Necessary Restorations (The Walsh Series) (A) (44 page)

On the rare evening when I had enough energy to keep my eyes open past sunset, I lay on the floor in front of the wood stove and listened to the playlist simply titled ‘Tiel.’

The tracks sounded different without her humming and tapping the beat beside me. But those songs,
fuck,
they gutted me.

I read every morning, devouring my weathered and well-loved copies of
The Count of Monte Cristo,
The Cask of Amontillado,
Les Miserables,
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,
and
The Lord of the Rings
trilogy. In my haste to get out of Boston, I’d accidentally tossed Tiel’s copy of that Johnny Cash biography into my rucksack. One morning when my longing for her was a tangible being in this tiny cabin, I started reading it just to be close to her.

The life story was engaging, but it was the letters that grabbed my attention. Pages and pages of handwritten letters from Johnny Cash to June Carter Cash, and I remembered how Tiel described it: they went through intense, messy times but found a way to love each other.

And that was how I wanted this to end.

I dug through my bags until I found a small notebook with a five-year-old tide chart printed on the inside cover, and started writing everything I’d been storing up since I walked away from my life weeks ago.

I loved her, fully and completely, and she brought out the best version of me. She didn’t save me; no, this was something I had to do for myself. But she did keep me afloat.

Tiel was broken in certain spots, and strong in others, and we fit together that way.

I learned a lot about myself during that time. About the choices I’d made in defining myself and what I valued, and their implications. About the things I wanted to create—an identity independent of club-hopping, blackout drinking, and hook-ups. But more importantly, I wanted a family of my own, and I wanted it with Tiel.

I wasn’t that guy anymore, that angry manwhore who wanted to drown his feelings in sex and gin.

By the end of April, the notebook was full and the plan came together in my mind, and I couldn’t get out of Cutler quickly enough.

It was time to go home to my girl.

I was greeted at Tiel’s door with shriek. “Holy shit, it’s a Yeti!”

A short woman slammed the door in my face only to open it a crack and peek at me. Turning, I glanced down the hallway, confirming I was on the right floor before I said, “Hi. I’m looking for Tiel.”

The door swung open. “Tiel isn’t here right now. Is there something I can help you with?”

I rubbed my forehead, fighting back my frustration. I’d been rehearsing this goddamn speech for six hours straight, plus the past two weeks. Every one of the three hundred and thirty miles from Cutler filled me with optimistic tension, and I was ready to tear the door off its hinges. “I’m sorry, this is sensationally rude but who are you?”

“I’m Ellie—”

“Oh,” I laughed. “Ellie, I’ve heard so much about you. I’m—”

“Sam the freckle twin,” she said with a grim expression. “I didn’t expect the beard . . . or, any of this.”

She gestured toward me, and when I looked down, I laughed. I couldn’t remember the last time I paid attention to my appearance. My primary concern in Maine was preventing frostbite, and I hadn’t once shaved. I was still wearing flannel-lined jeans, beaten-to-shit hiking boots, and a thermal shirt, and my hair was a shaggy, overgrown mess. I hadn’t accounted for the arrival of spring in Boston when I left the cabin.

“It’s about time you showed up.” She leaned against the door frame, her arms crossed and her eyebrow cocked, her chin jutting in my direction.

“You’re right about that,” I murmured. “When will Tiel be back?”

She frowned, humming, and shook her head. “I need some more information about your intentions.”

Most days I pretended Tiel was better off without me, that she was happier and moving on with her life. That was the only way I could survive the distance we put between each other. I’d wanted to call so many times and tell her I missed her, I loved her, I needed her . . . but I wasn’t ready until now. I couldn’t give her the broken version of me again. I had to be whole first.

She hadn’t called either, and every time I touched base with Riley, I scanned my texts, emails, and voicemails for any sign from her. I hadn’t considered that she might not be ready for me.

“Is she all right? Where is she?”

“Here’s the deal. Tiel’s the nice one in this apartment. I’m the bulldog.” She nodded emphatically. “You showing up here all impatient and lumberjacked is wonderful, but that doesn’t address my issue with you falling off the face of the planet.”

In that instant, I loved Ellie. As far as I knew, she was the only person who consistently protected Tiel, and even though she was aiming that bulldog bark at me, I appreciated it.

“I love her and I need her, and the only way I’m leaving is with a restraining order, Ellie, and my sister is an excellent attorney, so I doubt that will happen. I’m here to stay.”

“All right. Let’s talk.”

I GAZED AT the committee, quaking minutely where I stood. They paged through my dissertation, murmuring and jotting notes, and I continued knotting and unknotting my fingers. My knuckles hurt—hell,
everything
hurt. If I wasn’t writing, I was practicing, and it didn’t matter how exhausted or sore I was because I had to keep going.

I’d fallen apart once. That was enough.

They asked questions and offered blank stares while I spoke, and when I was convinced they were going to haul out a giant ‘idiot’ stamp and slap it on every page of my research, the Dean said, “The committee agrees your work merits approval.”

I smiled through a round of congratulations and discussion of my future plans. There were offers to join a residency program at Boston Children’s Hospital, a research fellowship at McLean Hospital, a clinical position at a school specializing in the autism spectrum, but I couldn’t do anything with that information right now. Forcing a smile, I promised to take it all into consideration, and then I got the fuck out of there.

“Are you having fun?” Ellie asked.

She was altogether too eager for me right now. Sure, I should be thrilled that my work wasn’t tossed in the shredder and I wasn’t laughed out of the building, but it hardly mattered. It was one dissertation with some overly ambitious correlations based upon a narrow sample set. I wasn’t proposing actionable solutions for peace in the Middle East.

But Ellie had been determined to get me out of the house, and I was starting to think she was trying to get me some action, too. She’d insisted on visiting this new bar in the South End, and though it was a strange choice for us, I didn’t have the energy to disagree.

I was okay, sort of.

I managed to pull together a dissertation in two months and added forty-six tracks to my YouTube channel. It was all part of a strategic initiative aimed at keeping me from crying in bed, on the sofa, or anywhere else that reminded me of Sam, and it was only partially successful.

My musical tastes were a blend of depressed teenage girl and eclectic hipster. My recent playlist walked a convoluted course from dark and moody to angry to melancholy to emo-angsty, and my subscribers were hungry for something happy but I didn’t have it in me. Not yet.

I was all U2 (‘One’), The Rolling Stones (‘Paint It Black’), Arctic Monkeys (‘Do I Wanna Know?’), Dashboard Confessional (‘Vindicated’), Muse (‘Madness’), No Doubt (‘Ex-Girlfriend’), REO Speedwagon (‘Take It On the Run’), The Shins (‘Caring is Creepy’), AFI (‘Love Like Winter’), The Doors (‘Riders on the Storm’), My Chemical Romance (‘Famous Last Words’), Joseph Arthur (‘Honey and the Moon’), Tegan and Sara (‘Where Does the Good Go?’), and Taylor Swift (‘Style,’ ‘Blank Space,’ ‘I Knew You Were Trouble,’ and basically everything else she’d ever recorded).

“Your enthusiasm is a little high for me,” I said, propping my elbows on the table. “I’d really appreciate it if we can admire my so-called accomplishments with a hot bath. Or better yet, a nap.”

“I love how you suffer for your art,” she said. “It’s a nice throwback to the nineties.”

“Seriously, Ell,” I said, leaning down to suck my drink through the straw. “I’m not in the mood. I’m tired. I haven’t slept since the vernal equinox and if you tapped my blood, it would be sixty percent cappuccino, and I want to sleep right now. I don’t understand why I have to party tonight.”

Ellie eyed me from across the booth. “You got a doctorate today. Be happy.”

“I will, as soon as I recover.”

“That’s a little fatalistic,” she murmured. She was focused on her phone, and didn’t look up. It was odd—wonderful, but odd—having her back in the apartment again. She’d spent one weekend with me before flying back to the tour, and now she was only home for another two weeks before the European leg kicked off. I was trying to enjoy my time with her but very obviously failing.

I scanned the bar while she texted, estimating how much longer we’d have to stay. It wasn’t even nine at night, but now that I’d successfully defended and spent four hours in the studio, I wanted to crawl into Sam’s clothes—the ones that had lost his scent when I washed them—and sleep for days.

What I wouldn’t do to go back in time. Do it all over again, and do it right. Say all the things I wanted to say, let myself experience big, scary feelings and deal with them like an adult, and then give him as much as he gave me.

Then I heard it. ‘Anna Sun.’

One song about never wanting to grow up. That was all it took. One song and a thousand memories swirled around me, pulling me into the quicksand. I’d avoided that Walk the Moon tune and so many others attached to Sam. All the memories I’d worked so hard to manage were right there, howling for my attention and clogging my throat with tears.

“Are those tears of joy? As in, ‘I’m no one’s research bitch anymore’ tears?” Ellie peered at me.

“This song,” I said. “It just reminds me of Sam.”

“Yeah. About him,” she murmured. “Have you thought about calling him?”

I shook my head and edged my drink away. Much more of that and I’d be face-down on the table. “And say what? ‘Hey, it’s been months but I miss you and I feel like my heart has been ripped out through my belly button and I just want to explain why I was a horrible bitch to you’? I don’t see that happening.”