“I said get out!”
I sneer at him. “Gladly.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Grace
My Monday drags on.All day, it feels like my ankles have anvils tied to them. It makes me want to sit at my desk and avoid everyone. There’s an empty yogurt container on my desk when I walk into work in the morning. I left it there on Friday. I forgot to throw it away after I shut down my computer and clocked out. The person who scraped away at the bottom of the plastic container, happily eating the mid-afternoon snack her boyfriend packed in her lunch bag for her, seems like an entirely different person from who sits in front of it today.
It’s as if an entire lifetime has passed over the weekend. I was so hopeful then. So ready to enjoy the weekend with Andrew, looking forward to this surprise date he planned. I was even considering telling Teeny about us. Take her out for a girl’s day. Get a mani and pedi. Butter her up before delivering her a curveball while reassuring her that Andrew and I are adults who very much want this relationship. But now, I don’t know if that’s a good idea.
Maybe running into Frankie was a sign. A reminder of what I broke. A marriage, a life, a future. Maybe all those things just aren’t in the cards for me. And like a bright red string tied around my pinky, I’ve been pulled back to my past and it’s allthe proof I need to realize that Andrew and I aren’t meant to be. We don’t make sense in every way possible, and Friday night was evidence of that. If I was asking for a bigger sign than our ruined plans, I might as well be asking for an asteroid the size of Texas to hit me right on the head.
I try not to bother Andrew all day. I feel maybe a little bit of distance might be good for us at the moment. A night in our own beds where the high of our new relationship doesn’t muck up our reasoning, and we can think rationally for a second. A clear mind will do us some good. And maybe it’ll help Andrew reexamine a few things in our relationship. Even help him see how telling Teeny about us can’t lead to anything good. We’ve been doing things at lightning speed, and this momentary lapse in judgment helped us realize we need to pump the brakes.
I finally make it home by six. Now that fall is approaching, dusk hits a little earlier than usual. A warm bath, filled with bubbles and some bath salts feels like the perfect remedy for an achy neck and muscles. I unlock my door and walk into a dark apartment. Buster greets me through the sparse lighting, finding me through scent and familiarity. I switch on the lights, and the sight before me makes my stomach jump up to my chest.
“Holy shit!” I gasp. My shock only settles an inch when I realize it’s Andrew. He’s slumped at my kitchen table, his head sagging between his shoulders and his hair hanging down his forehead. “What are you doing here?”
“I let myself in.” His voice sounds strained. Like he’s been yelling for a few hours before coming over. I barely hear him through the croaked-out words. “That’s why you gave me a key, right?”
I ignore his sarcasm and slip off my shoes. Andrew doesn’t stand to greet me. Instead, he slumps down further, his forehead hitting the table.
“Is everything okay?”
“Just fucking dandy.”
This caustic bitterness is new to me, and I don’t know if I should be worried or offended. “You don’t look okay.”
He finally lifts his face to look at me, and it’s then I notice his lip. It’s swollen and bruised. There’s a gash cut across one side where it looks like it was bleeding pretty heavily at some point.
“You should see the other guy,” he says with a scoff.
“What the hell happened?” I quickly set down my things on the floor and rush to get some ice from my fridge. I manage to haphazardly wrap it in a towel and pull out the seat in front of him. He winces when I grip his chin to get a better look, but he doesn’t pull away when I press the ice to his lip.
“I think it’s a little late for that,” he tells me, speaking through pursed lips. “The swelling is already at its worst.”
“Still,” I protest, not budging. I sit there, holding the pack of ice to his face and study him. His eyes look sad while the rest of his face looks angry somehow. His jaw is tight, and his brows are pinched together, and his knuckles are white with frustration. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
He takes the ice pack from my hands and sets it on the table. I’m about to tell him to put it back when he stops me. “Frankie called me into his office this morning.”
“He did this?”
He nods. “He said some things that weren’t really nice.”
“What did he say?”
“I’d rather not repeat them,” he tells me. After a pause, a moment of consideration where he decides what he wants to divulge and what he wants to hold back, he adds, “It was about you.”
“Me?”
“And I might’ve thrown the first punch.”
I don’t know if he expects me to be upset or even choose to scold him, but I don’t do either one. I don’t have it in me.Instead, I cup my hand to his cheek, careful to avoid his injury. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he whispers, ducking his head to show he’s absolutelynotfine.
“No, it’s really not,” I tell him. “You don’t deserve this. To be treated this way. To be his punching bag.”
