They would talk, and she could tell him she loved him and that they would find a way to make this work, and it would all be fine. That the fight had been stupid, that she had been stupid to send him away. Right?
Wrong.
“We’re sorry, the number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please hang up and try again.”
This time, there was no soft couch to cushion the blow as she chucked her phone across the room as hard as she could and watched it shatter against the wall, creating a near-identical dent and joining the scraps of his on the floor.
Their two phones, side-by-side in pieces on the carpet in his living room, felt like a too-accurate representation of the state of her relationship with Mitch.
But she couldn’t leave them there, so she dropped to her knees and attempted to pick up the pieces. Absently, she brushed her fingers across his phone screen, hoping it would come to life. Instead, her pointer and middle fingers snagged on a jagged piece of the screen, and blood welled.
“Fuck!” She yelled, then hopped up and stomped toward the hall bathroom, tears gathering along her lower eyelid.. Brushing at her eyes with the back of her hand, she used her uninjured one to rifle through the cabinets.
All of his stuff was still here. Q-Tips and bottles of pain meds and a myriad of skincare products. And her stuff was there, too. A small bottle of her favorite lotion that she wore in lieu of perfume. A stray hair tie. A half-dried tube of mascara.
Abandoned.
Exactly as he had abandoned her.
Mitch was gone, had completely cut himself off from everyone and everything in Detroit,including Lexie,and that was the end of it.
She would likely never see him again.
Her temper rose as she stalked into the kitchen in search of a bag. When she left Mitch’s apartment, it would be for the last time, so she might as well collect her things while she was there.
The blood boiling in her veins held the tears at bay, anger driving out all other emotions. Single-minded focus propelled her forward, down the long hallway and into the master bedroom, where she carefully averted her gaze from the king-sized bed piled high with pillows–half of which Lexie had bought–and made a beeline for the dresser.
Yanking open the top drawer where her delicates lay, she hastily stuffed them into the recyclable grocery bag. Methodically, she made her way through the dresser.
The majority of Mitch’s clothes were artfully organized in his walk-in closet; he had used his dresser mainly for athletic shorts and old, faded t-shirts. When he and Lexie got serious, and she started spending more time in his space, he had presented her with drawers of her own, his cheeks burning with embarrassment. The emotion was so out of place against his tan skin that Lexie thanked him the only way she knew how.
First, she towed him across the room and pushed him down so he was perched on the edge of his bed.
Then, she stepped back and slowly stripped out of her clothes, tossing them onto the Warriors’ blue duvet cover next to him.
Then, she stepped forward as Mitch reached for her. His fingers grazed up her thigh and backside as she turned away from him and folded her clothes before she walked them to the dresser, throwing a cheeky grin over her shoulder, and gently laid them inside.
Moments later, she was on her back on the bed, Mitch looming over her with a wicked grin curving his full lips.
Lexie pulled open the bottom drawer, confronted with her clothes from that day stacked neatly next to a few of Mitch’s threadbare Warriors’ t-shirts, the sight a gut punch.
Her anger reached a crescendo, and she tore into the drawer, removing the clothing and tossing it around the room, then stomping into the walk-in closet and taking her rage out on his suits, so carefully hung in neat, color-coordinated rows.
“Fuck you, Mitch,” she seethed as she ripped his replica jerseys from their hangers and tossed them onto the floor, jumping up and down on them for good measure.
Moments later, with her chest heaving, she spun in a circle, eyes widening as she took in the carnage of her fit of rage.
“Fuck,” she said quietly, moisture welling in her eyes, as she fell to her knees to run her fingers over Mitch’s name on the back of his dark blue jersey.
That’s when the tears began to fall in earnest. She curled herself into a ball atop the mass of clothing blanketing the floor and let it all out, sobbing and screaming until her throat was raw.
None of it was fair.
Not him being traded.
Not him letting her push him away.
Not him making her fall in love with him.
