Page 1 of Everything But Mine

CHAPTER ONE

ERIC

Itake our usual table at our place, The Cozy Corner—half-café, half-bar. We’ve shared countless hours here. For a while, years ago, we’d come daily. She’d study; I’d watch her, trying not to get caught. I have kept telling myself I need to put distance between us. I even planned on not seeing her alone for another week or two. But she asked me here. She said she needed me. And my heart might be breaking that she moved in with her boyfriend, but I’ll be damned if I let him take another label away from me.

Most people here are graduate students mindlessly typing away into the night. Some have coffee, and some have beer.

The door opens, and I feel her before I see her, cliché as it is. I force myself to anchor my gaze on my coffee, taking a sip so I can hide behind it, but I fail. My eyes betray me, drinking Amanda in like the rarest vintage, heady and intoxicating. Her hair flows in loose chestnut waves down her back, burgundy highlights catching my attention with every shift of light—small sparks in the dim room. Her verdant eyes, alive yet dark, catch mine. The crowd around us fades as she walks toward me, her flowy, slitted skirt revealing a flash of thigh with each step. For a breathless moment, I let myself believe the light in her gaze is meant for me.

A small smile tugs at her thin lips, and with the screeching of the metal chair against the floor, I snap out of my daydream. Sitting down, her hair curtains and keeps her expression hidden from me. Her shoulders rise and slump frantically, fists tightly curled on the table. It takes effort to stare into my coffee. When there’s a loud smack against the wooden table, I watch the liquid sloshing off the rim and onto the small plate underneath.

Amanda still doesn’t meet my eyes. I say nothing. She asked me here. Whatever this is, she’s already made up her mind. I’m the person to tell. So I wait. Slowly, she lifts her head, her hair falling away in soft waves to reveal bright green irises that hold me in place. They aren’t wet with tears, but the streaks in them are frayed—a dozen shades of verdant unraveling before me. Now that she’s letting me see her, I can’t look away. The bags under her eyes are darker, puffier—not the kind resulting from pulling all-nighters for work, just sleep that won’t come. The center of her neck reveals a hint of the shape of her clavicles. My chest tightens in worry. I reach for her left fist and close my hand over it with a light squeeze. She doesn’t pull away, but I don’t miss her eyes fluttering, holding something in, willing herself not to let me see. A muscle tightens in my jaw.

“You need something to drink.”

She nods. “You know what I like.”

As she stands, the scrape of metal against the floor ripples goose bumps across my arms. I watch her back as she heads for the restroom, something off in the stiff line of her shoulders. My pulse kicks. I catch the server’s eye and order a shot of bourbon and a ginger ale. She’ll either shoot and chase it or mix it—another tell. My palms are damp as I wipe them on my jeans. Something’s wrong. I need a shot myself.

By the time Amanda returns, she’s tapping her fingertips against the table, composed, but only on the surface. Balancing the drinks, I slide a shot and the soda to her. Without even looking, she grabs the shot glass and downs it in one motion.

My own drink hasn’t touched my lips before she freezes. Her eyes widen as the flavor registers. Before I can blink, she spits the whiskey back into the glass. The force of the glass against the wooden surface makes me flinch. She drags a napkin across her tongue, grimacing, then reaches for the ginger ale.

I am… confused, my own drink forgotten, staring at her. When Amanda looks up at me, a napkin pressed to her mouth, her eyes are steady. I frown.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I forgot for a minute.”

“You’re going to have to give me more than that. I feel like I should apologize, but I don’t know what for.”

“No, Eric,” she adds quickly, her eyes soft. “I should have told you. I just wanted to ease into it, you know?”

“I really don’t.”

She bites her lip. “I just can’t drink right now.” She pauses for a second, unnaturally avoiding my eyes. “At least until I figure things out.”

“Figure things out?”

I’m more confused by the second. Amanda drinks. Not heavily, never carelessly, but wine with friends, a beer at dinner, and bourbon more than anything. It’s how she socializes. I’ve spent hundreds of nights playing drinking games with cult classics we’d watch, laughing until our sides ached. Seeing her hesitate, spit it out, and study the amber liquid in the glass as if it just betrayed her feels wrong, unsettling.

“I just can’t drink right now.”

I blink, thrown off. “You… can’t?”

Her eyes burn into mine, pupils shrinking. “Why would any woman not be able to drink?” Her voice is clipped, and she tips her chin as if daring me to question her. But she doesn’t explain.

I feel it in my gut; this isn’t casual, this isn’t a whim. Something’s shifted, something she’s holding back. She likes drinking, so why wouldn’t she?

Why the fuck would a woman suddenly not want a drink?

Her cheeks flush as she hisses through her teeth. I don’t feel confused anymore. I feel stupid. My face must give me away because she keeps cursing under her breath.

Seriously… Is she sick?

My eyes widen. Amanda isn’t sick, is she? She can’t be. Something flickers across her face—defeat, shame, fear. My stomach twists. She needs to be okay.

But why else would a woman suddenly stop… drinking?

Then it hits. Our eyes lock.