Nervous about discovering what Rylee’s silence was all about.
Was she through with me? Avoiding me?
“Hey Xander,” Claudia answered on the second ring.
“Hey, Claudia,” he replied with a smile, dragging his hand through his locs, the faded sides catching light. “How are you?”
“I don’t know yet,” she replied, giggling. “I was good until I got this call and because you don’t often call me, I’m a little nervous. What’s up? Is your mama okay?”
His eyes moved to the chalkboard he kept in his kitchen with white-scribbled motivational quotes on the black surface.
“Yeah, she’s good. She’s great,” he replied quickly. “I’m actually calling about Rylee.”
“Okay…”
“I apologize for bringing you into this, but I have been calling her from yesterday and she hasn’t answered any of my phone calls.” He ran his hand down his face. “And I’m a little worried.” He held his hand up in front of him next as if she could see him. “And I’m not worried about being dumped or ghosted or anything, ‘cause you know if Iambeing dumped?—”
“Oh, Xander,” Claudia sighed on the line, and that did nothing for Xander’s anxiety. “I’m sure it’s not any of those things, love. This time of year is tough for Rylee.”
Xander stopped pacing, his attention solely on Claudia’s voice.
“Yesterday was Lennox’s birthday, and today marks the anniversary of when he passed away.”
Xander’s heart clenched before his jaw dropped.
So that’s what that was,he thought.
His hand was at his mouth when he whispered into it, “Oh my God.”
That’s why she seemed spaced out at dinner.
“She usually cuts the world out on this day,” Claudia explained. “Likes to be by herself. Process, you know?”
Xander nodded as if Claudia could see him.
“Either Gannon and I or Lennox’s parents take the kids so that she can have time to herself,” Claudia continued. “Sheneverasks, but we just do it.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t remember that,” Xander said to himself. “For the last two years I’ve worked on these days or didn’t really notice…damn.”
“It’s okay, it’s fine,” Claudia assured. “You wouldn’t know unlessshetold you. And she wouldn’t have.”
Xander dropped himself into a seat on his leather sectional, shaking his head. “So, like what do y’all usually do? Wait it out?”
“Yup,” Claudia replied. “We wait it out. By tomorrow she’ll likely reach out.”
“Hmph,” Xander replied, his eyes scanning the wooden floors in his apartment.
After a few more minutes of talking, Xander hung up with Claudia and sat thinking in his seat.
“Wait it out,”she’d advised… but that didn’t sit right with him.
He twisted his lips to one side, thinking, eyes moving around his space—falling on the wall-mounted TV, his record player, then the wide, winter-gray sky beyond the window.
“Nah.” He shook his head, standing to his feet.
Waiting it outmight work for Rylee’s girlfriends and her parents, but for Xander, the idea of his woman feeling anything less than happy in that moment made it seem impossible for him to sit in his apartment and wait it out.
Not when the woman he loved was probably bawling her eyes out, curled up in grief, and alone without him.
