Page 49 of Cashmere Ruin
“Mhmm. Just like you’venever done it before.”
It feels… indulgent, to let myself follow this train of thought. To let myself be comforted by the idea of Maia. She might have been scared, but she never…
She never took you away from a parent she thought was bad for you? She never did her best, however flawed?
I shake my head. However tempting these ideas are, I can’t let them get to me. I can’t let myself off the hook.
After all, what I did was unforgivable.
Still, I appreciate Elias’s intentions. Most of all, I appreciate that he told me something new about my grandmother. It makes me feel closer to her. Like maybe my story with her isn’t over yet, even if I can no longer reach her.
“Thank you,” I tell him. “I needed that.”
We play with the baby some more, then Elias offers to drive Charlie home.
“I’ll visit again soon,” my brother promises. Whether to me or May, I’m not so sure anymore. I might’ve slipped down a spot on the totem pole of his favorites.
“We’ll be waiting for you, Uncle Chuck.” I hug them both goodbye, then walk them to the door.
“Oh, almost forgot,” Elias says with a snap of his fingers. “Did you ever enter that contest? I believe the deadline’s closing in.”
The contest.With everything that’s been happening, it slipped my mind completely. The fashion competition—the one with a full ride at the Mallard Institute as grand prize. “Actually, I don’t… I’m not sure that I’ll make it.”
“I can take some work from your hands,” he offers. “In fact, I’d have taken it all off your hands, but…”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. I insisted. Besides, it’s good to keep busy. Helps keep my mind off things.”
Off Matvey, specifically.
“You should do it,” Charlie joins in. “You’d win, Apes. I know you would.”
I ruffle Charlie’s hair. “You think I hung the moon in the sky.”
“I think you should do whatever makes you happy.”
Goddammit, tear ducts. Working overtime today.“I’ll think about it,” I promise them both.
As I wave them off in the hallway, those words keep spinning in my mind:Whatever makes you happy.
If only I deserved to be.
16
MATVEY
It takes me the entire drive home to calm down.
I can’t help it. The second the doctor uttered those words, I saw red.Back to prepartum condition. Sexual activity.
Likehellam I letting that happen.
It’s a dark, vicious spiral of thoughts, and it just keeps getting darker as I slam the door to the loft closed and reach for something stronger than coffee. At leastthisliquor cabinet is still mine to use, thank you very much.
“Unbelievable,” I mutter to myself. “Un-fucking-believable.”
I try to steer my mind back to business, but it just won’t quit. I just keep remembering our fight before she left, that cursed day where I did my worst to push her away. That I’d get rid of her, that I didn’t owe her anything, that I?—
And if I want somebody else to move in, you won’t stand in my way, either?