Page 77 of Time for You
If she couldn’t have Henry, she could at least keep his memory close. That was what she’d been telling herself for the last six months, once she finally made herself admit he wasn’t coming back. It wasn’t that she thought there would be an easy way for him to get back, but rather that a part of her had insisted on hoping that, against all evidence, he might figure something out.
For the first three months he was gone, everyone coddled her. Even when she gave them her news and they were varying levels of sad (Brittany, Michelle), smug because he knew it (Vibol), and betrayed (Ellie), they let her nurse her broken heart without comment. After it had been six months, Ellie started gently nudging her to stop moping all the time, and three months afterthat, Vibol and Michelle staged an intervention with Brittany’s help. They cared, she knew that, and she knew that if the tables had been turned and it was one of them who could barely think about the future, she would have done the same. Soshe pulled herself out of the funk as best she could, and started putting one foot in front of the other.
Daphne had even agreed to go on a date, although she didn’t think her friends expected much to come of it. He was a friend of Michelle’s cousin—her real cousin—doing a postdoc in epidemiology and public health at the University of Minnesota. He was handsome and sweet, and they managed to find enough to talk about to make it through drinks and dinner, but in the end, she just couldn’t bring herself to do anything but give him a hug and tell him she’d had a nice time. He didn’t call her after either, so at least she didn’t feel guilty or anything. He would be fine, and so would she. Eventually.
The moon peeked out from behind a white, fluffy cloud, and Daphne felt the familiar-but-now-slightly-muted stab of loss when she saw it. The moon had been out in the daytime when she first met Henry too, and while that wasn’t uncommon, it still hurt to see sometimes. Like a flash of a memory when she least expected it.
She turned the corner, the familiar cream-colored brick of their building up ahead. Her new clinic was farther away than the hospital, but close enough that she hadn’t felt like she needed to move. Which was good, because without Henry, she definitely needed her friends close by.
Daphne shuffled her feet through an eddy of fallen leaves like a kid, reminding herself that finding joy in small things was important, even if she was starting to realize her life would always feel like it had one big gaping hole in it.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a man leaning back against the building as if waiting for someone, his frame achingly familiar. She kept her gaze down, because she was used to this, unfortunately. For months after Henry left, she saw himeverywhere: at the clinic, in line to catch the bus, waiting outside a movie theater. It happened less often now, but maybe that was just because she had a system—she saw a tall, dark-haired white man with broad shoulders and her eyes would immediately go unfocused, darting away before her heart had a chance to leap.
The man straightened as she approached, and she tensed her stomach, anticipating the unpleasant lurch that would happen when he spoke to her to ask for directions somewhere and she had to force herself to look at him and her brain would do theit’s him, oh, no wait, it isn’tdance. Daphne started rummaging through her purse for her keys, hoping he would get thedon’t talk to mehint.
“Daphne?” a voice with a deep Scottish lilt asked, and Daphne froze on the spot, eyes still glued to the inside of her purse because—no. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be, because she had workedso hardto remind herself it would never be him, and she couldn’t afford to hope that she might have been wrong. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”
She dropped the grocery bag and food went everywhere. Half a dozen oranges bounce-jiggled on the pavement, and a bag of granola split open upon impact, spilling out a small mountain of oats. A can of tomato soup rolled steadily across the sidewalk, coming to a stop next to a foot in an old-fashioned leather boot.
Slowly, Daphne dragged her eyes up, unable to breathe. Wool pants gave way to a white shirt, which gave way to a face she’d dreamed of so often she still half wondered if she was hallucinating. “No,” she whispered.
Henry grinned, as cocky as ever. “Oh, yes. I’m back, my lady.”
Daphne dropped her purse on top of the groceries and threw her arms around his neck, dragging his scent into her lungs, feeling the warmth of his chest against hers. He was so solid, so warm, sorealthat tears started pricking at the corners of her eyes. “How?” she finally asked in a strangled voice.
Henry pulled back just far enough to look into her eyes. “I’ll tell ye that later,” he said, and it wasn’t until he kissed her that she knew, really knew, that this was real, because even in her dreams, he never quite kissed her like that.
Henry was, however improbably, back.
ER Doc (And the Traitor Daphne Griffin) Group Chat
Daphne
Everyone down to my place
911
Nobody’s hurt
Still
911
Brittany
GirlStopdouble texting, it’s so annoying
And be right there
Vibol
Stop double texting says the double texter
Michelle
Are you okay Daph?
Daphne
