by Amelia Wilde
How long?
An hour, maybe two, and then my hand jerks on the remote, punching blindly at the button. I choose the first channel I see and I focus hard on it, the images gliding over my eyes and making absolutely no impact at all.
My heart beats in a wild rhythm. It’s over, it’s over, it’s over, and there’s nothing, nothing, nothing I can do.
Should I call someone?
Who would I call?
Who would care?
Where is my phone?
Now that things with Addison are over, it doesn’t matter. What do I need a phone for if I can’t talk to her?
At one point in the early afternoon, I snatch it up and type out an incoherent message, begging, pleading for her to give me one more chance at that conversation, asking her with every bit of sincerity that I can muster up if she’ll forget the last week, go back in time with me to when I saw her at O’Malley’s and start again from there. When I read it back the sentences are senseless. I delete the whole thing, then hover over the delete button next to her contact information on my list.
I decide against it, just in case…in case of what, I don’t know.
Then I throw the phone onto the carpet and go into my bedroom.
I don’t wake up for another thirty-six hours.
Flashback
Addison, 18
I’m at Anderson’s, cozied up in my favorite overstuffed teal chair reading a novel, when Brett texts me. The phone—a brand new one to take to college in just a couple of weeks—still feels strange and delicate in my hands, but the thing that doesn’t feel strange is the way my heart speeds up as soon as I see his name on the screen.
We’re on the verge of something really, really, big. I can tell.
The heat has been growing between us all summer. During the day, it’s all I can think about. And at night…
We’ve been seeing each other almost every day, every spare minute that I have off from the candy store and he’s not working at the marina. I’ve been at Anderson’s because Martin, the owner, is an old man who doesn’t care if I come by to visit this chair, which I can’t buy because I won’t be living at my parents’ for much longer and it won’t fit in my dorm room. Plus, the store is air-conditioned, which is a huge step up from my bedroom at home.
The less uncomfortable these dead hours are when I can’t see Brett, the better.
Are you at home?
No :)
Are you visiting that precious chair?
Yes :)
Come visit me instead. I need you more
I bet you do
Naughty
Sexy…
Don’t get me started. It’s still light out
So?
You’re something else
I’m something great
I’m going home to shower
Ooh. Can I come?
If you want to explain to my dad why we’re in the shower together
Fine.
Will you be home after this?
I’ll be wherever you want me to be
:) I’ll text you soon
Tonight is going to be the night, and my skin buzzes with the electricity of anticipation. We’re finally going to have the conversation I’ve been waiting to have all summer because I’m going to ask him what he thinks.
I’m almost certain he’ll say that we should be together, even if I’m going off to college and he’s…I don’t know what he’s doing, but whatever he’s going to do, it’s going to be amazing. Brett Miller won’t be anything less than amazing. I know it.
I take a deep breath. “I’m leaving, Martin,” I call into the back. His reply is muffled by all the stock between us, but every day he says the same thing, “You’re welcome anytime, young lady.”
I push open the door and head out into the sweltering heat of August, breathing in the hot air that feels like a furnace blasting at me. I’m going to go home and shower again, dry my hair until it’s shining and perfect, and put on my sexiest shorts and Brett’s favorite top.
My heart beats hard in my chest, and my mind shifts into overdrive. I don’t have much time to figure out what I’m going to say, but it has to be absolutely the right thing.
And I can’t—I think this with a smile—I can’t let him distract me with any more fooling around in the backseat. No matter how good it is.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Addison
I drive away from my house with a strange numbness spreading from where my heart used to be all the way out to my fingertips. It’s like my body is falling asleep starting first with my heart, but I can still feel the coldness of the steering wheel, still shiver as the heat takes a minute to kick in as I get to the corner of my street and roll to a stop.
Then I sit there, frozen, for at least a minute, maybe two, maybe three.
What have I done?
I did what was right for myself. I try to think it with conviction, but it falls flat inside my head. The numbness is reaching there, too, replacing the throbbing headache I got when I said those words to Brett.
This is a matter of personal protection. The longer we went without speaking—from adjacent houses no less—the more I questioned him, questioned us. What does love mean if it can so easily be pushed to the back burner by something else?
All I wanted was to wrap myself up in some kind of shield against the inevitable fallout. I saw him sink into the house and only emerge when it was too late. It’s just irresponsible of me to jump into a relationship like that. It’s not fair to me, much less to Brett. He became opaque to me while he was hiding in the house, even more so than when I first saw him at O’Malley’s, and I couldn’t bear it again. The surprise. The shock.
Even if Jamie wasn’t the one, even if I knew it deep down, I never want to feel that sinking sick feeling that I felt just weeks ago ever again. And I don’t want to feel it about Brett while he holes himself up in his house, less than a hundred feet from mine, and forgets about me completely.
Someone honks behind me, but this time it’s not Leah, it’s just some random asshole driving through my neighborhood in the dusky light of morning, but my body hardly reacts. I just take my foot off the brake, look both ways, and glide through the intersection.
It’s a surprise when I reach the parking lot at work—I don’t remember the rest of the drive, and I don’t really care. My breath is shallow and lifeless. I want to turn around, drive back home, and go hide under the covers until everything is fine again, but I can’t.
There are already people waiting, still sitting in their cars around me in the parking lot, waiting for the building to open up so I can tackle my first appointments of the day. I know they’re there, even if I can’t see them—sometimes people circle the block for an hour before our offices open. They need services that badly. I can’t pretend to know the depth of this need. The closest thing I’ve ever felt was my need for Brett, which was bottomless. It might still be. I just can’t feel it right now. I can’t feel anything.
The numb featureless sensation that’s permeating my entire body is all that’s left between me and an epic meltdown. I know because I’ve felt it before, though not on this scale, and at the end…the end—
I can’t think about it. I turn off the car, drop my keys into my purse, and head inside.
I can hardly speak. Carla doesn’t notice because Carla is on a mission today, something to do with state funding and grant applications that absolutely must be sent out by the end of the day. I keep my head down and swallow hard between every meeting.
Does my voice sound strange? I can’t tell because everything comes to me like I’m miles under the ocean and my clients are shouting to me from the surface. I must be putting on a convincing enough show, though, because not one of them narrows their eyes at me and asks me if there’s anything wrong. They’ve got their own troubles, I remind myself in an acidic tone when lunch break rolls around. And what, you didn’t get into a relationship for the second time? What kind of bullshit is
that?
Not even this can snap me out of the way I feel.
Not even Leah, who appears at the door to my office fifteen minutes into the lunch hour.
“What’s up, girl?” she says, her smile bright and wide, just like always.
“Not much.” I try to force my lips into some semblance of a grin, but I fail completely, and it doesn’t get by Leah.
“Liar.”
“No, seriously,” I say, squinting at the computer screen. I have to make this realistic, at least in some fashion, because if I tell Leah what happened, I will not be able to get through the rest of the day. And I have meetings. Important meetings. With people whose lives are in even bigger shambles than my own. They deserve more of my attention than I’ve been giving so far. Real attention. “I’ve just got a lot going on.”
“You want to go grab something for lunch? I’m on my way out.”
I have to swallow to keep my throat from closing up. “I’m good,” I say, and this time I succeed in forcing a grin onto my face. It doesn’t reach my eyes.
Leah purses her lips. “I don’t believe you. But I’m starving, so I’m going to go get some food.”
“Go!” I say, my voice falsely bright, waving one hand at her. “I’ve got a ton to do and I brought lunch.”
She nods once, and then continues down the hall, though I hear her shoes stop once. She doesn’t decide to come back.
Not until ten minutes before my next meeting, at least.
Leah bustles into my office and makes a beeline for my desk, putting a paper bag with the top folded over squarely in front of me. I’ve been sitting here since she left, pretending to click on emails.
“It’s a soup and sandwich from the deli,” she says, her eyebrows drawn together. “Eat it.”
Knowing her, it’s probably my favorite.
“Okay.”
Then she turns on her heel. I know she’s not done with me yet.
I only wish I was not done with Brett.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Brett
I sleep and I sleep and I sleep, and when I wake up, I crawl out of bed exactly long enough to take a piss and brush my teeth, and then I go right back to bed and to sleep. Sometimes it’s light out. Sometimes it’s dark. None of it matters.
I’m completely fucking disoriented when I wake up a long time later. It must be sometime in the morning judging by the light coming in through the window, but maybe it’s afternoon.
I get out of bed and wrench the curtain away from the window. It’s past afternoon. We’re heading steadily into evening. But what fucking day is it?
My phone has been sitting on the bedside table and I grab for it, unlocking the screen in one motion. There are no new notifications—so it really did happen. Addison didn’t send me a message wondering where I am, or any other goddamn message at all. What a fucking waking nightmare.
I toss the phone back onto the bed. It’s Wednesday evening now. I lost the rest of Tuesday and most of today.
Well, fuck this.
A good stretch clears my muscles from the weird sluggishness that’s settled in from sleeping for so long, but it does nothing for the foul taste in my mouth.
Bathroom. Shower. Food.
When all that’s finished, I’m getting back to work.
The house seems like a fucking prison, so once I’ve pulled on a clean pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a hoodie that’s not covered in paint, I get into my car and drive downtown.
The Dockside is closed—they’re only open through the lunch hour—but Cinco Amigos, the Mexican place three blocks away, is open. I slide into the last spot in the parking lot. Why the hell is it so crowded?
A sign on the door tells me exactly why: half-off margaritas and appetizers, every Wednesday.
My shoulders relax at the sight of the packed tables. I’d been imagining a solitary dinner in an empty restaurant, but this is even better. The wait staff will be far less likely to pay any attention to me.
The hostess, a petite girl with dark hair and a huge smile, takes me to a table for two near the constantly swinging kitchen doors and leaves me with a menu, a basket of chips and a Coke.
“Well, if it isn’t Brett Miller! Are you meeting Addison?”
The words send a shock down my spine that very nearly freezes me in place. Who the fuck is asking?
It’s an effort to tear my gaze away from the table, but when I do, it’s to meet Candy’s eyes. Candy from the Dockside. Jesus Christ. She must be picking up extra shifts at this place.
My throat tightens painfully, but I clear it, raising my hand to my mouth like I’ve got an errant piece of chip there, and then I can force myself to answer. “Nope. I’m on my own.”
She clicks her tongue. “That’s too bad.” That’s the fucking truest thing I’ve heard in weeks. “What can I get for you?”
I’m torn between the empty, hollow feeling in the pit of my gut and the way Addison’s name makes my stomach turn over, but I haven’t eaten in forever.
“The number nine.”
The number nine is a massive platter of Mexican food, and Candy gives me a nod and a wide grin. “You want it how it comes?”
How it comes is with an absurd variety of meats and cheeses in the tacos and burritos.
“How it comes is fine.”
Candy bustles away, and I lean back against the cool fabric of the booth’s padding, unwrap the silverware from the napkin, and then look around the room. The place is packed full of people who are drunk and happy. I have half a fucking mind to get drunk myself, but there’s nothing holding me back—if I start drinking here, they’ll probably have to cart me out in a damn ambulance. I normally don’t give a shit what anyone thinks, but I’m not willing to make that kind of scene in front of Candy.
Who will undoubtedly see Addison at some point soon and ask her why she’s not with me.
Part of me thinks that it will be fucking great when Addison is confronted with the fact that we’re not together because she didn’t want…
She didn’t want what?
Me to leave her again? I wasn’t leaving. I was right fucking next door. Her words run together in my mind, mashing up with the dreams I had during that train wreck of a nap that lasted almost two full days. I’m not entirely sure what she said or didn’t say, and does it matter?
I rub my hands over my face, and that’s what I’m doing when Candy reappears with my dinner—three full plates, plus a plastic tortilla holder and a separate tray with extra toppings. It’s a fucking ridiculous amount of food, and another wave of emptiness nearly eats me alive.
“Anything else I can get for you?”
As if there’s any food available in the world that’s not on this table right now.
“No, Candy. I’ll be good.”
“I’ll at least get you another drink.”
She sweeps the half-empty Coke from the table. I don’t remember drinking it.
All around me, the volume in the restaurant continues rising as people get drunker and happier, and I silently eat my way through enough food for three people. I eat like I’m starving to death, like every bite will get me to some sense of fucking normalcy, but all it does is bury the emptiness under a stomach-full of food.
At least it feels good not to be hungry.
But the empty seat across from me taunts me, mocks me, until I can hardly fucking look at it. When Candy brings the bill, I have money out already and press it into her hand, getting up with a mumbled thanks and leaving before she can bring me back the change.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Addison
I can’t get anything done, but I have no choice but to get everything done. My work waits for no one, least of all me. There are always people waiting for their appointment, feet tapping while they sit in the chairs outside my office door, not making eye contact with Julia, the receptionist, who marks them down in the computer so I know who’s late and who’s too early.
My goal is to absolutely drown myself
in work, focus on it so hard that nothing else can break through, but I’m failing miserably.
Leah must be busy because she hasn’t bothered me since she brought me lunch on Tuesday, other than for sending me a few texts that I haven’t brought myself to answer. If I start telling her what happened, I’ll lose the eerie sense of calm that’s been keeping me wrapped in a suit of armor since I left home that morning.
You did the right thing, I keep trying to tell myself at every available moment. Sometimes I pretend that I’m saying this in response to getting someone services, but not as much as they were hoping for. Sometimes I don’t pretend anything at all.
The knock on my door at noon on Thursday makes me jump in my seat, jarring me out of an attempt to lose myself by focusing intensely on the afternoon’s schedule and making small tweaks to next week’s meetings.
“Yoo-hoooooo!”
It’s my mother. I want to curl up into the seat and slide down to the floor, but she’s already seen me.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Come on,” she says with an exaggerated wave over her shoulder. “Lunch!”
“I really don’t have—”
“Oh, stop. You have time for lunch.”
I just don’t have it in me to argue with her. Not today. Maybe not ever again. With a silent sigh, I resign myself to the next eternity of lunches with Mom whenever she feels like popping in to complain about Dad and tell me that I shouldn’t date people like Brett Miller.
It doesn’t help that she was probably right.
“Yeah.”
I pull my purse out of my desk drawer and close it, then stand up and tug on my jacket. My mom looks at me with narrowed eyes.
“What?”
“Is something wrong?”
“No.”
I zip up my coat and move toward her, her eyes pinned to my face as I cross in front of her and proceed into the hallway.