What I Shouldn’t Want

Chapter 7

NORA’S POV

Dana picked the diner on Fourth, the one with the cracked red booths and the pie case by the register. It was the place we'd gone after every bad day since nursing school. She was already there when I walked in, sitting sideways with her boots up on the bench, two menus in front of her and a coffee already poured for me.

"You're late."

"Four minutes."

"Four minutes is late when you've been ignoring me for three days." She pulled her feet down and looked me over. "You look like hell."

"Thanks."

"I mean it with love. Sit."

I sat. The vinyl was cold through my jeans. I picked up the menu even though I knew it by heart, because holding it gave my hands something to do. I'd slept maybe three hours. I'd showered twice that morning and still felt like I was carrying him around on my skin, which was ridiculous, and which I could not stop noticing.

"So," Dana said. "Where've you been?"

"Work. I told you."

"You told me you were working. You didn't tell me why your phone was off Saturday night."

"I was at the lake house. Reception's bad."

"Reception's fine at the lake house. I've called you from there." She said it lightly, flipping the menu over. "Caleb said you called him."

My stomach tightened. "He told you that?"

"I went out there Sunday. I was worried. He was under the porch fixing a step, shirtless, which I'm just going to say was a lot to deal with before noon."

"Dana."

"I'm just reporting facts." She grinned, then it faded. "He said you didn't want to be alone. I get that. I just wish you'd called me."

"I didn't want to talk to anyone who'd be nice to me."

"I'm never nice to you."

"I know." I managed a smile. "That's why I should've called you."

"Then why didn't you?"

I didn't have an answer that wasn't a lie. The waitress saved me, a teenager with a pencil behind her ear, and Dana ordered for both of us without asking: two grilled cheeses, extra pickles, a slice of apple pie to split. When the girl left, Dana leaned her elbows on the table.

"Okay. I'm going to say something and I need you to not get defensive."

"That's how you start when I'm going to get defensive."

"Probably." She rubbed the back of her neck. "I think I've been going about this wrong. Since the funeral, I've been trying to fix you. Push you. Make you talk, make you clean out the closet, make you go on a stupid date. And that's not what you need."

"Dana..."

"Let me finish. What I think you need is for me to shut up and just be there. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be annoying and show up with food and not ask you to do anything." Her voice was steady, but her eyes were bright. "You scared me, Nor. When you went quiet, I thought... I don't know what I thought."

The guilt hit me so hard I couldn't breathe for a second. She was sitting across from me with her whole heart in her hands, and I was lying to her face about the best and worst thing that had happened to me in eight months.

"I'm okay," I said.

"Are you?"

"I'm better than I was." That, at least, was true, and I hated that it was. "I think I'm starting to feel things again."

"Like what?"

"Like I'm not so tired."

She studied me. I kept my face still the way I do at bedsides when a family asks if there's any hope. It's a skill. I'd just never used it on her.

"Good," she said at last. "That's good. I'll take that."

The food came. I ate half my sandwich and Dana ate the rest, and she told me about her landlord, her sister's new boyfriend, a patient who'd tried to pay her in lottery tickets. I laughed in the right places. For twenty minutes it was almost normal, and then she set her fork down and wiped her hands on a napkin.

"There's something else."

I felt my shoulders tense. "What?"

"Trent's back."

The booth seemed to shrink. I heard myself say, "What do you mean, back?"

"I mean he's in town. I saw him Monday outside the courthouse, in a suit, looking like a man who owns things. He said hi. He asked how you were doing." She watched my face. "I told him it was none of his business."

"Did he say why he's here?"

"He said he bought a building on Main Street. Something about offices." Dana made a face like she'd swallowed a lemon. "He asked if you were still at the hospice. I said I didn't know."

"Okay."

"You're gripping the table."

I looked down. My knuckles were white. I let go and put my hands in my lap.

Trent Whitlock and I had dated for two years before Daniel. He was handsome, with the smooth kind of charm that makes people trust him in a single conversation. It took me almost a year to see what was underneath. The way he questioned me when I got home late. The way he'd go quiet and cold for days if I made plans without him. The night he took my phone out of my hand and read my texts and said, very calmly, I'm just looking out for you. When I left, he sent flowers every week for three months. Then he showed up at my work. Then, finally, one morning I got a letter from his lawyer saying he'd cease all contact if I would.

Then I met Daniel, and for the first time in my life I didn't have to flinch.

"He sent flowers to the funeral," I said. "Remember?"

"I remember. I threw them in the dumpster."

"You did not."

"I absolutely did." She reached across the table and covered my hand with hers. It was warm. "He's not going to hurt you, Nora. I'm not going to let him. I just thought you should know."

"Thank you."

"And if he calls you, you tell me. Immediately."

"I will."

I wouldn't, I realized. Not unless I had to. That was the thing about secrets; they changed shape and made room for each other. I now had a husband's brother in my guest room bed and an ex-boyfriend back in town, and I was lying to the only person who might have helped me with either.

My phone buzzed against the table.

I should have turned it over. I didn't. The screen lit with a text preview, plain and unmistakable:

“Thinking about you. Don't answer if you can't. — C”

My whole face went hot. I grabbed the phone and flipped it face down, and the movement was so quick and clumsy that the saltshaker rolled onto its side.

Dana looked at me. She looked at the phone. Then she looked at me again, one eyebrow slowly rising.

"Who's C?"

"Work," I said. "Carol. From scheduling."

"Carol from scheduling says she's thinking about you?"

"She's... very supportive."

"Mm."

"She's going through something. Her husband."

"Hm." Dana picked up her coffee. She took her time over it. "Carol sounds like a lot."

"She is."

"I'd like to meet her."

"You wouldn't."

"No," Dana agreed pleasantly. "I probably wouldn't."

She let it go, or seemed to. She asked about my schedule, whether I'd gotten the invitation to Marianne's dinner, what I was bringing. I said wine. She said wine was a good idea because Sunday was going to be a minefield, and Marianne would be watching everyone like a hawk. I almost choked on my water at that, hearing Caleb's words in her mouth.

When the check came, Dana grabbed it before I could reach. She slid out of the booth and pulled her jacket on, and as I stood up, she hugged me, hard, for longer than she usually does. Her chin pressed against my shoulder.

"I love you," she said into my hair. "Whatever it is. You know that, right?"

My throat closed. "I know."

"Whatever it is."

She pulled back, patted my cheek, and walked to the register. I stood there next to the booth with my face burning, watching her pay, and I understood two things at once.

Dana knew something. Maybe not what, maybe not who. But she knew.

And she was giving me the chance to tell her myself.

I picked up my phone. Under Caleb's message there was another one, newer, from a number I didn't recognize.

“Nora. It's been a long time. I think we should have coffee. — Trent”

I stared at it until the screen went dark.