“And d’you know if he’s single?”
Jesus.
“You’ll have to ask him. I gotta go, Dharma. Adam is alone there. See you later.” I smiled, but a new emotion thundered into my heart, sank heavily like a stone, and settled in my stomach.
Jealousy.
Angelo was in love with an Amber. Per my calculations, his breakup with her, for whatever reason, was rather recent. If Dharma waited, she might be the next twenty-something to win him. Or enjoy the rebound effect.
Or maybe I was it. A palate cleanser. Maybe one of several.
Starting the engine, I remembered his words, “Just the meaningful ones.” I wondered if I made that list.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That afternoon, after another day of work, I did all my grocery shopping, which took me hours of visiting specialty farms and shops.
Keeping up with my habits could be exhausting. Holding tight to them was something I hardly noticed. Most of the time. Not so much these days.
In one shop, I picked up a can of homemade butter pecan ice cream for Angelo. I knew he had caught me red-handed, enjoying it with abandon like I later did with him. I wanted to prove to him and myself that, just as for years I had lived perfectly well without ice cream, I still didn’t need it, even if it was right there in the house. I hoped the dual message would be clear.
As I clambered up the stairs with my hands full of brown bags and canvas totes, I heard a noise coming from the bathroom.
I left everything on the breakfast bar and went to peek.
Angelo was standing inside the tub, fully clothed, wrenching the broken showerhead out of the wall.
Knowing how it had broken didn’t make matters easy. I couldn’t cleanse that memory.
“Hey,” I said from the door.
He briefly looked at me over his shoulder and threw an indifferent, “Hey.”
“You bought a new one?” The floor of the tub was strewn with wall plaster flakes, tools, various screws, the old, broken showerhead, a box with a shiny new one, as well as muddy boot marks.
Angelo didn’t respond.
“Thank you!”
He didn’t reply, just continued the task of tugging out a stubborn broken piece that remained inside the wall.
Despite every promise to myself, I gawked at his hands at work, the roll of his shoulders and back muscles, the straining biceps under the cotton of his shirt.
“Fanculo questa cazzo merda,” he expelled what seemed like an elaborate curse based on his tone and thecazzo. He then abruptly left a wrench, a screwdriver, and a pair of pliers on the side of the tub, passed over its edge, and sidestepped me on his way out.
Oh, great, he’s not talking to me.
It was me who had told him only yesterday that I didn’t want anything happening between us again. It was me who had disappeared after our night together. Yet I still crumbled inwardly when he passed right by me as if our bodies hadn’t been one in this very bathtub.
“You’re just leaving it like this?” I called after him. It was stupid, but I couldn’t help myself. Some self-sabotage instinct in me had awakened ever since Angelo had entered the picture—maybe even before—and refused to leave.
I went to the kitchen where the sink shined bright, and Angelo’s pots were drying on the dish rack. I buried my face in my palms. Was I trying to make him hate me? Was I trying to hate myself? Because it seemed I was succeeding in both.
Sighing, I put away the groceries, including the organic coffee grounds I had bought for him.
Angelo came in through the front door and went straight to the bathroom, holding tools he must have brought from his workshop.
A few moments later, a loud clank and a smash made me rush to the bathroom.
