Free Evercrossed by Elizabeth Chandler

challenges you're facing, but it's a start."
    Guy exploded. "My larger challenges? You talk like a freaking psychiatrist!"
    "Would you prefer that I call them unsolvable problems ?"
    "Wouldn't that be more honest?''
    "Only if you think they're unsolvable," she said.
    "Next you'll be lecturing me on the twelve step program. Step one: admit you have a problem."
    "That's a good beginning," she replied. He grimaced. "Not just the admitting part. It tells us that somehow you know about substance abuse programs. It's a clue."
    "A clue telling me what?" he asked incredulously. "That my father was an alcoholic? That my brother—or was it my friends, or was it my mother—did drugs? Maybe I did! Or maybe this clue tells me simply that AA made a presentation at my school and I happened to be listening that day. It tells me nothing!"
    Ivy struggled to remain patient. "Obviously, one puzzle piece has no significance in itself. But once you start putting it together with other pieces, it will make a picture. Pay attention when you suddenly come up with a puzzle piece—don't push it off the table in a rage." She dropped her keys in her purse. "Are you coming?"
    "No:"
    "Don't make such a big deal out of it—you can pay me back later. In the meantime, you can't go without a shirt and decent shoes." She waited thirty seconds longer, then got out of the car.
    He poked his head out the window. "Nice outfit," he called to her. Ivy glanced down—the bathrobe! She started to laugh.
    "Hey, it's my beach wrap."
    Using Will's sizes as a guide, Ivy flipped through the brightly colored T-shirts and cotton shorts. Guy was scared, she thought; anyone who'd leave the hospital—a roof, a bed, and food —when he had no other place to go was very afraid of something.
    His bouts of anger came from his fear and his hurt pride. If Will were in this situation, would he act this way? She wasn't sure, but Tristan had had that kind of pride.
    Ivy added to her list of purchases a large backpack, a pair of cargo pants, sunglasses, and a second towel. At the checkout counter she used her debit card, asking for cash back. Then she stuffed the money, the receipt, and other items in the pack.
    Emerging from the store, she walked slowly toward the car, mulling over the situation. When she looked up, she couldn't believe it—Guy was gone. She looked around quickly, as if he might have gotten out of the car to stretch his legs, but he had disappeared. She gazed into the green shade of the woods that bordered the parking lot. His escape route—to where? Guy himself probably had no idea.
    He had left her T-shirt on the car seat. Ridiculous, stupid pride! Taking a pen from her purse, she wrote the name "Guy" on the backpack, then picked up the pack, and with all her strength, flung it toward the trees. Afterward, she drove to Nauset Light Beach, where she ran through the pounding surf until she was exhausted, wishing her jumbled emotions could drain into the sea.

    " YOU COULD HAVE CALLED," WILL SAID TWO HOURS later. "You should've had your phone on. You had us worried."
    He was working next to the large garden between the cottage and inn, sanding an old bookcase he'd found among Aunt Cindy's stash of furniture. Beth sat nearby in an Adirondack chair, a book opened facedown on the chair's flat arm.
    "I told you I was fine," Ivy replied.
    "Your appointment was hours ago. I thought something was wrong?"
    Ivy removed her shoes and shook the sand out of them. "I went to the beach."
    Will's mouth held a straight line and the muscles in his forearms shone with sweat as he sanded furiously. Beth looked from him to Ivy, then back to him.
    "Why would you assume that something was wrong?" Ivy asked.
    "Given your track record. Ivy, why would I assume things were okay?"
    She didn't reply. "If Beth, who wasn't even hospitalized, had gone for a follow-up appointment and arrived home three hours after you expected, wouldn't you have worried?"
    "Okay, fine, you win," Ivy said, hoping