Necessary Restorations (The Walsh Series) (A) (42 page)

He spoke but I didn’t listen. There was a time when the Turlan project mattered to me; hell, there was a time when anything mattered. It was long gone.

The meeting eventually finished and I made my way back to my office. I didn’t let myself think about anything but the plan, and dug into the arrangements. It took the entire day and I only stepped out of my office for quick trips to the bathroom and printer. I forwarded all calls to voicemail, and I debated turning off my phone but there was a sliver of hope that Tiel would call or text and I couldn’t risk missing that.

Shannon and Patrick held a weekly five o’clock budget meeting in her office, and I knew I’d find them there once my plans were finalized. Not wanting to return to the office after speaking with them, I grabbed my suit coat and messenger bag, and carried them down the stairs with me.

I stood in the doorway while they hunched over a spreadsheet on Patrick’s screen, and waited. Shannon noticed me first, and then elbowed Patrick. “Hey, what’s up?” she asked. She settled into her chair and he sat on the edge of her desk.

“I can’t be here anymore,” I said.

Shannon and Patrick exchanged quick glances, and she grabbed a pen from the silver jar beside her laptop. She was a compulsive tapper; it was what she did when the silences turned uncomfortable.

“Would you care to explain that one?” she asked.

I shifted the bag to my other hand with a sigh. “I’d like to take some time off. I’ve finalized designs and detailed notes for all of my projects, and I’ve left them all for Riley. Everything is on my desk, and backed up on the server.” Shifting again, I ran my hand through my hair and the motion immediately brought back every memory of Tiel’s fingers sliding over my scalp. “I need to be away from here. Please.”

Shannon and Patrick exchanged another glance, and spoke simultaneously.

“How long are we talking?” she said.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Patrick sent her a scowl over his shoulder, and she murmured, “It’s not an unreasonable question, Patrick.”

“No, I’m not okay.” It was good to get it out, give it voice. I’d been pretending to be all right for so long, it felt like a vindication to finally say it out loud. “I’m really fucked up, and I need to go. I’m not sure how long.”

Shannon tossed her pen back in the jar. “But Riley—”

“Riley is more than capable. Matt trained him well, and we don’t need to treat him like an idiot. He can do this, and he deserves the opportunity to succeed on his own. I’ve written a letter to the Turlans—it’s on my desk—and they’ll be happy with Riley’s work. This project will make his career.”

She clasped her hands on her desk and stared at them, nodding slowly.

“What do you need from us?” Patrick asked.

I shook my head. “Nothing. Just . . . time. Time to get my shit together.”

“Where are you going?” he asked.

I rubbed the back of my neck and hesitated. I didn’t want my well-intentioned siblings to show up and ruin the solitude I required, but I knew boxing them out wasn’t fair either.

“I’m going camping. I’m thinking Acadia, but maybe the Kancamagus. I haven’t decided, and I probably won’t until I hit the road.”

“You’ll let us know if you need anything? If there’s anything we can do?” he asked.

“There’s nothing, Patrick. I just need to be alone.”

The city was as empty as I felt, and the drive home was oddly quick. I went straight into packing mode. I kept all of my gear in one of the closets alongside the original fire truck bays, and soon I had everything loaded into the old pickup I reserved for these adventures.

I didn’t need much else; some clothes, some books, enough medical supplies for several weeks. Maybe months.

I was tossing my rucksack into the truck when Riley walked in. He pointed to the equipment in the truck’s bed. “What is happening here?”

I lifted a shoulder and shrugged into my fleece jacket. “I’m taking off.”

“Oh no you’re not,” he laughed. “Go on. Tell me another silly story.”

Leaning against the truck, I slipped on my wool socks and hiking boots. “I’m heading up north. I want to spend some time in the woods. Breathe some clean air. You’re in charge of Turlan, and the rest of my projects. Keys to the Range Rover are on the kitchen table. Utilities are paid for the next—”

“Stop. Stop.” He held up his hands and advanced on me. “This is crazy. Turlan is
your
baby, and Patrick will never go for me managing any project that important, and you were having a seizure in the fucking hospital one week ago, and if you’d just fucking listen to me, we could figure out how to fix things with Tiel.”

“He already knows, and you can handle it.” I turned away to tie down the gear.

“Sam,” he said. “Are you even going to tell her?”

“No,” I murmured. “She’s better off without me. I think that’s abundantly clear to everyone.”

His shoulders dropped and he shook his head. He watched as I secured the truck and shut the closet, silent. “Do you have enough insulin? Glucose tablets? What about replacement parts, and those little batteries?”

“All set.”

“What about food? Do you need cash?” He reached for his wallet and offered up sixty dollars. I refused, but he shoved it into my coat pocket anyway. “Do you have a phone charger? You better fucking call me
every day,
or I’m going to find you and kick the snot out of you.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “There’s terrible reception up north. Most of Maine is a dead zone. I couldn’t call you every day unless I was camping in downtown Portland, and I’d rather not talk to another person for at least two weeks.”

He crossed his arms and glared at me. “Are you going into the woods to detox from Tiel, or are you going to do something stupid?”

The keys dangled from my fingers while I considered my response. I didn’t know what was going to happen when I got in the truck, and I liked it that way. I just wanted to go and be gone. I’d figure out the rest later.

“I need to listen to the earth for a little bit,” I said. I never understood what Tiel meant until I needed it, too. “That probably sounds really lame, but I need less noise. I need to understand some things, and I can’t do that here.”

He crawled into the bed of the truck, pawing through my gear. “Call me. Just fucking call me. I won’t tell Shannon or anyone, but dude, you can’t go all
Into the Wild
on me now.”

“I won’t,” I said, and Riley pulled me into a bear hug. “Take care of my properties. I’ll tear off your arm and beat you with it if you fuck up Turlan.”

He smiled, clapping me on the back in a tight man-hug. He watched as I pulled out of the firehouse, waving from the curb.

I didn’t know where I was going or how long I was staying there, but soon Boston was only a speck in my rearview mirror, and I was on my own.

This was different than eating lunch in the bathroom when my high school’s cafeteria was hostile territory. It wasn’t talking to my mother’s tombstone. It wasn’t watching a woman’s lips cover my dick but feeling nothing at all.

I was completely, thoroughly, enormously alone for the first time in my life, and forcing myself to feel all my broken pieces was absolutely terrifying.

“THIS IS HIGHLY unusual.”

I pulled my lip between my teeth while the Dean scanned my transcript. He had to say yes. It had to work out.

“It appears you have more than enough credits to finish ABD,” he said, his pen roving over the words on the page. “In fact, you’ve had enough credits for two and a half years. You’re only missing a dissertation defense.”

“Yes. Right. I
know
I’m All But Dissertation. That’s why I’m here,” I said.

I was trying to keep my impatience in check, but this guy was not listening. He was the fourth person to completely misunderstand my request today, and now I was vibrating off my seat with edginess. I’d also had seven cappuccinos today, and that was on top of the ones I drank last night, and if I thought about it, I couldn’t remember the last time I slept.

But it was fine. Really. Everything was fine. I was researching and writing, and playing until new blisters formed on my fingers on top of old blisters and then playing some more, and that was keeping me too busy to think about anything else.

Except coffee. But I was totally fine.

I was always worried about more coffee. I memorized all the twenty-four hour coffee shops in town. Somehow, I presumed there would be a greater degree of all-night coffee availability considering the volume of colleges in the area. Someone should do a study on that: the ratio of college students to twenty-four hour coffee in a given area.

“I just need to know if I can schedule my defense. I’m almost finished, and I can present as soon as next month. That’s all I need to know.”

“Well,” he said, drawing the word out while my heel bounced against the chair leg. “That seems rather quick—”

“But I’ve been working on it all this time,” I said. “All this extra coursework,” I leaned over his desk and pointed to the transcript. “It’s helped my research. I’m ready. I swear.”

“I don’t usually agree to last minute dissertation defenses.” He reached for a leather-bound book and thumbed through the pages, stopping on each one to underline the dates with his finger as if he was unfamiliar with the sequential nature of time. I could have jogged to Baltimore and back in the time it took him to find the right page. “The committee meets again during the first week of May,” he said, and then went back to the elaborate page-turning routine. “And then again the second week of July.”

He glanced up in question.

“May,” I said. That gave me two and a half months to pull together an entire dissertation. I was going to need more coffee—pronto. Maybe I could move in at Voltage Coffee & Art in Kendall Square. “May would be perfect.”

Once the details were ironed out, I hurried down the stairwell—I didn’t do elevators anymore—and onto the street. I was headed for the T station when I realized my phone was buzzing in my hand.

Not recognizing the number, I ignored the call. Within a few seconds, a text came through from the same number:

14:21 Unknown:
You don’t know me but I know Sam, and you need to hear about what’s happened to him. I want to talk. Please meet me at Pavement on Newbury this afternoon. I’ll be there until 5.

The fear came first, quickly followed by longing. I hadn’t heard from him since his cryptic late night texts two weeks ago—fifteen days, but who was counting?—and something was wrong.

I only indulged in my feelings—the raw, thorny pain that lingered right below the surface—on selected occasions. I couldn’t let myself get trapped underneath that while I was scrambling to finish my degree, and I couldn’t let it take me down now, either.

Panicked, I turned in a circle, then started down Boylston toward the Prudential Center. I didn’t want to meet this person, and I wasn’t entirely certain why I was, but my legs were intent on carrying me to the quaint coffee shop.

When I stepped inside, flustered and breathless despite the quick walk, I didn’t know where to look. I glanced at the door to confirm I was at the right place, and then reread the text as if it would offer some new information.

“Are you Tiel?”

I jerked my head up and found myself face-to-face with a beautiful redheaded pixie, the kind who required tailoring for her clothes because even size zero was too big. “Yes,” I said slowly.

“I’m Shannon Walsh.”

So this was the infamous Shannon. I expected the pricey suit, the chic accessories, the insane heels. I didn’t expect her to be tiny, or look so tired.

“Thank you for meeting me,” she said. She gestured over her shoulder toward a table. “Can we talk?”

“Can you just tell me what happened with Sam? Is he all right?”

She tucked her hair over her shoulder and paused. “Can we sit? Just for a few minutes?”

Hopefully she didn’t bring me here to mention that Sam had chlamydia. That seemed like something he’d delegate to one of his many platonic lady friends.

I nodded and followed her to a table. She summoned the barista and ordered a latte and a sugar cookie for herself. Another cappuccino for me.