Pieces of You(73)
“Trying to get rid of me, huh?”
“Cora needs you.”
I’m not looking forward to sleeping on Cora’s thirty-year-old sofa tonight, but I’ve missed the hell out of her. It will be fun to have a nice drama-free weekend with Cora and Bigfoot. Of course, Jackie will be disappointed. Now that Chris and I are back together, she’s been dying for me to spend the weekend there. I hate disappointing Jackie.
The two-hour drive to Wrightsville Beach gives me time to call Chris and break the bad news.
“Finally,” he says when he answers my call.
“Finally, what?”
“Finally, I can stop checking my phone. Where are you?”
“Oh, shut up. You were not checking your phone.”
He laughs and I’m reminded of the first few months Chris and I were together when we were sixteen. He bought me a cell phone and I threatened to drop it in the toilet because I was becoming obsessed with checking for missed calls and texts from him. He made fun of me, but after that he never made me wait longer than five minutes for a response to a text or voicemail. When I told Senia about this she nearly threw up.
“Okay, I wasn’t checking my phone, but I was dying to hear your voice. I can’t wait to kiss you and sing to you. I finished your song today.”
And the butterflies are back. I really don’t want to have to give him the bad news, but Chris will still be there next weekend. In fact, I’m pretty sure I can count on Chris to be there for me forever.
“Chris, I can’t make it out there today.”
He’s silent for a moment before he responds. “Why? What are you doing?”
There’s a note of suspicion in his voice that makes me wonder if he’ll even believe me when I tell him where I’m going.
“I have to check on Cora.”
“Who’s Cora?”
“I told you about Cora. She’s my old landlady and my friend. Her caregiver is going to be out of town and she doesn’t have anyone else to keep an eye on her.”
He pauses again. “So you’re going back to your old apartment?”
“Chris, I’m going to Cora’s apartment. I’m only going because he’s not there. If he were there, he would be the one checking on her.”
It really bugs me that I don’t feel I can speak Adam’s name around Chris, but I understand feeling like you despise someone so much you don’t even want to hear their name. I feel that way about Joanie Tipton and, though I don’t know his name, I feel that way about my father. I hope I never know his name.
“I trust you, babe. I guess I’ll just have to go see you during the week. I’ll help you study.”
Study is Chris’s code word for oral sex. He used it all the time when we were together. The thought of his mouth on me is enough to make me squirm in my seat.
“I’ll call you when I get there.”
“No, call me when you go to bed so I can sing you to sleep. I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I pull the phone away from my ear to plug it into the stereo and I already have a text message from Chris.
Chris: The song is called Pieces of You. I wrote it for you and Abby.
The closer I get to Wrightsville Beach, the tighter the knots in my stomach become. By the time I pull into the parking lot at my old apartment complex, I feel as if I might vomit. I turn off my car and pull my feet up onto the seat so I can hug my knees. My entire body is shaking with nervous energy as memories of Adam come back to me: all the conversations we had while sitting in his truck in this parking space; all the eye roll inducing jokes he told me while hanging out in his apartment; all the times he touched me or kissed me and made me feel like the most beautiful person in the world. Adam and I were only together for eight weeks and we’ve been broken up for four weeks, but I can’t deny how much I miss him and how happy he made me.
I meditate for twenty minutes before I get out of the car. The breeze rolling in from the ocean smells like my old life, but it brings with it a slight chill. I button up my jean jacket and heave my backpack over my shoulder before I set off for Cora’s.
It’s almost seven p.m. If Tina already checked in on Cora today, she’ll be gone by now, which means that I may have to wait upwards of ten minutes for Cora to answer her door. I knock on the door three times and stuff my hands into my pockets to keep them warm. My hand hits my phone and I think of Chris’s text message. I pull my phone out of my pocket while I wait—to gaze at the name of the song he wrote for me. When Cora’s door opens, I drop my phone on the concrete. It’s Adam.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Claire