After some sleep.
“Want to grab breakfast?” Heather asked. “It’s been a couple of weeks since our dinner. Did anything come of you and Jet? I want to know everything. Did he call? No, wait, you should just meet us at Molly’s.” Us being her group of friends, or perhaps, more aptly described, her group of intervening busybodies.
Not that Trix didn’t like them. She’d actually hung out with the group a few times since moving back. The girls were funny and sweet but . . . they would also be the first to admit without apology that they’d earned an A+ at the whole intervening busybody thing.
And Trix didn’t want the world to know every bit of her life, including the fact that she knew Jet, that he’d broken her heart three years before, and that they were now working together.
That would either get the matchmaking going, or have Heather truly siccing Bec on someone.
Someone being Jet.
And Trix was done. She’d moved on past the heartbroken, past the pissed and wanting to slash his proverbial tires or bog him down with some sort of legal magic Bec could whip up.
Trix had moved on.
The past was the past.
No use dwelling on it.
“I’m tired,” Trix said then because she wasn’t a total asshole, added, “I just got off after working twelve hours and have a shift tonight. Can I catch up with you guys another time?”
Even though she and Heather had never seemed to be able to find their stride as sisters, or rather, as half-sisters, Heather had always tried to bridge the gap between them, had always managed to find a way to check in with Trix over the years, whether by email or phone call or letter. In fairness, Trix hadn’t always been open to the contact, but things had changed, she’d grown and matured. Her sister had weathered that process and so, at the very least, she deserved an explanation.
A pause.
Then Heather’s voice was decidedly less chipper. “Sure, Trix. I understand.”
Shit. “I would come if I wasn’t—”
“Of course,” Heather said. “I’ll talk to you some other time.”
“Heath—”
“Abby wanted me to tell you she said hi.”
Trix sucked in a breath. “I say hi back—”
“Great, bye.”
Click.
The call cut off.
Her guilt was a familiar feeling, but what Heather didn’t understand was that Trix was trying, too. Yes, she’d moved home because she loved the towns and the beaches and the mountains and trees, but she could find those same features elsewhere. Part of the reason she’d moved home was also because her family was here. No, because Heather was here. Heather being the one person biologically related to her that had always tried to keep in touch.
Maybe she didn’t know how to express that desire, but she was there, wasn’t she?
That should count for something.
Trix dropped back to the pillows. “I should get points for trying,” she grumbled. “Especially after working twelve hours straight.”
Exhaustion weighed her limbs, made her lazy. She tucked the covers up to her chin and let her lids slide closed. But sleep wouldn’t come. Aside from the well-familiar feeling of guilt she had in regards to Heather, the call had woken her brain enough that no matter how long she lay there with her eyes closed, cuddling into a pillow that was infinitely softer than any she’d used over the last decade, cool cotton sheets draped over her body, soft hum of the ceiling fan spinning . . . none of those creature comforts could lure her back under.
After an hour, she tossed back the covers and moved to the bathroom.
Since sleep wasn’t an option, she was going to find comfort at the beach.
Waves were loud.
At least those of the Pacific Ocean variety.
But at least the noise of the water pounding against the shore had quieted the cacophony in her mind.
Part of her felt like she should have bypassed the beach and gone to meet her sister. Another piece thought that was too much too soon. Another . . . well she was trying not to think about her life.
Or Jet.
Or the fact she’d seen him almost every day she’d been at the hospital, short bursts of viewing as he’d come on and she’d left, a delicate floating note of his scent coating the air and sending a sharp pain through her heart.
Memories, such sweet, fucking memories.
Snorting, she pushed up from where she’d sat down on the sand, gathering up her flip-flops along with the paperback she hadn’t ended up reading because she’d been too focused on the glimpses of the sky on the horizon, on the white caps dotting the blue waves, the curls of fog being blown to shore by a wind that tangled her ponytail and chilled the exposed skin on her face and neck.
It was summer in the city.
And summer often began with fog.
But that fog was burning off now, and it was going to be a beautiful day. Soon the beach was going to be crowded with couples and families, with kids off from school, instead of joggers and the occasional person walking their dog. They’d run in the waves, build sandcastles, dig giant holes.
Or maybe that was what she wished she’d been able to do when she was their age.
And that was a mental train she wasn’t going down.
She would rather wax poetic about how good Jet had been in bed than think about the clusterfuck that had been her childhood.
Suffice it to say, it hadn’t included trips to the beach.
It had barely included food in the pantry, never mind a ride to school. However, it had included plenty of red-bottomed shoes, plenty of purses and clothes, plenty of makeup.
All essentials according to her mom.
All things that did not grow a healthy child.
But that was the past. She was over it. She was fine now.
Or, if not fine, then at least she was at least functional.
And based on her upbringing, that was probably as much as she could ever hope for.
Six
Jet
It had been two weeks since he’d first seen Trix at the hospital, and they’d crossed paths exactly seven times, mostly him coming in as she was leaving, but one time they’d brushed arms over the coffee cart in the cafeteria.
Brushed arms.
Next, he’d be talking about how the brief contact had made goose bumps rise on his arms.
For the record, it had.
Yes, he was losing his mind.
But tonight he’d come in and Trix was still working, black smudges of fatigue beneath her eyes, hair pulled back into a sloppy ponytail with small, curling tendrils escaping to dip across her forehead. He’d seen her eyes like that too many times to count over the years, knew she’d been picking up any and all overtime she could grab.
And that pissed him off.
They weren’t in the field. She shouldn’t be working herself to exhaustion instead of enjoying her life. Even though he’d called it quits on their relationship, it wasn’t like he didn’t care for her.
He’d wanted it to work between them. He tried and, in the end, he'd known it couldn’t work, that they both needed more—him someone who was open, who could love him without reserve, her someone who could peel away the layers, make the effort to love the woman he knew she was underneath. He couldn’t do that, not after spending so much of his life pathetically desperate and begging, urging and coaxing for just an iota of love from his parents.