Chapter 109: Better Than Expected
- RAYA -
Rory honks when she arrives at the house, and I roll my eyes, chuckling as I open the door to go out to meet her.
"You can’t come up to the door?"
"Look at you!" She says with a wide smile, shutting the driver’s side door and jogging around to hug me. "Oh my god, I missed you so much. I was so worried about you the whole time. You look really good. I guess dream guy has been taking good care of you after all. Has it really only been a week?"
"It feels longer, doesn’t it?" I giggle. "How was the flight back?"
She groans. "Long and boring. I’m so relieved to be back. Westin and I got in a huge fight the last day we were there, so the entirety of the flight was mostly us not talking and me pretending that I didn’t care."
"Oh no. Why? What happened?"
"It was nothing that important. I think we were both mostly just tired. He’s still at home sleeping. He isn’t going back into work until Wednesday," she shrugs and walks back to her side of the car. "He’s actually been talking about moving to London to study under one of the chefs he met there. They both seemed to hit it off really well."
"What?!" I stare at her over the top of the car, and I see the exasperation and exhaustion on my sister’s face for just a moment before it vanishes. Obviously this is what they were fighting about.
Rory doesn’t respond to my surprised question. Instead she gets into the car, leaving me staring at the yard that was behind her until I do the same.
"This is a pretty place," she says, barely glancing at the house before she backs out of the driveway. "It’s different than what I imagined. It’s not nearly as pretentious."
My eyes stray to the woods, gliding over the yard that stretches toward its dark cover. Last night’s events roll out in front of me, playing out in my memory. What happened doesn’t feel entirely real. Instead, it feels like some kind of alternate reality that vanished this morning just as quickly as it came.
"Is Westin really serious about moving to London?" I ask to take my mind off of the haunting mental images.
Rory sighs and then glances at me, doing her best attempt at a smile. "I think so, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk about it right now. This is more important: your doctor’s appointment, this sister time that I have been regretting not having before I left. I shouldn’t have gone on the trip. I shouldn’t have left when you were hurt and had just gotten out of surgery. It felt so wrong being there. I regretted it the whole time, and I’m pretty sure Westin was wishing I wasn’t there so he could just go ahead and enjoy it alone."
"Roar..."
"I’m so mad at Dad," she interrupts, shaking her head as she stares out the windshield. "He should have given you a place to stay when he realized that your apartment wasn’t safe. That was his opportunity to step up and be your father. But instead, all of the sudden there is this new woman in his life—a woman we have never even heard of or met who is now more important than his injured, homeless daughter."
I groan and go back to staring out the window. I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to view Dad through the perspective that Rory does and dwell on how he doesn’t align with her ideal father. He is the way he is, and I came to terms with it a long time ago. I’m just touched that he stayed the night with me in the hospital that first night. I wouldn’t have expected that.
"Are you not upset about it? That you’ve had to stay with a stranger? And by the way, weren’t you supposed to be in the guest house?" She asks, cutting me a sidelong glance.
"Dex and I slept together," I tell her, not having the energy or desire now to work her up to that admission with all of the beautiful and exciting details that it deserves. Somehow Rory has drained all of the romance and excitement out of me in just a few short minutes.
"Oh." It’s such a short, abrupt reply that it surprises me. I expected her to explode with all of her opinions and criticism on the subject, but she doesn’t.
We sit in silence for several minutes as the big buildings of the city come into view. The silence feels full of... disapproval, concern, surprise, uncertainty. But I don’t care. There is no way I can explain to her the beauty of what I have experienced while she was gone. I doubt anyone could truly grasp it unless they lived it. Any attempt to explain will make it sound cheap or exaggerated, and I’m not willing to demean it like that. So I will just let her think what she wants.
When we finally pull into the doctor’s parking lot, Rory puts the car in park and turns to look at me.
"Dex is the one, isn’t he?"
"What?" I chuckle, again taken by surprise. Rory is all over the place with her reactions. I definitely didn’t expect that question. I expected a lecture.
"You were dreaming of him, and then he came into your life. And I can tell he has been taking care of you." She smiles softly, and it looks strange. It’s like she doesn’t want to smile—the logical part of her brain is fighting it—but she gives into it just the same. "You seem different too, Auraya. You seem like... you’re at peace."
"I do?" I smile too, unable to avoid it. There is an abundance of joy inside of me, and any reference to it or acknowledgement of it makes it impossible to hide.
"Yes." She smiles, too.
"I know it’s only been a week, but..." I glance down at my hands, fidgeting with them in my lap, wondering how crazy I will sound if I admit my feelings.
"But you love him."
My wide eyes snap to hers, and she is only smiling—accepting this realization that somehow I don’t even need to explain.
"How do you know?" I ask softly.
"It’s just... obvious," she shrugs. "I can’t say that the logical part of me understands it at all, but... I’m happy for you."
"Really?"
"Yes, really." She grabs my hand and squeezes it. "Of course I’m happy for you. And as skeptical as I was and still am a little bit, he was there for you when no one else was. That’s no small thing in my eyes."
I nod with a crooked smile, small tears springing to my eyes. If she only knew... if she only knew how many things Dex has done for me. It hasn’t just been offering me a place to stay. It’s been so much more than that.
"It was easy to be really critical and worried and skeptical when I was so far away and couldn’t see you. I couldn’t feel your energy and sense the truth of what was happening, but I sense it now. I wish I could explain how different you seem."
"I seem different?"
"Yes. Different in a good way."
She squeezes my hand, sharing in the joy that I can’t find adequate words to express. When finally she goes to open the door, she adds: "But I swear to god, if he hurts you, I’m going to kill him."
—————
The doctor’s appointment goes smoothly. I’m taken in for an ultrasound to check how things are healing internally, and then I’m sent for a blood test.
"Well, Auraya, you have gone through quite an ordeal being in that accident," Dr. Winslow says when I’m back in the exam room. "Thankfully you are very young and healthy, and everything looks to be healing even better than expected this number of days out. Whatever you are doing, I would suggest that you keep doing it."
I have to stare at my hands with the wry smile that comes after what I told Dex this morning. He is definitely going to get a kick out of that comment.
"I will still want to see you back. Let’s schedule the next follow up in two weeks, but if you have any symptoms of things that don’t seem right, give us a call, okay?"
"Okay, thank you Dr. Winslow."
Rory stands from her seat in the waiting room when I emerge, her eyebrows tented in question and that same worry that she has been feeling the whole time she was away feathering her features. I’m surprised she didn’t demand to come in the exam room with me.
"Everything is good," I tell her. "He said the healing is better than expected."
"Really?" Relief rushes over her expression, and then she gives me the biggest hug—yet another thing that I wasn’t expecting from her this morning.
A few people sitting in chairs smile politely at us as we share this moment, and then I feel Rory start crying on my shoulder. She groans and pulls me toward the doors, wiping her eyes.
"Come on. We are going to celebrate," she chuckles. "I am so relieved. You have no idea."
I look at my phone and see that it’s nearing the noon hour. "I told Dex we could go to lunch."
"Well then call him. He can come, too. I have to thank him for taking care of you anyway."
