Page 14 of All The Ways to Miss You

Judging by his clothes, he was out for a run. On other occasions, I’ve seen him return to the building a sweaty mess. He must have seen her and stopped to help. In typical Mrs. Venti fashion, she’s sporting her nightclothes—a flowered muumuu and her baby-blue foam slippers. A scarf wraps around her tight purple curls. The edges of her shoes are dirty from running errands around the city.

He assists her up the stairs and inside. After, he wrangles the wire cart up five marble steps and into the corridor. With my slider door open, there’s an echo of noise from inside the building’s hallway. In my mind’s eye, the images fall into time with the sounds. He’ll guide her up the stairs to her apartment on the second floor and help put away the food. I’ve seen him do it before. One night when he left the door open, I glanced in to find Evan picking canned goods from a grocery bag and organizing everything in her pantry.

He can be nice when he wants, which I suspect is more often than he admits. For some reason, he plays it conceited when I’m around, almost like he knows it will repel me.

My cell buzzes with a text from Aggie. When I swipe through, there’s one photo attached—a selfie of her and Charlie, very cozy against the backdrop of the tiki bar, each of them holding neon-yellow frozen drinks.

I bring my knees to my chest and steady the cell on them, staring at the photo. She’s doing what she set out to. Watching her live without fear or regret triggers something inside me. There’s one emotion I can identify—jealousy. Not in the catty way, but a longing to be released from always needing control and working through every scenario and every consequence, which kills any possibility of experiencing anything. I live my personal life in the after perpetually scared, and I hate it. I do have a reason, but I refuse to allow my mind to drift there.

I abandon my serene view, head for my bedroom, and change into my running gear. Soon I’m out the door, jogging east toward the lake. Some of the nervous habits I have, like a jittery leg or a tapping foot, occupy my mind temporarily, but running frees my mind of negative thoughts for the longest time. It’s my best defense against depression.

My parents told me I ran before. I accepted this without question, and I can guess why. In high school, I probably wanted to escape them. They might have controlled everything else in my life, but not this. In my running shoes, I never have a plan. I run anywhere I want.

Tonight I run ten miles, dividing my time between steady strides and sprinting bursts. To prepare for my upcoming marathon, I’ll need to log a long run this weekend, but not tonight. This distance is enough to shake off the stress of the week and relax my mind. I stop at my special spot in Lincoln Park with the city view before returning home.

After peeling off my clothes, I step into the shower and reach for the hot water. As soon as I touch the old handle that probably dates to the 1960s, it falls into the porcelain tub. I hop back, my bare feet dancing to avoid a broken toe as the handle and all the metal pieces anchoring it to the wall crash to the floor of the tub. A smaller piece rolls down the drain, leaving a flaky trail of rust in its wake.

I sigh and pick up the handle. If it’s not the water, it’s the heater, and if it’s not the heater, it’s the icemaker. There’s nothing in this apartment that hasn’t broken, and nothing Evan hasn’t failed to fix. Ticked at having to deal with this again, I tighten my grip on the knob.

Unwilling to suffer through a freezing shower, I step out and tug on my silk robe. At the mirror, I tie my hair in a messy topknot and wash off my face, then step into a pair of flip-flops before marching downstairs to the first floor. At Evan’s door, I knock hard, determined to have it out with him. This is getting ridiculous. I swear, he has no idea what he’s doing.

Evan doesn’t answer his door. Instead, he yells, “It’s open.”

I step inside and find him behind the kitchen island. He’s wearing an apron and holding a gleaming knife, chopping greens on a butcher block. Italian opera plays in the background. My eyes widen at the unexpected scene.

“You,” he says.

“Me.”

Was he expecting someone? A date?

Annoyance flits through me and I glance around, searching for her, but we’re alone. Regardless, a surge of regret for showing up here without thinking it through pools in my gut. That little annoying voice scolds me for not considering every possible outcome, specifically this one.

His gaze settles on my robe and roams my legs. I tug it closed over my chest, realizing I’m underdressed.

He cocks his head in question.

“This place is falling apart.” I lift my hand. In my palm, the starburst-shaped handle gleams.

“So you show up in a robe?”

I marched down here on an self-righteous wave of indignation, but now that I’m here, half-naked, I see this was a mistake. This is what happens when I don’t think things through. Disaster. Uncomfortable, I shift my weight to my other foot.

To his credit, Evan reels in his perusing gaze. “I would have come up to fix it.” He wipes his hands on his apron and steps around the island. He’s barefoot and wearing worn jeans with rips that reveal his strong knees.

He approaches and reaches out. Our fingers touch for a second when I drop the knob into his hand, making the skin in that spot tingle.

I cross my hand to my opposite arm and rub from wrist to elbow to quell the sensation, only to find my palm slick with cold sweat. My shoulders draw inward. My gaze flicks away, finding nothing in particular, and then back to his face when I sense him studying me. Is he holding back a smile? I knit my brows.

Any bravado I had the other night while we were texting is long gone. Standing face-to-face with him is different. There’s no way to hide behind technology. This is the real me.

In an attempt to deflect my awkwardness, I blurt the first thing that comes to mind. “You’re cooking kind of late. It’s after eleven.”

“That’s what I do. Cook late and break into pretty ladies’ apartments to ruin their grandmothers’ towels.”

“They aren’t my grandmother’s.” Brushing aside his compliment, I go on the defensive, and regret it as soon as I do.

“Then your taste sucks worse than I thought.” He smirks, and my jaw tightens.