Page 32 of Made for You
Her genuine emotional response gave me all the information I needed. She was an honest person, and it hadn’t been gossip—that first comment about Rosie doing so well had been meant as an encouragement. I wished I could take it as such, but now, all I wanted was to get home and check on her.
“I know you’re worried, but she’s doing really well. I see her every Thursday at the Springs with friends. I talk to her often. If you want to go, we won’t fault you. But if you’re up for staying…” Dove waited, her pause saying everything.
If I could get past the shock, they wanted me to stay. I exhaled, cleared my throat, and nodded once. “Let me just go call her. I realize it happened… whenever it happened and I’ve seen her every day for well over a week now, but I can’t shake it. She’s…” I exhaled again as my throat tightened. “She’s all I have.”
Now, more than ever before, I recognized that truth. She was all I’d everletmyself have, and even then, I’d made sure to keep miles between us until just recently—to be sure she couldn’t leave me since I’d left her. What did that say about me? What did that say about my ability to be here for her now?
“Of course, take as long as you need,” Catherine said.
“If you need to go, we’ll do this another time,” Dove added.
I exited quickly, practically stumbling out of the pub as I waited for Gram to answer.
“Nikki? Aren’t you out with your friends?”
“You had a stroke?”
Silence greeted me on the other end, a stark contrast to the stream of chatter humming from the pub.
“I planned to tell you once you were settled.”
My teeth clenched, and I flexed every internal muscle of control I had to not lash out. It wasn’t my place, in the end, and I didn’t want to guilt her. I only…what?I wanted to chastise her for not telling me the truth from the very beginning—for not calling me the minute she got to the hospital.
“I understand you’re upset, and I hope you’ll allow me to explain my reasoning to you. But I hope that you’ll stay there with your friends and let yourself have a good time knowing I’m safe and sound, tucked in with my tea and cookies and a movie, and I’m not up to the conversation tonight anyway.”
While her response heartened me, it also made me want to tear my hair out. She had to be the most stubborn person on the planet, and her saying she didn’t want to talk about it tonight meant she absolutely wouldn’t. If I left and went home, there’d be no chance of getting to the bottom of what’d happened, why she didn’t tell me, and whatever the prognosis actually was.
That all-too-familiar fear and dread snaked through me again.
“I hear it, Nikki. Don’t go there. I really am fine, and I know I need to explain things to you but please trust me that I’m okay. I will see you when you get in later, and we’ll talk tomorrow, but only if you promise me to stay and get to know those girls. Catherine’s a sweetheart, and I know her friends are good people.”
A sigh escaped me loudly enough she could hear it, no doubt, but I followed it with my acquiescence. “Tomorrow. No excuses.”
I could imagine her nodding before she confirmed. “Tomorrow. Now go have a beer and some fun.”
She ended the call. I blinked down at the screen, my mind a traitorous blank. I couldn’t tell what I felt or what I wanted to do now. On one hand, I wanted to race home and yell at her for keeping this from me. On the other, I recognized she didn’t owe me that. She didn’t owe me anything.
It was me who owed hereverything.She’d done nothing short of bringing me back to life years ago when I was lost and broken and so angry, I could hardly walk down a sidewalk without lashing out at the flowers I passed.
She’d tell me tomorrow. The fact that she had kept this from me might’ve sent me running to my room and locking myself away from everyone even a few years ago, but now, I saw clear as day that Rosie couldn’t be my only support. Yes, she was my Gram and I loved her completely, but she was her own person with her own life I knew next to nothing about. I hoped she’d let me in a bit, but she was right to push me to stay here.
I needed friends, and though they’d dropped a bit of a bomb on me, they hadn’t meant to. In some ways, it made me like them even more than I’d already been predisposed to—they’d been supportive. Understanding. No pressure to stay or go or anything.
“Who do I need to disappear?”
Bruce’s voice sent a flash of surprise and heat into the mess of emotions already suffocating me. I turned to see him, and sure enough, he looked as beautiful as always. Though now, he was frowning down at me like he’d meant his question.
“Disappear?” Since I had no context for his question, I wondered if I’d been thinking so hard, I’d missed something.
“Well, I might’ve said kill, but I’m trying to keep my word choice less violent for Kiley’s sake.”
His chagrined smile made a small laugh escape me. “Why are you killing people?”
He notched his chin toward my phone. “You look distressed.”
I glanced at the phone, then tucked it into my purse. “It’s Gram. We just…” I searched for the right words. “Need to have a conversation.”
He nodded. “Okay. So no one needs to be unalived because they hurt you?”
