“I am sure she’s fine,” Camila agrees, her voice low and sleepy. She gives a sigh and snuggles against the sofa. “She’s probably staying somewhere for the night.”
Heartache snags against your ribs again.
Camila’s looking at you again in that way that she does, sideways under her lashes, but she doesn’t say anything. You can feel The Conversation’s breath against your neck. You’re just waiting for Camila to say something like “I don’t know what you see in her”, or “is she always this selfish?” or perhaps even: “why do you go out with her when you could go out with me?”
Ghostly arms of a dialogue you don’t want to have wrap its arms around you, like an overbearing relative. It’s an invasion of your space and you don’t want to deal with this right now.
But Camila hasn’t said anything; you have. It’s a conversation with yourself, and you know the answers, and you also know the flaws in those answers. It’s not the first time you’ve had the debate.
Camila shifts slightly, leaning towards you. She’s just about to say something, and you tense up, not sure how you’re going to respond.
And then there’s a knock at the door.
19.
Home Sweet Camila
The hallway’s only light is the battery-powered exit sign—flickering an SOS from a dying charge—but I know the hallway like I know each blister on my feet. I could have walked it blindfolded. Three paces across the “lobby” that had the mailboxes. Dodge Mrs. Alderman’s bucket of salt for icy steps, still there even in August. Then the stairs. My hand alights on the rail through muscle memory. Then a landing with two doors. Two paces and a second staircase. Sometimes there were bundles of newspapers for recycling on these steps, even though the jackass in 1B had been told numerous times not to do it, that it was a tripping hazard.
But I didn’t trip.
The upper hallway had its own window; it was closed, no breeze. The air smelled of old cooking. The 3C on the door sat a little crooked, it had slipped while Mr. Alderman nailed it in, and red exit-light glittered around the edges of the fake bronze.
Do you ever have that feeling where you know everything will change and all you can see are the tiniest of details? The water-stains in the ceiling, the cracks in the plaster. The shoes lined up outside Camila’s door, all impractical, like the woman doesn’t own a pair of sandals without rhinestones. Who doesn’t own just a simple pair of sneakers?
The wood flooring warmed under my torn and bloody feet. The beat of my pulse resounded through my toes, like an echo of a drum. It was past 4:00 a.m. He should be asleep. Maybe I’d been mistaken.
No. I’d heard him laugh.
I knocked, tentatively, the sound muffled, and then the beat in my veins increased and with a flat palm I pounded at the door, deliberate and painfully, the shock travelling along my wrist. “DYLAN!” I called, no longer caring who I woke up. “IT’S ME, I’M HOME, I DON’T HAVE—”
The door opened.
“—keys,” I finished, the note dying away, my heart in my throat, a blockage and I couldn’t swallow. Dylan stood there surprised, his eyebrows around his hair line until he saw me, really saw me, and then he grinned so broadly I thought I’d cry right then and then. He swept me up, his arms tight around me, warm and snug and I buried my face in his shoulder and my eyes burned.
“I was so worried,” he whispered.
I knew he was. I knew he was worried and I regretted every time I had chosen a different path than one that led me to a phone. I squeezed back, the shoe pressing against his shoulder blade, until he twitched and began to pull away.
And then there was a squeak of the couch shifting, that one leg that protests.
So slowly it felt unnatural, I raised myself up on my tip-toes to peep over his shoulder. Camila sat curled on the couch, looking back at me. She wasn’t wearing very much, her tanned legs pulled up under her, on my couch, in the apartment I share with my boyfriend. She met my eyes without a hint of shame or remorse or even surprise.
Dylan pulled me into the apartment so he could close the door and felt me tense because he pulled back, confused. “What’s the matter?” As I moved my arm away from his back he saw the shoe, and completely bewildered, looked down. “What the fuck! Look at your feet!”
“Yeah,” I replied, still watching Camila, who broke eye contact first to lazily look around the room, twirling a piece of hair around her finger. Twirling a piece of hair around her finger like a girl in a music video. “Yeah. Lot of walking. I got blisters. And then my heel broke and I threw the shoe at a family of raccoons.”
“You… threw your shoe at a raccoon?”
“At a family of them.” I dumped my remaining shoe on the nearby sideboard, not caring which of Dylan’s innumerable knickknacks I dislodged. My words came out like coins dropped from a height, clattering on the parquet. “They wanted the pizza that I was picking out of the garbage can.”
Dylan froze, his confusion clear across his face, and even Camila looked baffled, but then she often had that expression around me. Like she couldn’t believe that Dylan had chosen to be with me instead of her.
The apartment was roasting hot—boiling—even with all the windows open and a cross-breeze. Or maybe it was just me.
“I’m not going to ask why you were picking pizza out of a garbage can,” Dylan said, carefully, as though I was trying to trick him. “Are you hungry? I think there are leftovers—”
I swivelled towards him in slow motion. “…leftovers?”
“It was a very delicious dinner,” Camila said, from the comfort of my couch.
I couldn’t breathe, and a drum beat inside my head.
Dylan came up behind me to put his hands on my shoulders, steering me towards the hallway. “Why don’t I run you a bath? You look like you need one. Quick bath, rinse off, some food, and then bed.” He gently guided me along the hallway a few paces and then I turned to face him.
“What. Is. She. Doing. Here.” I demanded, in a low voice, fiercely enough that he backed away.
Taking a moment to recover, he replied in the same low tone. “I was being neighbourly,” he explained, patiently. “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a blackout and none of the apartments—”
“In case I haven’t noticed?” My was voice too loud, even to me, but I was long past caring. “In case I haven’t noticed? I have just taken over twelve hours to get home across the entire fucking city, you have no fucking idea what I’ve been through, and there’s only leftovers for me and that woman is sitting on my couch at fucking four o’clock in the fucking morning?”
A mask fell over Dylan’s features, like curtains being drawn, and in the dim light of the hallway I could barely see his eyes for the shadows. “I figure you’ve had a stressful day, which is why I’m going to ignore how you’re talking to me right now. Go have a bath, Mallory, you smell like a dumpster, and in the meantime, I will go make you something to eat from my fridge, in my apartment.” He turned on his heel.
I turned on mine. It hurt.
But it was nothing like how my feet hurt when they touched the water. It was only water, nothing in it, just luke-warm tap water, but the pain was blinding. Not that there was much to blind—a faint yellow glow from a battery-powered night light over the sink—but I thought for a moment that I might black out. I gripped the edge of the tub and forced myself to breathe shallowly through the agony until my feet were submerged, and then I followed with the rest of me.
Soap was a problem.
* * *
Scrubbed, towelled, and nauseated from the waves of stinging pain, I was applying Polysporin and Band-aids to my feet while sitting on the lidded toilet when the door opened. I jumped, looking up, alarmed, but it was only Dylan thrusting a clean set of clothing at me. I took it from him wordlessly and he closed the door.
He wasn’t even denying it, I realized. At no point had he said “it’s not what you think, Mal!” or anything even close to that. Instead he nitpicked over who owned t
he couch, who had bought the refrigerator, like we were roommates bickering over common space. Not to mention the food, since Dylan and I bought groceries together. That’s not the point! Especially if we end up getting married—oh god. My special meal. She’d eaten my special meal. The one meant as a proposal and I was getting the leftovers.
Unless.
Unless Aggie had been wrong and it hadn’t been a proposal dinner but a break-up dinner. Nausea swirled around me again, like the floor was falling away and I would tumble down forever. What if he’d been carrying on with Camila all this time, and tonight was the night he’d planned to tell me it was over? Because he couldn’t face another anniversary as a fraud?
My stomach didn’t have anything to bring up, but bile stung the back of my mouth. I forced myself to breathe through my nose until my insides relaxed. Or at least stopped recoiling, settling into a cramp instead. The hand holding the Polysporin clenched, squirting a long worm of ointment. “Fuck.”
First things first: finish with my feet.
Then march into the living room and give that hussy a talking-to.
* * *
The loose sundress was cool against my skin, and being free from all the sweat of the past day and a half was a blessing, but I was too far gone to enjoy it. I padded out to the living room on my heels, bandaids up off the floor. Camila was still on the couch, adjusting the spaghetti strap of her teeny tank top; Dylan sat in the arm chair, leaning towards her, resting his arms on his knees, speaking urgently in Spanish.
Despite the warm, close air of the apartment, I felt cold. As I came around the corner, both looked up, Dylan stopping mid-sentence. “Now that I’m back, could you speak in English, please?”
Camila wrinkled her nose at me, just a little bit, looking me up and down. I was in a shapeless, faded sundress that I kept for hot Saturday afternoons out on the patio. It was my comfiest dress, essentially only worn whenever nudity wasn’t an option. My hair lay in wet ropes around my face and my feet were a complicated interweaving of Life brand bandages. She wore the aforementioned teeny tank-top with short-shorts and still had on make-up, her hair in fetching curls despite the humidity, all without an extra ounce of fat on her, except where it counted, of course.
Dylan stood. “Feel any better? Still hungry?” he asked, the second question emphasized. “I made you a sandwich.”
I padded over to the kitchen island, still prickling hot and cold all over. The sandwich was lunchmeat. The lunchmeat that he didn’t eat but I did when I needed to pack a quick bite for work. The lettuce was wilted and the tomato gushed over the edge. The plate had a chip in it. My eyes swept over the rest of the kitchen to the piles of dirty plates and cutlery, dishes and bowls. Apparently they’d eaten everything in the fridge. I checked the metal roaster. There were remains of a bone in there, and a puddle of grease. But my nose told me what the meal had been. “Lamb roast. You made lamb roast.”
I had to force my breath through my nose slowly, each hit reminding me. Lamb roast was my favourite. Dylan didn’t like it. He had only ever cooked it twice before and both times were apologies—once for having to work through my birthday party and once for breaking my laptop, spilling wine over the keyboard. He hadn’t said that the lamb was an apology, of course. But I knew.
I leaned against the counter. And he’d made it again. For my break-up meal. I’d been rushing across the city, trying to come home in time for a break-up apology meal. Each inhale was a slap in the face and I turned away.
Both Dylan and Camila watched in silence from the living room, their eyes wide in the gloom. All the flirtatious ‘borrowings’. The hidden phone calls in Spanish. He said it was his brothers, and I had no reason to doubt him, no reason at all. Was it really his brothers? Did they know? Did everyone know but me?
Camila was better looking, she shared his Latino heritage, they probably bonded over things that I couldn’t pronounce properly while I was on the other side of the city ignorant and focusing on my career. Was it my fault? Did I neglect him? Why didn’t he tell me I was neglecting him?
“Mal?” Dylan said. “Are you okay? You look a little green.”
She was still here. Still here at 4:00 a.m. What the ever-loving fuck! Why wouldn’t this woman get out of my living room so that my boyfriend could break up with me properly?!
The kitchen tilted and I waited for the dishes to slide to the ground.
Somehow Dylan crossed the space without me noticing because he was suddenly beside me. “You’re exhausted,” he was saying. “We all are. It’s been a long day—” He stopped, confused, as I pulled away from him. He pushed the sandwich towards me. “You probably need to eat.”
“You made lamb,” I whispered.
“Yes?”
“You hate lamb.”
“I’m not fond of it, no, but it’s all right, lots of tzatziki and mint. I’m sorry there’s none left, there were too many people.”
“…what?”
“Dylan was very nice,” Camila offered, gesturing towards the patio. “He—all the neighbours, they came here and he made the dinner. Out on the—” She was lost for the word and gestured again to the outside. “Everyone brought a something from their kitchen. It was very fun.” She yawned, theatrically, and then stretched. “I should be going.”
“You think?”
She stared at me, blinking, and then got to her feet, slipping them into tiny jewelled sandals to walk across a hallway. Dylan waited by the door and she stood on tip-toe to kiss his cheek, saying something in Spanish while he looked embarrassed and let her out, locking the door behind her. All while I glared.
“Mallory,” he began, in a very slow, patient voice, “I think that whatever you’re thinking, it isn’t like that, and we can talk about it tomorrow after a good sleep and some food.”
“Food,” I retorted, gesturing towards the limp sandwich. “You ate my dinner. Without me.”
“You were late,” he continued in the same slow manner. “Very late. You said you were going to call, and you didn’t—”
“So this is punishment?”
“I didn’t say that. I am just explaining.” He spread his arms wide, open, just as open as his face, covered in stubble already, dark bags under his eyes. He hadn’t slept either.
I held onto the edge of the counter, tears springing to my eyes. “You don’t know the day I had.”
“I don’t,” he agreed. “When you didn’t call, I figured you were trapped on a shuttle bus coming the long way across town. Maybe you couldn’t find a phone. Maybe your cell phone died.” The Nokia lay where I’d left it, like a failed talisman. “I assumed you’d come straight here, but I guess you must have—”
“Must have what?” I swallowed, straightening. “Must’ve what? What do you think I was doing this whole time?”
He still had his arms spread in surrender. “I figured… you were either stuck on a shuttle bus or… you and Aggie and the others had gone for drinks somewhere. To wait out for the power to come back on.”
“That’s what you thought.”
“It’s almost 5:00 a.m. You’ve been gone all night. There was no call. What happened?”
My hands shook, even while I rested them on the counter. Smells overwhelmed the apartment: the lamb grease, onions, the sandwich meat, even a wisp of smoke from one of the guttering candles by the sofa. My throat wanted to close. “I wanted to call you. But I couldn’t find a phone. I couldn’t find a working phone. They were all… something was wrong with them. Like maybe they’d been a pigeon? There was a business man, he was from Head Office and he kept keeping me from doing anything right, he was following me and it was the same guy, over and over and all I wanted to do was get home and be at home here with you and instead—” my voice cracked and I leaned my forehead against the cool tiled top of the island. “It’s five a.m. and you’re going to break up with me and I just can’t even get the words out right now.”
“…what?” Dylan froze, mid-step, then leaned on the counter acro
ss from me. “What did you just say?”
“About what? None of it seems real anymore. It didn’t seem real then.”
“About you breaking up with me?” He sounded more than confused, and I looked up, only an arm’s length from him. Hurt was written in block letters across his face. Marker script, like the signs on Honest Ed’s. “Where did that come from?”
“I’m not breaking up with you,” I corrected. Another smell cut through the old odours of cooking and candles: a fruit-floral wisp of weed. The moon shone through the whispering leaves as a crow cawed, and the breathless voice in my ear urged me to just ask. “Do you want to break up with me?”
Dylan frowned, his forehead creasing like he was trying to solve an equation without a blackboard. “Of course I don’t. Why… would you think that?”
My voice came out as a bit of bleat. “Because. Because you made me a special apology dinner, and then you ate it with that bitch across the hall while I tried to get home.”
He covered the distance around the island so swiftly and it was all I could do not to cry. He gently wrapped his arms around me and kissed my temple. “I made you lamb because you liked lamb, and I wanted to do something special for you because I’ll miss our anniversary next week.” He kissed below my ear. “I didn’t invite just Camila but all the neighbours. We ate whatever might spoil. We turned it into a party.” He kissed under my cheekbone. “I had no idea you when you’d get home and that you were having such a hard time.” He kissed my lips. And after a moment, I kissed him back.
He pulled away, staring down at me, smiling, and brushed some wet hair off my forehead. “Your breath is terrible. Eat something.”
I laughed. A half-laugh, half-choke, and I leaned my forehead against his shoulder. “You hate lamb.”
“I told you, I don’t hate lamb. I don’t really like it, but Suzy downstairs said to try it slow-roasted with lots of garlic and mint, Greek-style, and she was right. It wasn’t bad.” He nuzzled the top of my head. “I’ll make it again for you. When the power’s back. As for Camila—”
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