.
Summer came to mind again, even though I knew she couldn’t stay there. I thought of that smile she gave Alicia and how stubborn she was. I shook my head at the empty room when I thought of her coming on the trip to regionals.
No. That wouldn’t happen—couldn’t.
