Page 92 of Before the Bond
“It’s… a lot,” I murmured.
“I know.”
“It doesn’t fix what happened,” I said. “I can’t just go back. How do I know things will actually be different this time?”
“I know,” he said. “I’m not asking you to. I can’t promise they will.”
He reached into the satchel he had wrapped around him and pulled something out. The mythology and lore book from the Ashwood library.
“You left it behind,” he said. “I saw it on your nightstand.”
“But that’s from the library,” I said.
Jake smiled. “It’s yours now. Footnotes and all.”
I took it and held it to my chest.
Jake cleared his throat. “You know, there’s something all those stories taught me.” He turned the empty styrofoam cup slowly between his palms. “Things don’t change unless someone moves first. I think having you at the estate was slowly teaching my brother that.”
He glanced at the window. The light had changed while we’d been talking — not brighter, but different, the flat grey that comes just ahead of dawn.
He stood slowly.
“I need to get back,” he said. “Traffic’s going to be awful. And they’ll need me soon.”
“Of course.” I stood too. “You’ll be careful?”
“I’d hate to get myself injured and give my favorite nurse a reason to come back out of professional obligation,” he said. The joke landed a little unevenly, the way jokes do when both people know the stakes underneath them.
I walked him to the door.
We stopped in the frame, and neither of us said anything for a moment. I looked at him — the circles under his eyes, the jacket that wasn’t warm enough, the boyish way he’d always carried himself even when he was in pain. He’d been the easiestperson in that house to be around from day one. He’d made the whole thing survivable, and I didn’t think I’d ever told him that.
“Take care of yourself,” I said.
“You too.” He stepped out and turned back once, the way he always did, like he wanted to make sure the moment closed right. “I hope me coming here wasn’t a bother.”
“It was the best thing all day.”
Jake smiled one more time.
He paused.
“I just thought you should know who you’re leaving,” he said.
My throat closed.
The door clicked shut.
I stood there and listened to his footsteps go down the hall, the push of the exit door at the end of the corridor, and then his car pulling out of the lot and back onto the road. The sound faded.
Then nothing. Homesickness hit hard.
I sat back down on the bed.
The laptop was still in my bag. I pulled it out and set it on my knees, the staffing agency page still open from earlier. Four cities. Contracts available. The cursor blinked in the search field.
My fingers didn’t move.
