I take a quick shower. The water’s still cold and tonight it makes me shiver, and then I eat everything I find in the fridge that looks halfway decent. After that, I sit on a kitchen stool and watch the minute hand on the clock above the pantry door creep around in an agonizingly slow circle.
My mind is a dumpster fire. A trash heap. A mess of past betrayals and catastrophic misunderstandings. Thoughts and fears colliding and amplifying. I think about calling Benji and using every curse word I know, and a good few I plan on inventing, and I type several messages to Lexi preemptively asking her to come and get me in case things go badly here. I think of Selby and how what we’ve done will hurt her, and I hate myself for it. At the same time, I know I’d do it all over again, which makes me feel better and worse in equal measure.
When all the thinking does less than nothing to improve my mood, I scroll through my socials and do an audit of the posts ILTTD2 has liked over the past year in an attempt to numb my brain.
The answer is every single post…except for the ones where I’m pictured withSam.
For some reason—most likely to do with the fact my mental health could best be described as unraveling rapidly—I find that completely hilarious and start laughing hysterically, only just managing to curtail the outburst before it turns into tears.
The minute hand moves slowly.
Slower than slowly.
It’s made a full circle twice now.
It’s the worst form of torture I’ve ever felt.
It’s okay,I tell myself for the forty-third billionth time.He was probably packing for the first hour.She’s only been home for an hour. Maybe less if she got home later than usual. She had a big day at work. Romeo said so. It could all still be fine. He could still be talking to her. There’s no reason to think she’s convinced him to stay.
I fight the rampant urge to rush over to Romeo’s house to see if Selby’s car is there. I manage not to, but only because I know damn well she parks in the garage, not in the driveway, so I wouldn’t be able to see it either way. All my going over there would do is make me look as insane and obsessed as I feel.
After several lifetimes worth of catastrophizing, the fight leaves me. I hold my phone in both hands, mind vacant and beaten, and focus every ounce of my intention on willing a message to pop up.
Never having successfully manifested anything in the past, I almost drop my phone in shock when a message alert flashes on my screen.
On my way to you now
A long, strangled sob leaves me as I breathe the words in. I drop my phone on the counter, vision blurring as walls, ceilings, and doorways rush past me.
The dusty, gnarled wings of my heart slowly unfold and expand, stretching out for the first time in years. Their wingspan has increased since the last time they beat. They were downy and soft then. Fragile and weak. Now they’re strong. Fully fledged. Fully grown. Battle-scarred but more powerful than before.
There’s wind in my face, and I swear, my feet aren’t touching the ground.
Streetlights and swings flash past me. White oak trees and a slide set too.
It’s dark in the park, but I see a familiar flash of white in the distance. A silvery blue whisp with the shadow of a dog orbiting around him. When he sees me he lets the big bag he’s carrying fall from his shoulder, pausing for a second to drop Tiger’s bed and everything else in his hands on the ground.
“Romeo!”Iyell.
Then he’s flying too.
His flight is graceful, long limbs working in concert, a strong up-and-down motion that propels him straight into my wide-open arms.
We crash into each other at speed, and I swing him around, the force of the motion launching his feet into a broad arc as they sail through the air. His heart is racing, beating frantically against mine. When we land, I kiss every part of his face I can reach with my lips and garble nonsensically into his neck.
“Is this real? Am I real? Am I awake? Are you here? Is this real ’cause, ’cause I’ve had dreams like this before, and they never end well.”
His eyelashes are wet, and he’s nodding and saying, “It’s real,” over and over. “I’m here. We’re both here.”
“Is Selby okay?” I ask when I can.
A shadow passes over his features like a cloud blocking the moon. His bottom lip shakes when he speaks. “She’s pissed and hurt, but I was right, she’s not surprised. She said she’s going to tell everyone that she’s the one who kicked me out. I said I was okay with that, which I think may have pissed her off more because she threw one of those wicker baskets at me. It hit me here.”
He indicates to his left eyebrow, and I see a dark glint and a fine stream of blood running down to his cheekbone.The sight of him like that, bloody and wounded, is enough to make me violent. I have to consciously remind myself that we wronged her badly to get myself to calm down. “And, and, I told her she could keep the house.”
I’m still trying to come to grips with the fact that he’s bleeding and I can’t do anything to defend him. I’ve lifted the hem of my T-shirt, and I’m using it to clean him up, so it takes a minute before his words penetrate.
“But, Romeo,” I say when they do, “your mom left that house to you. It was yours before you were married. It’s your inheritance. It’s not community property.”
