“Not yet… gotta give my job my two weeks. I mean, I don’t have to, but my bosses have been decent, they deserve the courtesy.”
“In that case, we’ll make a big farewell party dinner for you together before you go. Maybe we’ll have it at the Birdhouse, get everyone together to see you off.”
I pursed my lips. “Maybe at Daniela’s place. I don’t want to hang out with Drew.”
“Ah… yeah.” She looked down. “Well, we’ll make something work. That’s a promise. Gotta make sure you’re leaving this place with good memories.”
“Thanks, Cat.”
She smiled sweetly at me. “What are friends for?”
I took a long breath, leaning back against the door. “Breaking onto my fucking deck, apparently.”
“Oh, come on. You left the side deck entrance unlocked. It’s on you at that point!”
“Were you here the whole time from earlier?”
“Nah, I went and had a mental breakdown crying at my place first, and then I ate three cinnamon buns, felt sick, and decided I was going to sit on your deck all night if that was what it took to get you to talk to me.”
“You know, Cat? Nothing surprises me from you.”
She grinned. “I take it as a compliment.”
“I’ll be in touch. That’s a promise.” I shrugged, kicking at the floor. “Sorry I hid things from you. You deserved to know.”
“Sorry I had a breakdown on you when you did tell me.” She softened, sinking into the porch swing. “Genuinely, I’m happy for you. A new chapter in your life. I hope it’s a good one.”
“Thanks. I’ll be back to visit. That’s a promise.”
I sat with her, and we didn’t say much, just looking out over the valley at midnight, nothing but the soundtrack of the wind in our ears. Not that a soundtrack meant a whole lot to Cat. I wondered if her thoughts expanded to fill the space left without hearing. Mine were already so big, so overwhelming, I couldn’t imagine.
Hard to say what it was about that moment, sitting out on the back deck with Cat, watching the trees sway in the valley below us, but something about it broke me. I cried—started out sniffling, holding it back, but it got to be too much before long, and I wiped my face as the tears came harder. Cat sat closer to my side, her hand on my back, and I made ugly crying noises as I broke.
“I don’t want to fucking go,” I said quietly. Didn’t matter if I screamed it—Cat wouldn’t hear—but saying it out loud, even to someone who couldn’t hear me, broke down the last little walls inside me. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I want. Christ, I know what I want, it’s to have Alyssa back here, to stay here with her, to be her girlfriend and see where life takes us all. Is that so much to ask? Is that wrong to want?”
She looked up at me, eyebrows raised. “Are you saying something?”
I shook my head. “Just thinking out loud. Sorry.”
“Anything you want to tell me?”
I swallowed. “I think I need to get to sleep. Deal with things with a cool head tomorrow.”
She studied me for a long time before, slowly, she nodded, standing back up. “I’m always just a text away.”
I closed my eyes. “Thanks, Cat. I really appreciate you.”
But then she was gone, and a cool head wasn’t coming anytime soon. I didn’t want a fucking cool head. I wanted to see Alyssa again. I wanted to go to the Birdhouse holding her hand and have her in my arms while the whole group chatted and laughed together, and we’d all share drinks over a game with us there as Jade and Alyssa, Alyssa and Jade. Alyssa’s girlfriend.
Too fucking late now. Should have had the epiphany earlier. Should have spoken up earlier. But I guess it was better to speak up late than never.
It was one in the morning when I lost my mind, because I heard the garbage truck pulling up to my street, and I panicked, falling off the bed where I was trying to sleep, and I didn’t have a single thought, just motion, as I tumbled through the house and out to step into my slippers, one of them not on quite right, and then I was out the door in the middle of the night, my one slipper slapping against my foot and threatening to go flying off as I ran down the damp path of my driveway in my pajamas like a woman possessed, just in time to find Tony the trash guy—technically my coworker, being on the town commission—picking up the box of scent samplers and looking at me like I was either going to kill him or myself in front of him.
“Sorry,” I said, and I took the box back. “Hi. Just realized I’m gonna be using these.”
He blinked once, letting go of the box. “Not gonna fight you for ‘em, Jade.”
“I appreciate it. Will appreciate it also if you pretend you didn’t see me like this. Or do. Fuck it, what does it matter? I guess I’m the woman who runs around grabbing trash in her pajamas at midnight.”
