Chapter 21
Hazel
“Iwas hoping you weren’t down here,” Nora said at the top of the stairs.
There were cobwebs in my messy bun. My hands were filthy from moving dusty cardboard boxes around the clinic basement. A layer of dirt between me and everything I touched. Clearing out the basement was a job I wanted to get done eventually, but it shouldn’t have taken precedence over so many other tasks. I’d started opening boxes a couple of days ago, deciding what should stay and should go—mostly go.
It was a comfort to sink beneath the earth, in the musky smell of stale air. Almost like I hit the pause button on every descent down the stairs.
I didn’t want to respond to her comment, instead I gestured to the freshly cleared basement floor. “Look at all of this room.”
I couldn’t see her face, but I could sense her frown—it floated down to cover surfaces like the dust in the air. “Did you sleep last night?”
“Of course I slept.”
It wasn’t a lie… I’d slept some.
She was quiet for a moment. I opened the flaps of the next box and peered inside. Keeping busy was key. If I stopped moving, I’d be able to feel just how devastated I was.
A stair creaked as Nora took a single step down. “Have you eaten?”
My arms jerked to a halt halfway inside the box.
When was the last time I’d eaten?
“I’ll take that as a no,” she said. “Come on up.”
“No, just throw a protein bar at me.”
“I am not bringing food down here. That’s disgusting. Come up, and wash your hands.”
I expected her demanding words, but I didn’t expect them to be carried in a gentle tone. It sucked all my resistance out of me. My joints cracked as I stretched my arms over my head. There were squares of cleanish carpet, outlined in brown dust. It danced in the sunlight, too stubborn to be held back by the grimy windows.
The surgical mask I wore over my mouth and nose clung to my cheeks as I peeled it off and set it down. Turning, I moved toward the exit. My movements were sluggish, my arms and legs heavier than normal.
When I got to the bottom step, Nora announced, “I’ll be in the break room when you’re cleaned up.”
The water flowed brown from my hands and arms. My eyes blinked too slowly, they wanted to stay closed. I startled, catching sight of myself in the mirror. My usual dark circles were partially obscured by streaky dirt—at least there was a clean area around my mouth and nose. I took a few more minutes to wipe my face and neck clean.
The smell of cumin and chili powder would have led me to the break room if Nora hadn’t already told me she’d be there. There was a steaming bowl of chili on the table when I entered, along with crackers, and a spoon next to it.
“Sit down.” Nora nodded toward the chair.
My stomach growled. “That smells so good.”
“It is. Sit down. Eat.”
She lowered into the seat opposite me. I lifted the spoon to my lips and took a bite of the hearty soup. It tasted similar to my mom’s, except spicier.
Nora chewed on a protein bar and stared out the window. At some point while I was in the basement, it had snowed more. It had been two weeks since Elijah had left, and I wished I could bury the memory as easily as the snow buried the grass and trees. Or if I could clean it out like I was the ancient, useless items in the clinic’s basement. But those memories and the terrible feelings were always waiting, never quite plucked from my heart.
I looked up to find Nora considering me with sad brown eyes.
She sighed. “Remi said he’d work your shift today.”
I swallowed a spoonful of chili too quickly and it burned my throat on the way down. “Why?”
“Because you need to sleep.”
“I do not need to sleep. I need to work.”
She shook her head.
Rolling my eyes, I leaned back in my chair. “If he’s going to do my shift, I’m just going to keep cleaning.”
“No, you’re gonna go home and go to bed. I’m gonna drive you there.”
She was using her “arguing is useless” tone, the one that usually made people buckle under its force. Not me, not now.
I folded my arms on the table and fixed an unwavering glare in her direction. “I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to sleep. I want to get work done.”
Concern pressed into the lines of her forehead and in the depths of her eyes. She opened her mouth and closed it as if reconsidering her words. Then she nodded. “This whole using work as self-abuse has to end. I can’t keep watching it.”
“I’m not abusing myself.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she continued. “Hazel, you’re not okay.”
I barked a laugh.
She appeared even more unsettled, which was fair—my laugh was a little hysterical.
“I know I’m not okay,” I said. “You think that’s not obvious to me? I am the furthest from okay.”
“I don’t know what to do for you.”
“Leave me alone. Don’t do anything. Just let me be.”
Her leg bounced under the table. She pressed her tongue into her cheek and narrowed her eyes at me. Leaving things be was not the Nora way. “Fine. Do whatever you want today. Remi will be here in a little bit.”
“Thank you.”
The sun had set hours ago, which meant it was probably late evening. I really didn’t care. My time was measured by the number of boxes I cleared away. When heavy steps began descending the stairs, I took a fortifying breath. It didn’t sound like Nora, but I couldn’t imagine who else it could be.
“Huh,” Remi grunted behind me. “It is not clean down here.”
I blinked and turned around, mildly surprised it was him. “Yeah.”
“So, what are we going to use this space for?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe a physical therapy clinic, eventually.”
“Maybe it could be outfitted for a groomer.” He pulled a mask over his nose and mouth. “What’s your system?”
“My system?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna help you out. Get you above ground sooner.”
“No, you don’t have to do that.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose—I got the feeling he was irritated with me, but that one gesture was the only indication. “I’m going to need you to stop saying that. Every time someone offers you help, you tell them they don’t have to. They know they don’t have to. Stop fighting help so much.”
“Okay.” The instinct to argue with him was strong, but I turned toward the mess. “There’s really no system. I’m opening a box, deciding if anything is salvageable, can be sold to an antique shop, or donated. Most everything is just getting thrown away.”
He stepped up to a stack and pulled the top one down before setting it on the floor. With his height, he did it with a lot more ease, and less danger of being crushed, than I did. “You wanna talk?”
I sighed. “Did Nora send you down here?”
“No, but she’s worried about you. We all are.”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, sure.”
I leaned over and pulled an unopened bag of towels, but set them in the small pile of “useful things.”
“Thank you for working for me today.”
“No problem. Brooks said he’ll work for you tomorrow, but only if you stay home and sleep.”
Rolling my eyes, I swallowed back my irritation. “So, his help comes with stipulations?”
“Can you blame him? If you were watching him work at this level, wouldn’t you try to stop him?”
“You can all stop hovering.”
He paused, halfway standing, and turned his head to glare at me. “That’s hilarious coming from you.”
Glaring back, I crossed my arms over my chest. But my annoyance softened slightly at the memory—back when I’d made it a point to call and text at least once a day after his divorce. “That was different. Alicia was your wife, and you were… wrecked when she left.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed on a swallow. “And you don’t think you’re wrecked currently?”
Tears that were never far away stung my eyes. “The relationship only lasted a couple of weeks… It’s not like it defined my life.”
“Is that all it was?”
My throat hurt from holding back my feelings and my jaw clenched. My walls built of muscle and bone were the only barrier between me and the flood of emotions.
Elijah had fit into my life so easily, even if my workflow had suffered. He’d found pockets in my days to see me—lunch here, breakfast there, and every night together. We’d ended things just over two weeks ago, and I still couldn’t sleep in my bed. I ached for him, for his body pressed to mine, his arms around me, him inside me.
No matter how often I told myself I missed him disproportionately to the amount of time we’d spent together, I still couldn’t make missing him go away.
I couldn’t fill the need having him had invoked in my life.
Remi tilted his head, and his features softened with sympathy.
I squeezed my eyes shut, tears leaking down my cheeks. “I’m okay.”
He was kind enough not to argue with me.
“I don’t want to be a burden,” I forced a whisper after a few seconds of silence.
“You’re not.” He was using the same tone he used to soothe scared animals, and I appreciated it.
I needed to take a steadying breath between each word, but I managed to say, “I. Miss. Him.”
It might not have been the boldest declaration of my loss, but it was more than I’d allowed myself since Elijah had left. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and the back of my hand came back streaked with a fine layer of mud. Remi nodded in understanding, the kind of knowing that didn’t have to be imagined, the kind that remembered.
“How did you get past it?” I asked.
The haunted look in his eyes told me he hadn’t. His pain was still there, present.
Then it was gone. Somewhere under the surface—somewhere close, but hidden.
He lifted a sandy-brown eyebrow. “At first, I did the same thing you’re doing. My distractions were a little less… productive.” His mouth pulled to one side. “That’s not true… I learned a lot.”
“What were your distractions?” We’d stayed in touch while he was going through his divorce, but he never confided much in me. At the time, I assumed, hoped, that he was talking to his friend, Owen, from vet school. I probably should have pushed Remi to talk more the way he was for me.
He winced. “Fucking.”
My jaw dropped, and I coughed a laugh.
He shrugged. “My body count is… vast. I had quite the ho-phase.”
“I mean, I know that. But I didn’t realize it was a coping mechanism at the time.”
“Yeah. I didn’t realize then, either. Therapy helped me identify what I was doing. Someone else touching me made me feel present, but without it, I… was empty.”
His choice of word struck the cavernous hollow where my heart was supposed to be. It poked through the paper-thin excuses I’d configured. As if I was a house built of cards, and that word was a puff of air, I crumbled.
My spine curled, and I hugged my middle. Remi moved closer, putting himself within reach, but he didn’t touch me until I clung to him. His big arms held me in a hug.
Slowly, he rocked back and forth, murmuring, “I know. I know.”
It took a few moments before I caught my breath enough to whisper, “It shouldn’t hurt this bad.”
“Why not?”
“It was just a couple of weeks…”
He made a tsking sound. “You know it was more than that. It was a future you wanted, and a man you loved.”
“I feel dumb.”
“Don’t judge yourself for caring. It’s okay to be sad.”
I couldn’t respond. All I had energy for was to cling to Remi’s middle and cry muddy tears into his blue scrub shirt.