Chapter 18 #3
It was the first time he had used her nickname in eight years.
He hadn’t even meant to—it had just come out. Like it had been there on his tongue the entire time.
She stared at him, as if waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t, she frowned, her eyes half closed. “I should get ready for bed.”
She stood up, a slight sway in her stance before she started forward to a door.
There were a million things he wanted to say in that moment, to stop her and pour out his thoughts and feelings, get the past eight years off his chest. But when she reached the doorway, all that came out was, “Annie… I didn’t know. ”
She stopped and turned around. Whether she picked up on the old nickname was impossible to tell. She had always been hard to read, even after a few glasses of wine.
“If I had known it was your dad’s apartment, I wouldn’t have put in an offer. I wouldn’t have done that to you,” he continued solemnly.
“I know,” she said, her voice soft. “That’s my fault.”
“How’s that your fault?”
A slight shrug. “You would have known if I’d ever had the courage to invite you over.”
Then she turned and disappeared into the bathroom.
Freddie listened to the water running from behind the closed door, working to regain his composure.
The wine wasn’t helping—his emotions felt raw and exposed, like the pinot noir had tilled a corner of his chest that had been neglected for too long.
But it wasn’t really neglected, was it? If he was being honest with himself, he revisited it more than he should—that small parcel that he had diligently kept alive over the past eight years.
Every memory, every ounce of love for Anne, nurtured in the dark.
Because as much as he didn’t want to feel it, it also meant too much to him to ever let it die.
He looked around the small room again. It was like a scrapbook of the woman he had known, but with new layers he wanted to peel away and examine.
Anne shuffled back through the doorway before he could consider it.
Her hair was piled in a messy bun on top of her head and her sweater and jeans had been replaced by an oversized T-shirt and nothing else.
He darted his eyes away, careful to avoid staring at her long limbs as she threw back the duvet on her bed and crawled underneath.
He should go. She probably thought he had already left when she went into the bathroom. But before he could apologize, she moaned, her voice half muffled by her arm now flung over her face.
“Why did you let me drink so much?”
He chuckled softly. “Do you need anything before I go?”
“No,” she said. At the same time, her other arm swung down and started feeling across the top of her nightstand. “Yes.”
“What do you need?” he asked.
“My phone charger. The cord should be right here.”
He did a quick survey of the nightstand. “I don’t see it.”
She groaned and her hand journeyed down to the drawers, fumbling with the handles while her arm stayed covering her eyes.
“Then it’s in the drawer, in the thing,” she said, her voice already starting to fade with sleep.
“Which drawer?”
“So many questions.”
He sighed, and started at the bottom, pulling open the drawer to find a meticulously coiled phone charger, her earbud case, and a square container the size of a small shoebox.
It was plastic, with a lid that covered the top, but next to it, half-hidden in the shadows, was an intricately folded piece of paper.
His pulse thundered in his ears, even as it felt like his heart had stopped.
It was one of his notes.
He was still for a moment, then slowly he reached over and lifted the lid on the small box.
It was full of them. Dozens of pieces of paper, each folded in their distinct way.
He was so startled he pulled his hand back, letting the box fall closed again.
Somewhere in his chest, a long-neglected pain sparked alive, that familiar regret over everything left unsaid between them, everything that had driven them apart.
It was eight years they would never get back.
“Is it in there?” Anne asked. Her arms were still lying across her face.
He grabbed the charger and quickly closed the drawer, then plugged it into the wall. “Yup. Right here.”
She finally sat up but didn’t appear to open her eyes as she took the cord from his waiting hand and attached it to her phone. Then she fell back into her pillows.
“Now I remember why I hate drinking,” she whispered.
“You’ll feel better in the morning,” he said. He had to stop himself from brushing a few strands of hair from her forehead.
“What if I have alcohol poisoning?”
He almost smiled. “You don’t have alcohol poisoning.”
“But what if I do?”
“How much did you end up drinking?”
Her eyebrows scrunched together like she was having a hard time with the mental math. “Two and a half.”
“Two and a half what?”
“Glasses of wine.”
Her eyes were still closed, so he didn’t try to curb his grin. “You’ll be fine, Annie.”
“Will you stay anyway?” she murmured. “Just until I fall asleep?”
He knew he should say no. He already felt too overwhelmed, too vulnerable. But he couldn’t bring himself to admit it. All he could do was stare down at her, how her long lashes skimmed her cheeks, how her lips were already a little parted with sleep.
He reached out and finally brushed a lock of her golden hair from her forehead and sighed. “Yeah. I’ll stay.”