I'm handling it.
Trust me.
Just a little more time.
The lies of a man who thought love meant management.
I thought about his face in the storage alcove. Not the anger—I'd expected the anger. It was the moment before, when he'd stepped back from my reaching hand. The look in his eyes that saidI wanted to believe you. I was ready to believe you. And you made that impossible.
Disappointment. Quiet, devastating disappointment from a man who'd spent his entire life being told he was too much, finally finding someone who seemed to accept all of him—and discovering that person had been editing him the whole time.
I accepted it.
Not because I thought I could talk my way out of it. Not because I had some speech prepared that would make everything okay. Because Pickle deserved to know what had happened to his image, and how strangers planned to mock him with it.
He deserved to know, and then he could decide what happened next.
Not me. Him.
I crossed to the door. The hallway was empty when I stepped out. Beige carpet stretched in both directions, interrupted by identical doors and the soft hum of climate control.
I walked toward the elevator.
Each step felt deliberate. Heavy. The kind of walking you did when you knew you were heading toward something that couldn't be undone.
I pressed the button. Waited.
The doors opened, and I stepped inside.
When they closed again, I was already rehearsing the first words.
I need to show you something. And then I need to tell you everything I should have said at least a week ago.
***
The green awning looked different in the late afternoon light.
I'd stood under it a dozen times over the past two weeks—waiting for Pickle to buzz me in, watching him wave from the third-floor window, once catching him mid-descent on the stairs because he'd gotten impatient and come down to meet me.
That was Pickle. He didn't wait. He moved toward things.
I pressed the buzzer for his apartment.
Waited.
The intercom stayed silent. No static. No fumbling. No Pickle's voice sayingcoming, coming, hold on, I dropped my—never mind, just come up.
I pressed it again. Held it longer this time.
Nothing.
A woman exited the building, wrestling a stroller through the front door. She held it open with her hip, glancing at me with slight wariness.
"Thanks," I said, and slipped inside before the door swung shut.
The lobby smelled like wet carpet and someone's microwaved lunch. I took the stairs two at a time. I expected to feel the thump of my computer bag against my side.
In my exhaustion, I'd left it at the hotel. Too late to go back. I could share the specific footage if Pickle chose to go back to the hotel with me.
