Page 271 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

followed by the sight of him.

I go rigid in my pajamas,

cemented to this spot.

He’s at the sink,

still in last night’s bar clothes,

looking like a man who spent the last four hours driving up and down every city street, eyes heavy with exhaustion, hair a wreck from his hand raking through it, both of us caught in the aftermath of last night.

This feeling moving through me is foreign, as if his presence stepped on my heart, and a thousand more tiny hearts crawled out of it, beating fierce at every pulse point, from my temple to my fingertips.

A jaded stare is my only defense

'cause internally, I’m caving in.

A week without orgasms,

the Fuckening,

Mom’s birthday,

Hunter’s release,

revelations, lies,

immature games,

a week of being tough as stone…

But Andrew is still here…

he’s standing in my kitchen… and

this stone exterior is begging to crack.

Next to him,

there’s dirt on the countertop.

My eyes follow the dirt path to a plant shoved into a chipped pot, crooked, leaves limp and yellow at the edges, looking just as tired and drab as Andrew.

He grabs the towel from the bar and dries his hands. “Scored it off a stoop on Orchard Street. They were throwin’ it out, so now it’s your problem,” he says on the way to the coffee machine, sparing me no glance. Then he turns his back to me as he reaches for a mug. “And before you start, yeah, it’s alive. I know that’s a terrifying concept for you. But it won’t die if you actually give a damn.

“So give a damn.”

He shuts the cabinet,

the thud an echoing punctuation.

He exhales, shoulders falling.

“Which, by the way, means effort.”

One second,

I’m nailed to the hallway floor,