In the car, I talked at excruciating speedandlength about Ben and Grace’s upcoming housewarming party. The work they’d done on the house, the wedding plans, the people who would be there along with extended personal histories. I went so far as to rattle off every item I was planning for the charcuterie board I’d bring, where I’d buy it all, and how I’d arrange the cheese into a cute B and G.
I kind of wanted to throw myself down a well and stay there for six to eight years until I’d shifted into some kind of watery goblin and forgotten all about my human shame.
“Audrey always brings a dessert or two,” I went on, staring out the car window at the gray skies and pouring rain. “She got started with gluten-free baking because her doctors thought she was intolerant but it turned out she was just in a really toxic marriage and once she got rid of that guy and all the stress that came with him, her body slowly healed. Crazy how that can happen.”
“Crazy,” he murmured.
“She actually had a whole gluten-free baking site for a while and she’d test out her recipes on us and?—”
Ryan dropped a hand on my thigh and leaned over, pointing out my window. “Is that Ines?”
“What? No. Where? I mean—what? I don’t think—where? No. Probably not.” I stopped flailing for a second and realized he was right. And she was wearing my yellow satin cape. “Oh. Yeah. That’s her. That’s Ines.”
“What the hell is she carrying?” he asked. “Bowen, can you slow down up here?”
Ryan’s hand was still on my thigh, his index finger busy tracing the seam of my leggings as if I was capable of enduring such things in these circumstances. I was not.
Bowen cut across North End traffic and pulled to the side as he approached a waterlogged Ines, her glasses bleary from the rain and the cape soaked through.
“Ines,” I called, though she didn’t seem to hear me. “I’ll get out and talk to her.”
“Please don’t,” Ryan said before switching on his deep, commanding QB voice.“Ines.”
That did the trick. He was good like that. She whirled around, half blind from the rain and struggling to carry—I didn’t even know what.
“Ines, it’s me, Emme. And Ryan.” I added, “And Bowen too. Hurry, get in here. Get out of the rain.”
“The rain is part of the problem,” she said, stepping up to the SUV. “That’s why I needed all the rice.”
“What do you mean, you needed rice?” I pushed the door open and shuffled closer to Ryan. He only gripped my thigh tighter, as if that would help anything.
“To save your laptop.” She heaved a twenty-pound bag of basmati rice onto the seat. “Because it’s raining inside too.”
Ryan surveyedmy room with his fists propped on his hips. Chunks of ceiling plaster covered my desk, my bed, the floor, and a steady stream of water poured in through two or three spots. My bookshelf and everything on it was destroyed. There was nothing to be saved on my desk. School papers, books, bills—all of it wet to the point of disintegration. My closet took the worst of it with a whole waterfall coursing down one wall and soaking just about every piece of clothing I owned. My shoes floated and bobbed in the flood.
With a nod, Ryan said, “Time to go.” Pulled out his phone and swiped through a few screens. “Grab anything you can salvage. I’ll have Bowen pull around in a few minutes.”
I picked up a shirt I’d left on the bed, now caked with plaster and other debris I couldn’t identify. I didn’t even know how to clean something that’d drowned in gross ceiling water. It smelled like an old basement. Was there a special detergent for that or was it more like fifty washes with the regular stuff?
Another chunk of ceiling hit the floor with a squelch and I glanced at Ryan. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Phone pressed to his ear, Ryan said, “Get whatever you need so you can leave in the next five minutes. I’m taking you home with me.”
I motioned to the ruptures in the ceiling. “But?—”
“You can’t stay here, Muggsy. You know that.” He gave me a look that begged me to stop fucking around and get moving. “Ines has already talked to the landlord and warned your downstairs neighbors too. There’s nothing else we can do here, and standing around and waiting for the rest of the ceiling to give out isn’t a great idea.”
“I can’t leave Ines.”
Her room was as dry as a bone. She only discovered the flood in mine when the water started spreading out into the kitchen.
“She’s coming with us,” he said, holding up a hand when a voice boomed through his phone. “Jakobi, hey. No, we’ll deal with that later. I need you to hop in your truck and get over to the North End. No. No, Em’s apartment is underwater and I need a hand getting her roommate moved out.”
Ryan gave me ahurry uphand gesture and paced into the kitchen, still talking to his manager, Jakobi.
I stared at my room for a long moment, still too stunned to process any of it. This weird little place I’d called home for thepast few years couldn’t be mine anymore. Not now, maybe not ever again.
I toyed with the band of my ring, still slightly foreign against my skin. If I was being honest with myself, it hadn’t been home since Grace moved out. It was stillmyplace but it wasn’tourplace anymore, and that part mattered more than I ever thought it would.
