“Do you have the door and frame?”
“Yeah.”I gestured toward my carport where everything leaned against the duplex just out of sight.
“We can get this done.”He set his toolbox on the porch and bent to look inside of it.“So, there was a bird?”
“A good-sized bird.”I smiled a bit at using her words from last night; they sounded as feeble from me as they had from her.
Standing, he held a crowbar in one hand and took a step toward the door and began prying the pieces apart.“She screamed because of the bird, and you ranthroughthe door.”
I rocked my weight from my toes to my heels.“I didn’t know what she was screaming about.”
For a moment, the only sound was the screech of metal nails pulled free from wood.In the lack of conversation, my nerves rattled around inside of my head, and I couldn’t just keep quiet.I needed totryto justify my reaction.Overreaction, really.
“The dog was barking too,” I said.
“So outta character for a dog,” he acknowledged with the driest tone.“Nah, it’s okay.I get it.”
“Get what?”Heat began to climb up my neck despite the dropping temperature.
He cut a look my way, and that was all he needed to do to express a very clear,Don’t bullshit me.The man was practically a bloodhound for anyone else’s bullshit.And whatever he’d seen in the front I had up, he recognized—turning me to face the truth.The reality I continued to struggle with but was taking too clear a form to struggle any longer.
“How’d she handle all of this?”he asked.
“Fine.Initially, she was annoyed that I wanted her to stay at my place until her door could get fixed, but that was it.”
He stilled, before turning to face me.“She spent the night with you?”
“Not like that.”I ignored the way even the implication of sharing a bed with her made my blood heat.“I was on the couch.We just watched a show and hung out a bit.”
He made a,huh, sound, then went back to work on the door.
I scratched where the collar of my coat rubbed against my neck.“What?”
“I’d get a hotel room before I stayed with any of my ex’s.”
“There was no reason, we made it work.”
“I thought it was a bad break up.”
“It was.Really bad.”
He did that infuriating,huh, sound again.
“What?”The word came out sharper this second time around.
“Just ...a little while ago you almost fell off of Stone because she walked in the arena, and now you’re watching shows and hanging out.Not a trajectory I would expect.It’s just kinda confusing.”
“Weren’t you the one that suggested I could make things right with her?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think it’d look like you two becoming”—he flicked his eyes toward me, placing me, once again, under the microscope—“friends.”
“I ran through her door, and it wasn’t safe for her to stay here.I don’t know if I’d call us friends.”
Denying the connection between us felt unnatural.The more I did, the less convincing it felt—like saying,Don’t think about an elephant.But then for me the saying was,Don’t think about how you’ve harbored an empty, aching need inside of your chest since you left Alicia alone in the rain, and then it was all I could think about.And worse, it made me realize that the pain lessened when she was near.But I’d already ruined everything.
I didn’t deserve what my feelings were shaping into.
Fulfilling this gnawing want was out of reach, I’d already blown up my chances with her years ago.Not only had I abolished our relationship one shitty comment or passive aggressive action after the other, I’d taken her most vulnerable moment and I’d shoved it in her face.I’d been too angry, and lonely, and unwilling to accept my responsibility for my life to accept the rail thin peace offering she’d begged me to take.The apartment I’d moved into after we split up was empty and depressing.Her hands clutched the signed divorce papers.Rain dripped from the ends of her hair, mixing with the tears on her cheeks and chin.
