It’s not quick work. I make more than a dozen trips before Lie’s finished unloading every drawer, the shelves, and under his bed. When we’re finished, we stand in the middle of his empty bedroom with nothing left but a single hanger in the closet and the furniture.
Lie makes another circuit, making sure we didn’t miss anything. Then he stands still and looks around. He sighs.
“I can’t believe…” His voice trails off.
I step up behind him and wrap him in my arms. There aren’t any words of comfort I can offer. Not this time.
After a minute, he pulls away. I watch as he takes his keys from his pocket and sets them on the top of the dresser. I add mine beside his.
In a way, this right here is the final goodbye. Not taking his belongings. Not cutting ties. But returning the keys. This is a statement. More than anything, it says we’re done. They’re no longer welcome in our lives, and we want no part of theirs. The access to come and go freely has ended.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a difficult time swallowing around the lump in my throat and breathing past the ache in my chest.
It hurts like nothing I could imagine experiencing.
I take Lie’s hand, and together, we leave his childhood bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind us. We don’t look around the house as we leave. We go straight to the kitchen door and slide it closed behind us.
Lie doesn’t take anything of sentimental value. Not his favorite lounge chair from the yard. Not a family picture on the wall. Not even the movie he watched more than a hundred times as a kid, that’s still sitting in the DVD player, because he likes to watch it when he’s sick.
Nothing.
We step inside my house, and Lie stops in his tracks at the totes everywhere. “How is that even possible?” he asks. “My room wasn’t that big! I swear, I don’t have a lot of things.”
I chuckle and kiss the side of his head. “My concern was getting out of there quickly. Not making sure you don’t look like a packrat.”
Lie huffs, shoving me.
“How about I take care of your clothes, and you set up all your dicks in the library?” I offer.
He smiles. “Sounds like I have a much funner job than you.”
“Funner, huh?”
He shrugs. “It’s a word. I’m sticking to that.”
I watch as he grabs a tote and heads for the spare room. I follow behind, picking up a tote of clothes on my way. For aminute, I stop at the door to the library and watch as he carefully takes out one of his dick figures and places it on a shelf.
Today was a hard day, even though it’s barely started. I try not to think about the implications of our actions today. In reality, I think everyone knew this was coming. It was the logical last step.
I also know that Nason, in his new fucked-up headspace, is going to see it as another attack. Hopefully, he’ll continue to be stubborn and keep his brooding to himself. No one needs another confrontation. This needs to be the end of it.
Unsurprisingly, the ache in my chest is heavy today. It’s hard.
But this is also a very important big step in my relationship with Lie. He’s officially moved in. This house is no longer mine. It’s ours. I step into the bedroom and look at the giant pile of clothes I’d dumped on the bed. All his hanging clothes from his closet.
I smile as I set the tote down and pick up the top hanger. It’s a suit that he hasn’t worn since he was… what? Fourteen? For some semi-formal at school, probably. Does he keep it for sentimental reasons?
I hang it in the closet and muse over the fact that I’m willingly, even eagerly, sharing my space with this man. I can’t help but reflect on the panic and irritation at Carter pushing to move in here. Intomyspace. At the time, the thought of sharing it with someone was horrifying.
Maybe I’d lived alone too long by that point.
No. I was just waiting for the right person. Lie has always been in my life. It’s no surprise that he fits so seamlessly into my space as if it’s always been his. Maybe it has always been his. The space has grown and evolved as he has. As I have.
I can’t see any rhyme or reason to the clothes he had in his closet, except that I’m sure I haven’t seen him in any more than a few of the hoodies and long-sleeved shirts in years. Many, manyyears. As I look at them, I realize that a lot of them are for a colder climate, which I find amusing. It doesn’t get that cold in Kala, regardless of the time of year. And he went to school in Texas, the south of the U.S., somewhere that I’ve been under the impression also doesn’t get too cold for long.
A strange collection of clothing he has. I turn to look at mine and muse that we could both probably live with parting with some of the things we haven’t worn in eons. I’m pretty sure that jean jacket is from high school.Myhigh school years. More than twenty years ago.
“Ouch,” I mutter as I leave the closet and open a dresser drawer. Time to begin with the contents of the totes.
