“You really want to know?” I ask, stalling.
“I really want to know.”
I set my plate down on the counter and lean against it, arms crossed. Not defensive. Just... steadying myself. Because if I’m going to do this, if I’m going to open up to this man who’s been nothing but confusing since I arrived, I need something solid to hold onto.
“There’s this chair,” I start, feeling ridiculous. “At Cozy Corner Furnishings in town. Green velvet. Deep seat, curvedback, the kind of chair you could curl up in with a book and disappear for hours.”
He doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t look at me like I’m crazy for starting with furniture.
“It costs four hundred and forty-nine dollars,” I continue. “I’ve walked past that shop window a dozen times since I moved here. Every time, I stop and look at it. Every time, I do the math in my head. How many more shifts until I can afford it. How many more weekends cleaning cabins.”
“That’s why you took this job,” he says. “The double pay.”
“That’s why I took this job.” I let out a breath. “It sounds stupid when I say it out loud. Getting excited about a chair.”
“It doesn’t sound stupid.”
“It’s just...” I search for the words. “When I moved here, I had nothing. A suitcase of clothes and enough money for first month’s rent. My apartment is empty. Secondhand couch, folding table, bare walls. It doesn’t feel like a home. It feels like a place I’m passing through.”
He’s quiet, listening.
“That chair is the first step. The first piece of something that’s actually mine. Something I chose because I love it, not because it was cheap or convenient or someone else’s castoff.” I shake my head. “I want to build a home. A real home. Room by room, piece by piece. A place that’s completely mine, that no one can take away from me.”
“Why would someone take it away?”
The question cuts closer than he knows.
I look at the window, at the snow still falling outside. I don’t want to tell him this part. Don’t want to crack open the wound that’s barely healed.
But he shared his scar with me. The least I can do is share mine.
“I was with someone,” I say quietly. “For five years.”
I feel him go still across the room.
“Darnell.” Even his name tastes bitter. “We met when he was working part-time at a grocery store, trying to figure out his life. I was the one who encouraged him to go back to school. I helped him study, proofread his papers, picked up extra shifts so he didn’t have to work as much. When he graduated, I was in the front row cheering louder than anyone.”
I can feel Tolin watching me, but I don’t look at him. If I look at him, I might not get through this.
“Then came the job search. I helped him with his resume, practiced interview questions with him every night. When he finally landed his dream job, I threw him a party. When he saved up enough for a car, I went with him to the dealership. When he started talking about buying a house, I spent weekends going to open houses with him, imagining our future.”
I have to stop and breathe. Push through.
“Our future. That’s what I thought it was. Five years of building a life together. Five years of being his biggest cheerleader, his support system, his everything.”
“What happened?”
The gentleness in his voice almost breaks me.
“He got everything he wanted. The job, the car, the house.” I finally look at Tolin, and the look on his face nearly breaks me. “And then he dumped me. Said he needed to ‘find himself.’ Said I was ‘too much’ and he needed ‘space to grow.’”
“Imani...”
“He was married within a month.” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “One month. To a woman he worked with. They’d been seeing each other for over a year. The wholetime I was helping him build his perfect life, he was planning to live it with someone else.”
Tolin’s hands are gripping the edge of the table, his fingers digging into the wood.
“I was just the stepping stone,” I say. “The woman who helped him get where he wanted to be. And once he got there, he didn’t need me anymore.”
