Testing Recipes for Disaster (Emberwood #2)

Chapter 21- Lauren

I f he hadn’t shown up yesterday, I wasn’t sure I would have slept at all. I knew I was in a tailspin, but it was like watching myself as a spectator and knowing I should calm down and not being able to fucking do it. And then he was there, and I was in the shower and eating for the first time that day and relaxing on the couch. He didn’t make any comments about wanting to be under my blanket this time, but he did put a pillow down next to him and pat it when I started to yawn. I laid down, and his fingers eventually drifted to my arm and rested there like it was where they belonged. It felt like they did.

He left after the movie and insisted I didn’t get up, but I thought that might have been more so that we didn’t have an awkward goodbye at the door than him being polite.

I was in less of a panic the next morning, but I knew I had to get things done. I called the heater place and asked if I could fit them in my car or if I needed a truck. The guy said they should fit no problem, so happily, that cut a good half hour off my time since I didn’t need to go pick up another vehicle. The weather was beautiful—a little cloudy but plenty of sunrays peeking through, and I was finally feeling excited instead of anxious.

Until I got to the heater rental place.

Because the guy I talked to on the phone assumed I was renting the small three-foot heaters, not the tall ones. My dad had already gotten the propane, so at least I didn’t have to worry about that, but in looking at these things, I was pretty sure there was no way they were fitting in my Beetle. And I absolutely should have known that. Jer had even specifically said I needed a truck. I stood and chewed on my lip, my brain in decision paralysis. If I went all the way back to Emberwood to get my dad’s truck, I would be hours behind.

Fuck it .

I directed the guy to bring them out to the front, and I would make them fit. He looked at me like I was more than a little crazy, but that only fueled my determination. I laid down all the seats and scooted the driver’s seat up as far as I could while still being able to slide in. They might have been hanging off the back of my car, and I obviously couldn’t close the trunk, but they were in. The useless sales guy loosely tied the hatch down with what might as well have been yarn.

Whatever. They’re in.

The top of one of the heaters kept hitting me in the back of the head every time I hit the slightest bump. I was forced to drive backroads to Emberwood due to the open-trunk situation. I had horrible visions of these expensive metal heaters in pieces all over the highway. I was easily forty-five minutes behind schedule because I should have picked them up yesterday, and I didn’t. Why? No reason. I couldn’t make myself go get them because I knew it was going to be a giant pain.

Well, you were right.

But now, I was faced with getting these to my parents’ house, setting everything up, and getting myself ready in about three hours’ time. The only comforting thing was that I knew my mother would have already gotten most of the prep work done. It should have left me enough time to drop these off, get ready, and get back to set up and welcome guests. I tried to take deep breaths and tell myself I wasn’t going to ruin this shower.

Until my car lurched twice and then sputtered. I managed to direct myself to the side of the road at the second lurch. Thankfully, I was on a straight section and not one of the curves, but what.the.fuck? I turned the key in the ignition, and nothing.

This cannot be happening. This cannot be happening.

My gas gauge hadn’t worked in maybe four or five months, so I made sure to get gas once a week no matter what, and it was fine. I closed my eyes and tried to remember if I’d gotten gas on Monday, and I couldn’t. All of the days in the past couple of weeks blended together, and I had no idea.

“Fuck!” I yelled, hitting my steering wheel.

What the hell was I supposed to do four miles from the edge of town with all these rented heaters in my car? If I walked, there was no way I’d get shit done for the party. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes because this was not the time for this to happen, not when it didn’t only fuck me over but Sam and Jesse, too.

God, I’m so tired .

I wanted to put my head on the wheel, ignore everything, and let someone else deal with the fallout. But I couldn’t. I picked up my phone to call my dad, but the promise of his deep sigh gave me pause. So instead, I called another person I didn’t want to, but at least I knew he wouldn’t lecture me. Much. Jer picked up on the second ring.

“Hey, is everything okay? You never call.”

“Ummm, no. Not really. Can you...can you come get me?”

“What’s the matter?”

His voice was instantly concerned.

“I think I ran out of gas or something? I have the heaters in my car, and I don’t even know what to do with them or if it’s really the gas thing or that my car hates me. My gauge hasn’t worked in months, so it’s possible I’m wrong, and... I don’t know. I’m so sorry, Jer. I know you’re trying to get all of the food together, but I didn’t know who else would come get me, and—”

“Laur, text me your location. I’ll bring gas, but I’ll grab the tow truck from the shop just in case. We’ll get everything here in time. I swear.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

I texted him where to find me and then sat in silence. Why, of all weeks, did I choose this week to do this? I knew, rationally, that I hadn’t slept properly in at least ten days, and I was surviving on diet soda, frozen pizza, and turkey sandwiches. It was not a recipe for thriving. I wanted to text Sam about how I’d “pulled a Lauren” and she’d never believe the predicament I was in now. But it was her wedding shower, and it made my skin crawl thinking about admitting to her I was this out of control. I was going to have to figure it out.

I started making plans in my head for how it was going to get done. I’d be making use of dry shampoo and extra deodorant and skipping a shower. I could ask my mom to arrange the flowers, get my dad to figure out the heaters once Jer and I got them to the deck.

It had been all of twenty minutes when the tow truck passed by and turned around so it could pull up behind me. I schooled my face into a determined expression and got out to meet him.

“Hey. You okay?” he asked, eyeing my overloaded Beetle suspiciously.

“I know. I shouldn’t have tried to bring the heaters in my car. This is a problem I’ve brought upon myself.”

“I’m not asking about your car or the party, Laur. Are you okay?”

I simply stood and stared at him, not even sure how to answer that question.

“Sure. I mean, right now is not great. But sure. Can we figure this out?”

He nodded. He popped my fuel door and the hood, added gas from a gas can, and tried the engine. It did try to spring to life, but the car was making a not-great noise. I saw Jeremy’s brows furrow. He turned the car back off and went to do something under the hood. I sat on a tree stump while I waited, nervous he was going to tell me it was something awful.

“Hey, Laur?”

“What...”

“When was the last time you changed your oil?”

“Umm, I don’t know? My dad used to do that until his heart attack, and then I started taking it to the place on Main, you know, but things have been crazy, so, a while ago?”

He went to my windshield to look at the sticker there and then got the mileage off my dash.

“You haven’t changed your oil in about 7,000 miles. It’s not catastrophic, just, you know, bring your car to me sometimes, okay? I think, right now, the issue is your fuel pump.”

“Okay?”

My voice got tighter and smaller. I didn’t know it could be catastrophic to wait too long to change my oil, and that was dumb because I was sure that was a normal fact that people knew. He got back into the driver’s seat and peeled off the piece of electrical tape I had over one of the dash lights.

“You put tape over your check engine light?”

“It bothered me, and there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the engine, so I assumed it was an error. I always intended to get it checked out, though. I didn’t want to look at the light.”

“Okay,” he said, and I could tell he was trying to keep his judgment at bay. “Laur... you can’t ignore the check engine light or a faulty gas gauge. Okay? You could put yourself in a dangerous situation.”

His voice was soft, and I knew he was trying to give me information, but ugh . I nodded because I knew my voice would shake if I spoke. I felt dumb. And that was not something I handled well. It brought back memories of many, many parent-teacher conferences when I was told I wasn’t performing up to my potential.

I brought my feet up to the top of the stump with me and pressed my face into my knees.

“I’m going to secure the heaters to the truck bed and then hook your car up to tow. I might need your help to get them out so I don’t scratch up your paint.”

I nodded again. I got up, went to stand where he directed me, and helped lift the heaters where he wanted them. He maneuvered the tow truck in place to get my car hitched to it. There was a lot of unnecessary beeping, being that it was only the two of us out here. Once everything seemed secure, he hopped down from the back of the truck.

“You know, if you missed me, you could have just said. You didn’t have to trash your car to get my attention.”

He shot me a grin, and I promptly burst into tears. I thought I had been doing a pretty good job of calming myself down, but my brain couldn’t tell the difference between laughing and crying at that point, so it all came out. I held my hands over my face and willed the water to stop.

“Oh my god, Laur, I’m sorry, I was only kidding. Your car isn’t trashed. I mean, not irreparably, anyway. I’ll fix it, and it will be fine. Please, please, don’t cry over this.”

He had reached for my hands twice and stopped. Things were weird between us, and I hated it. I hated all the things, actually.

“Well, then p-plug your ears and turn ar-round so you can ig-nore that anything’s hap-penning. We’re both real-ly good at that.”

I sat back down on the stump, telling myself I needed a minute to cry it out before I had to turn my smile back on to host a party. I felt tears dampen my shirt sleeves, and I knew my puffy eyes were going to be a bitch to cover.

Jer knelt in front of me and gently tugged my hands away from my face and held them.

“Hey. Will you look at me, please?”

I shook my head and gazed at the sky instead, making him laugh.

“Laur, please.”

I sighed and looked at him, his hazel eyes full of concern and his thumbs rubbing circles over my palms.

“I can tell you that ignoring what’s right in front of me is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”

I rolled my eyes, but he pressed on, touching my face and wiping my tears.

“I would love to dive into this with you right now, but I believe we have somewhere to be. So, here’s how this is going to go: We’ll take this whole truck to your parents’ and drop off the heaters, leave your car at the shop, and then I’ll take you home to get dressed and grab the cakes I made yesterday. I threw my clothes in the truck because I didn’t know what exactly I was walking into. Your parents will help; everything will be fine.”

I nodded furiously, like the more enthusiastically I agreed, the truer it would be.

“And whatever your car needs, I’ll do the labor for free, so we’ll get it fixed, okay?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re not doing—”

“Yes. I am. Let me take care of it for you, okay? Please?”

I didn’t say anything else, though I wasn’t resigned to letting him do it. I stood up, and he breathed out and followed me to the truck, holding out his hand to help me get in. He directed us towards the body shop, and I let myself deflate into the seat.

“Thank you,” I offered lamely.

“Laur. Are you okay?”

“I told you, I’m fine. Annoyed at myself.”

“Lauren.”

“Jeremy.”

“Are.You.Okay?”

The heaviness of his words this time hit me somewhere different, and I couldn’t quite get the answer out. I felt my breathing start to shorten again, and damn it, I did not want to cry anymore.

“I don’t know,” I got out.

He reached over and grabbed my hand, threading our fingers together and squeezing. I found the words spilling out of my mouth. The insomnia, the out-of-control feeling, the mistakes at work. How I could never finish anything even though I had a thousand ideas. Feeling like I was letting people down because I couldn’t get my damn life together like everyone else seemed to. How I was lazy even though I hated being lazy. It felt like I’d been talking for an hour, but the dash clock suggested it had been five minutes.

He drove and rubbed his thumb over my hand while I talked, and he didn’t interrupt me. He pulled into the main part of town as I ran out of words.

“Laur. You are the least lazy person I’ve ever met in my life. So, let’s take that off the table right now. And I’m the last person to provide any sort of wisdom, but I think maybe you should talk to your doctor about everything you just said. My, um, well, Kat used to kind of describe her ADHD that way. At least pieces of it. And I’m not trying to, like, diagnose you or tell you something is wrong with you. I think, maybe, there’s something else going on that isn’t your fault.”

“ADHD, like what eight-year-old boys get diagnosed with?”

He huffed out a laugh.

“I don’t think it’s age and gender-specific, but sure.”

“You really think I should go to the doctor?”

“I think it couldn’t hurt. I feel... very helpless right now because I can’t make you see yourself how I see you. But I’m telling you that you’re amazing at everything you do. Like, you blow me away. So, with everything you’re feeling, it seems like something else could be happening.”

“And Kat has this? Did she take medication or something? Did it help?”

“Yes to both. And I think so? Uh, she also sold her ADHD meds at times, so I’m not holding her up as, like, a beacon of mental health, but a lot of the feelings sound the same.”

“Okay. I, um, well, I’ll think about it. Thanks for listening to me have a little mental breakdown; I think I needed it.”

I realized we were already sitting in my parents’ driveway. He put the truck in park and turned toward me.

“Anytime, Garrett. Now, let’s get to this wedding shower, shall we?”

We managed to get the heaters off the truck bed, and he mercifully let me stay in the cab as he hulked out and carried each one around to the deck. I did not want to have to explain my face or my car to my parents. We had under an hour and a half to get back and host the damn party. He still held my hand the whole way to the shop, and again in his car on the way to my townhouse.

When I’d called him, I thought I’d feel helpless or like a damsel asking him to come rescue me, but honestly, I felt grounded. I had been floating away in my thoughts; he brought me back to earth and was holding me there.