It hits me that this is real. That this is happening.
That I now have days to pack up three years of my life.
Not that I really ever settled in. Not fully. But I have snap peas in my little garden, damn it. And carrots, which are not ready to be harvested. They’re going to be someone else’s problem, but they’ll also get the reward of all my hard work.
‘Okay.’
‘Sorry to drop this on you,’ he signs, pressing hard on his chest, his face telling me he means it. ‘I thought you’d be happy.’
‘I am. Trust.’
He doesn’t look like he believes me at this point. I don’t know if I believe myself at this point. I sit back and glance out the window again. My view is going to be very different soon—familiar and probably alien all at the same time.
I’ll be trading this big city for the tiny scrap of land near the coast and friends I thought I’d moved past.
‘Tell Hélène to email me apartment listings.’
He nods. ‘I love you.’ His hand looks big—large knuckles and more wrinkles than I was used to growing up.
I shoot him the three-fingered sign back: ILY. And then I end the call. The screen goes dark, and I glance around the deskbefore shoving a handful of expensive pens into my satchel. I don’t really care about taking anything else.
The next guy can keep my little origami collection—a busy-hands habit I picked up off YouTube when I was stuck in long meetings where my opinion wasn’t wanted or necessary. They can keep all the coding books, and the little Tour Eiffel LEGO, and the tiny photo of the Champ de Mars, and the Arc de Triomphe figurine I was foolish enough to buy at one of the bouquinistes.
I don’t need reminders of this life.
Well, actually…
I snag the Arc de Triomphe one and shove it into my bag, then push away from my desk, turn my computer off, and head out the door for what might be the last time.
It’s late the night before my flight back home, and I’m full of cheese and a coffee-flavored custard thing my neighbor brought over. She’s somewhere in her nineties and doesn’t speak a word of English or know any sort of sign, but she pantomimes well enough and brings me desserts and occasionally some fresh bread she baked herself.
I’m going to miss her. I wrote her a little note asking her to keep an eye on the garden until the new renters arrive, which I’ll give to her in the morning.
That evening, I end up pacing the garden, watching little glow worms inch their way around the plant leaves, looking like tiny LED lights. The air is a little crisper than it has been in a while, with a hint of rain on the wind, and I take a moment to enjoy it before I force myself back inside to sleep.
It doesn’t come easy. I drift and dream that I’m running andtripping and falling, then wake up with a gasp in my lungs and my heart between my teeth.
Home, I think. I’m going home. But to what?
Rolling onto my stomach, I snag my phone off the nightstand and open my social media app. I hate myself for it only because I know exactly what I’m looking for. I unfollowed Dex two years and seven months ago when he posted a selfie of himself with a gorgeous, dark-haired woman at the gym.
Good for him. Good for fucking him. I hope they fall in love and get married and fuck in every spot that I fucked him in. I hope she pushes out a ton of little babies with her long lashes and his dimple.
I hope he forgets what it was like to kiss me so I can forget what it was like to kiss him.
He doesn’t show up on my feed, but being the glutton for punishment that I am, I type his account into the search bar. It doesn’t turn up anything.
My heart skips a beat, but it can’t be anything bad. He’s fine. He’s totally fine because someone would have told me if something happened to Thom’s brother. I scroll to his page instead, then to his followers’ list.
It is goddamn ridiculous that I’m doing this. I have such a fucking problem.
But there he is. Dex. He changed his name toDexDoesSquats, and without thinking about how much this is going to affect me, I tap on his name.
The first thing that pops up is a reel of him showing the proper posture for lunges. The video has captions, but I ignore the words on the screen and instead follow his full, lush lips as they move.
I can still feel the ghost of them on me. I can still taste him.
I swallow heavily and rock my half-hard dick into thesheets as I scroll to the next video. This one is about abs, or so I think.
