by Lydia Reeves
Stop trying to fill the hole inside you with craft supplies and other people’s happiness. Let yourself be happy.
Was Sherry overly intuitive, or was it just that obvious? It didn’t matter, I supposed.
I thought about Levi on the walk home from the hospital. Was he awake now, or sleeping? Would he remember the things he said to me? If so, would he regret them? I supposed that didn’t matter either. I wanted to be with him. I wanted a chance at a real relationship, not one built on fear and misunderstandings. And the only way that would happen is if I gave it a chance. If I let him in.
Let yourself be happy.
I opened the door to the apartment building, then used my keys to unlock the deadbolts on the heavy new door Levi had installed. He wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t cared about me. He wouldn’t have gone out of his way to check on me, and sit with me in the hallway. I cared about him, and obviously he cared about me as well. Now it was time to try caring about myself for a change.
I moved through the apartment, flipping on all the lights. Then I went to the kitchen and pulled out the roll of trash bags I kept under the sink. I moved to the living room, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the thin path that was the only space clear of clutter.
I took a deep breath, and then I started opening bags I hadn’t touched in years.
Chapter 14
LEVI
The doctors told me I was lucky. The bullet had completely missed my subclavian artery, and the surgical repair of my shoulder had gone well. I was still in for a few months of physical therapy to hopefully regain my full range of motion, but I was released from the hospital two days later with nothing more than a small cluster of stitches to show for my trouble.
But I didn’t feel lucky. It was true, I’d had a steady stream of visitors—from my mom and brother, to Jansen and the chief, who kept me up to date on Gary’s arrest and the aftermath of the situation—including an impressive array of evidence collected from his apartment—as well as a couple of buddies from jiu jitsu who bemoaned the fact that I wouldn’t be practicing with them any time soon. But one person had been conspicuously absent.
I hadn’t seen Marian again after that first day when I’d said such horrible things to her. Sure, I’d been doped up on painkillers and fresh out of surgery. And the things I’d said had all had at least a hint of truth to them. But that gave me no cause to be cruel. And I had been cruel, there was no doubt about that.
I’d been exactly the person she’d feared I was when we first met. The person I’d been trying for the past few weeks to show her wasn’t the real me at all.
That was the only thing I could think about on the way home from the hospital—I owed her an apology.
“So, there was a girl sitting across the room from us when you were in surgery.”
My mom had volunteered to pick me up from the hospital and drive me the few blocks home. Despite the fact that the distance was easily walkable, I hadn’t had the heart to refuse her.
“At first I assumed she was there for someone else,” she went on, either not noticing or deliberately ignoring my lack of response. “But every time your doctor came out, she perked up and leaned forward like she was trying to hear what he said to us.”
I blinked. Marian had been waiting there all day?
My mother gave me a sidelong glance. “I was just wondering if it was anyone I should know about?”
I just grunted in answer, but she refused to give up.
“She was still there when Mason and I went back. Did she ever go back to see you?”
Yes. And I’d insulted her and made her cry. I called her an addict. I told her she’d end up like my dad. I told her I didn’t want to see her. Good lord, I’d be lucky if she was even willing to look at me after all that.
We pulled up in front of my apartment and my mom thankfully let the subject drop. She helped me inside and got me situated, heading back out with a kiss on the cheek and a promise to check on me later.
It had only been a few days, but it felt like so much longer. Like so much had happened since the morning I’d gone to surprise Marian at the bakery. My apartment felt cold and sterile for some reason, and I felt aimless as I wandered through it.
When I drifted into my bedroom though, the first thing I saw was shattered pottery. The geranium in my windowsill had grown too top-heavy and had fallen off the sill sometime while I’d been gone. Clumps of dirt and broken remains of the hedgehog pot littered the carpet, and a tight feeling rose in my chest. The loss of that ridiculous hedgehog struck me harder than I would have expected, and I wondered when the moment had been that I’d started finding her eccentricities endearing rather than weird or annoying.
I bent, picking up a broken shard of pottery and carefully fingering the sharp edge. I wouldn’t let this be an omen. My relationship with Marian had barely even gotten started, but I wouldn’t let it end so easily, shattered from the same neglect I’d shown this plant. I let the piece fall back to the floor, and without pausing to deal with the mess, I crossed the room and left my apartment, heading down the hall with purposeful strides.
I held my breath and rapped my knuckles sharply against her door.
What was I doing? She’d never let me in. Besides, it was the middle of the day; she was likely at work, and even if not, the familiar space against the wall between our doors was an entirely different landscape in the bright light of day.
To my surprise, her clear voice rang out through the door before I had the chance to turn and leave.
“Come in!”
Come in? Really?
Swallowing down my shock, and the pulse of hope that went with it, I grasped the handle and pushed, then shook my head ruefully—would she never lock the damn door?—and cautiously let myself into the apartment.
Just inside the entryway I froze, and I nearly left again to check and be sure I was in the right place. True, I had only been inside the apartment once before, but it was not the kind of thing you forgot, and this—this was nothing like what I remembered.
I looked around in amazement.
A huge swath of space was clear, right down to the carpet. Gone were the bags, the boxes, the loose papers, the junk. In the clear half of the room, a misshapen couch was now visible beneath the dusty window as well as some plastic totes and a tall cabinet against the side wall. Trash bags were piled high in the far corner.
I turned, looking toward the hallway, where I could still see a spill of bags cluttering the opening.
“Marian?”
She appeared, stumbling through the mess and kicking things out of her way, a trash bag gripped in one hand, the other raised to push her hair out of her eyes.
“Levi.” Her voice was hesitant. “I’d hoped it was you.”
I didn’t waste a second. I crossed the room, stopping myself just short of touching her. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Marian. I had no right to say those things to you, and—”
“Stop, it’s okay.” She tilted her head. “Well, it’s not okay, but thank you.”
She reached out a hand toward me and I grabbed it, the feel of her fingers in mine calming the dread and regret I’d been carrying around for days.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come see you again,” she went on. “But I had some stuff I needed to start taking care of.” She gestured around with a rueful smile.
“Don’t apologize,” I said insistently. “It’s my fault. I had no right to say what I did, and I…” I looked around again, taking in the stark changes since I’d last been here. “I hope you aren’t doing this for me. I mean, I’m glad you…but don’t…”
“No, it’s not because of you. And yes, it is.” She smiled, the expression softening the serious look on her face, and my heart unclenched a little further. “Look, come sit. I have some things I want to tell you. Things I should have told you before.”
She tugged my hand lightly, leading me toward the kitchen. I went willingly, but my chest still felt tight. I wanted her
to tell me everything. I wanted her to let me in and to find out who she was. But I didn’t want her to think she owed me just because I’d acted like an ass.
“Marian, you don’t have to tell me any—”
“I said I want to.” She took a deep breath, and led me to a seat at the kitchen table. I didn’t let go of her hand as she slid in across from me. “They say things get easier with practice,” she said under her breath as she folded her legs beneath her. “Let’s see if that’s true.”
And then she told me about her mom. She looked down at the table as she spoke in a quiet voice, and I let her words wash over me.
She’d never known her dad, gone when she was a baby, and it had always been just the two of them. She told me about her childhood growing up, happy on all accounts. About her mom’s love of scrapbooking and card making and crafts, and everything they did together. She told me about the day she’d come home from school as a high school freshman, and found her mom dead in her bedroom, a note for her left on the nightstand. My breath caught in my throat as I listened to her describe her complete confusion and numbness, her new life living with her aunt in Glassbury, about an hour’s drive away, the surprise of an inheritance when she turned eighteen.
She told me about moving back to Fairfield and into her own place, and the first time she ever went to the craft store, determined to buy some scrapbooking supplies to remind her of her mom. And how everything had spiraled out of control from there.
To my amazement, her eyes remained dry through her story, her voice level, if soft and unsteady here and there. About halfway through I couldn’t control myself, and I carefully pulled her around the table and into my lap, where I wrapped my good arm around her silently as I let her speak.
She told me about going to see Sherry in the hospital after she left my room, and the conversation they’d had.
Only at the end did her eyes turn bright with tears. “It was time, you know? Sherry was right. I have to learn how to let go, and be kinder to myself. I…”
She twisted in my lap, turning her face to mine, and I lifted my hand, wiping away a tear that had escaped. “I really like you,” she whispered. “And I want to let you in.”
I barely knew what to say. I’d misjudged her so badly, right from the start, thinking she was weak and silly. But in reality, she was so strong, able to survive such horrible circumstances and still find it within herself to give so much of herself to others. She cared so much about other people, and I couldn’t wait to see what she was like when she cared about herself just as much.
I cupped her face in my hands, my thumbs brushing away the remaining tears, and leaned in close, brushing my lips lightly against hers.
“I really like you, too,” I told her, and she laughed. “And I think you’re strong and amazing and wonderful.” I tried to say more, but she cut me off with her lips, soft and pliant against mine, and I couldn’t remember what I’d been about to say anyway.
It seemed forever before we came up for air, and she slid off my lap and pulled me up to my feet as well.
“Do you…” I nodded my head toward the hallway. “Do you want my help with that? The cleaning, I mean.”
She gave another musical laugh. “You know, at first I thought it was really something I needed to do on my own. Purge everything by myself, and deal with the emotions.”
I nodded.
“But I’ve been at it for two days now, and honestly? I would love the help.”
Chapter 15
MARIAN
All told, it took nearly a month. And it was a hard month, too, filled with more tears than I could count—tears of sadness and loss as I found things I hadn’t even known I had, things my mom would have loved. Tears of embarrassment as I found things I didn’t even remember buying, crumpled and broken under the weight of five years’ accumulated junk. There were even tears of laughter, as Levi found my old sewing machine in a box with a bunch of half-finished projects and donned a frilly, cherry-printed apron I’d made as he cooked dinner for us in the kitchen.
But by the end of the month, my apartment and I mirrored each other. Both of us were empty, swept clean of five years of accumulated junk, both real and emotional, and only slightly worse for wear. My poor apartment desperately needed new carpet, a fresh coat of paint, and some new furniture to fill the space that had previously been filled with clutter. The spare bedroom was still filled with a selection of bags I was struggling to part with, but as Levi kept reminding me, this was a process, and healing took time. Personally, my body was ready for some new emotions to fill the space that had been cleared of guilt, regret, and self-loathing.
And as unfamiliar as emotions such as love and happiness and optimism might be, I was finding them not at all hard to get used to.
“You’re going to keep the knitting?” Levi called from the bedroom. He’d been of limited physical help, due to the restrictions of his still-healing shoulder, but the emotional support he’d provided had been invaluable.
“Absolutely,” I called back. “I might need to stab someone with those needles.”
“Got a taste for violence, did you?”
He appeared in the doorway, a grin stretched wide across his face, and I tried hard not to melt. The effects of that smile never seemed to lessen.
“What?” he asked as I continued to stare.
“Oh, nothing,” I said. “I just was sure for so long that you didn’t even know how to smile.”
He narrowed his eyes and stalked across the room to me, his grin turning into a smirk. “It’s not that hard to make me smile,” he informed me in a low voice.
“Oh, I know,” I told him. “All I have to do is kiss you here…” I slid my nose across the underside of his jaw, breathing him in, then pressed my lips to the side of his neck. “Or touch you here…” I slipped my hands under the hem of his t-shirt and ran my fingertips up the hard plane of his chest.
“But I’m not smiling now,” he said, his voice a low growl that sent heat coiling through me.
“No, I suppose not,” I sighed, tilting my face up to meet his. His fingers slipped under the hems of my clothing, one hand questing upward, one downward. His lips met mine in a searing kiss.
“But I think I like this better.”
* * *
* * *
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Lydia Reeves
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: [email protected].
Cover images by www.bookcoverzone.com
ISBN 978-1-7337827-7-7 (ebook)
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