I have her switch legs. “She isn’t my girlfriend.”
“I’m old as hell, but I don’t think even in today’s world that you go anywhere arm in arm with anyone but your partner?—”
“Ethel—”
“Every single day?—”
“Ethel—”
“Looking at each other like you’re each other’s whole world?—”
I sigh, stepping back.
“Going home to your shared living space.”
I run my hands through my hair.
She eyes me. Or at least, turns her face in my direction. “Did I see an air mattress in your office over there?”
“I was gonna go home tonight,” I mutter. “I just couldn’t go home yesterday.”
She gestures at my face with her chin. “You deserve that?”
“Definitely.”
“Hmm.” She moves back into her wall stretch. “You’re a good kid, Elias.”
I’m not.
“If you know you deserved that black eye, you should probably find a way to fix it.”
If I were a good kid, then probably.
I have my key in the door to our apartment when I hear Mia’s voice muffled inside. She’s talking to someone. A deep voice, a guy’s voice, responds.
I turn around and go back to my gym.
I go back in the morning, when I know she’ll be at work.
The apartment looks like it’s been picked up. Less shit strewn around.
I walk down the hall into my room, ignoring the couch, ignoring the TV. Something looks different in my room since the last time I was there. There are some piles of clothes on the ground that look a little different. I toe through them, trying to remember the last time I did laundry, trying to figure out why the piles look strange. Smaller, maybe.
Mia’s clothes are missing from them.
I walk over to my dresser, pulling out the top drawer. It’s just my shirts.
I wander into the living room, into the hall closet, where we keep our big duffel bags and suitcases.
Mia’s duffel is gone.
Her toothbrush is gone from the bathroom.
Whatever. It’s for the best. Good for her, that Mia got what she wanted and she’s a man-eater who’s already slayed. With someone who isn’t a giant piece of shit that no one takes seriously.
It’s on the fourth day that Mia doesn’t come back home that I start to hear her voice in my head.
We’ve grossly miscalculated this.
