Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
It snowed eight inches that night, which hadn’t happened since the year Cory and I moved to town and went sledding on pizza boxes in the woods behind our apartment.
Powder collected on bare branches. It outlined the deciduous trees in white shadows and toppled from the evergreens in small avalanches.
Rooftops transformed into blank canvases.
The roads and sidewalks and grass all vanished, but by dawn the wind had calmed, and the smoothed earth was crisscrossed with squirrel and rabbit and bird tracks.
Everything sparkled with the promise of a fresh start.
But it didn’t feel like one. I had slept terribly, in fits and starts.
An endless loop of the attempted kiss tormented me while I was awake but also whenever I dreamed.
I was only able to recognize the difference because time slowed down in my dreams, forcing me to relive each millisecond while still withholding any ability to change the outcome.
The loop reset whenever I reached Macon’s horrified expression as he drew away from me.
No. Ingrid. No.
My jaw ached from grinding my teeth against my night guard. Despite the cold—Cory and I kept the thermostat low to save money—my chest was soaked with sweat. I got up to pee, blotted off the sweat with a tissue, then returned to bed and my phone.
Surely Sue would text soon. It had snowed enough to keep the library closed, but I needed her confirmation. I needed a day off to figure out how to quit. What explanation, what lie, could I give to her? Perhaps I could request a meeting before work to avoid seeing Macon.
Relief arrived around 8:30 A.M. when she confirmed in our group text that the library would remain closed for the day. The snowstorm had already moved on, so we’d be back at work tomorrow, but at least this gave me a buffer, a whole day to formulate a plan.
Alyssa replied first with three party emojis.
Elijah was next: snow day!!
I waited anxiously for Macon’s response, hoping it might reveal something—anything—about his mood. It finally arrived ten minutes later: Great news. See you all tomorrow.
How typical of him to remain professional. My frustration and disappointment were unreasonable, but I couldn’t help it. Afraid of giving away something about my own emotional state, I responded with a thumbs-up emoji and then hurled my phone across the bed.
It lit up immediately. Heart thumping, I scrambled over to fetch it.
How are you doing?
Not Macon.
I disappeared back underneath my blankets and hit the call button.
Kat’s face appeared. She was in bed, too, bathed in the light of her reading lamp.
Night darkened the room behind her. I was familiar enough with her family’s schedule to know that her three-year-old son, Howie, was probably already asleep and that her husband, Lachlan, was probably watching television.
“Congratulations!” she said. “You made it to morning.”
I moaned, which made me realize my night guard was still in. I set it on my bedside table and filled her in. When I finished my bellyaching, her body shifted from a listening position to a speaking position. “Here’s what I’ve come up with,” she said. “My plan for you.”
I stared back at her with dead, swollen eyes.
“You aren’t going to quit. Not yet. Not until you know what the situation is. Macon is an adult, and he’s your mate, so it might not be as bad as you think it is.”
“Oh, it’s bad—”
“Yeah, it is bad. And yeah, sitting beside him at work will be awful. But we don’t know how awful or for how long, and I don’t want you making another rash decision before we have all the information.”
“Another,” I said a little coolly.
She toughened, but it was with love. “You and Cory decided to experiment with other people. You tried to kiss your coworker. This isn’t the best time for you to lose your income and health insurance and try to find new employment.”
“I can’t go back. I can’t .”
“You can, and you will, and you’ll pretend like everything is fine and normal. Because it is normal! Being humiliated is a regular part of the dating process. You can’t be reduced to a puddle every time some guy rejects you.”
“Macon isn’t some guy. He was one of my closest friends—”
“If it’s unbearable,” she said, cutting me off, “I’ll support you quitting. I’ll support you launching from your desk in the middle of a shift and rocketing out the door. But I won’t support you quitting before we even know what you’re dealing with.”
“It’ll be unbearable. It might actually kill me.”
“It won’t. But if it does, I promise to fly to America and remove anything scandalous from your apartment before your parents show up.”
“I don’t own anything scandalous.”
“Give it one day,” she said. And she kept repeating it until she won.
Once Kat had made the stressful decision for me, my body rapidly shut down. Several hours later, I awoke, gasping back to life. Anxiety tightened around my heart as two names pounded back and forth inside my head: Cory, Macon, Cory, Macon, Cory, Macon.
People were shouting outside.
I jolted upright before realizing it was the downstairs couple throwing snowballs at each other in the parking lot.
The physicality of my distress was staggering.
I pressed a hand against the pain in my chest and stumbled to the bathroom.
I understood I was having an extended panic attack, but I couldn’t shake the sense that my life was actually in danger.
I’d lost my dignity and—no matter what Kat said—possibly my job, too.
I brooded on the toilet until my legs fell asleep. What the hell was I supposed to do today? In times of crisis, I found it useful to stick to the basics.
Eat , I decided. Breakfast. Lunch. Whatever.
My feet were still prickling as I stood before the fridge.
The situation was dire. Cory and I hadn’t gone grocery shopping since before the holidays, and he’d taken the entire contents of the freezer with him when he’d moved out.
He was particular about his diet and still ate like a child.
His food pyramid consisted almost exclusively of pizza, nuggets, and fries.
Produce was rare, but sometimes I could pressure him into eating a few apple slices or baby carrots dipped in ranch.
It wasn’t that he was difficult, though.
He never turned his issues into a problem for anybody else, or at least he tried not to. Mainly I worried for his health.
I made peanut butter toast because I didn’t have the energy for anything more substantial.
The meal was basic enough that Cory might have even eaten it, except the peanut butter was the natural kind, and his needed to be creamy.
I also used the butt of the bread because all the regular slices were gone. He wouldn’t have liked that either.
My mind conjured another unwelcome image: Cory and some stranger in bed, lazy nude limbs draped over each other, gazing out her window together at the snow.
Unconsciously, I found myself pulling up his social media.
We had agreed not to post about any of this online because we didn’t want our families asking questions.
He was sticking to the plan—of course he was—so there wasn’t anything for me to see.
I desperately wanted to text him: Isn’t it weird that we aren’t talking?
That I don’t even know where you are right now?
I couldn’t text Kat either, because she was asleep, and the only other person I texted with regularly was my sister, who couldn’t know about any of this.
And then there was Macon, who obviously I would never text with again.
We had never texted much anyway due to his inherent Luddism.
What was he doing right now? What must he think of me?
No. Ingrid. No.
The loop was punishing.
Sorry about last night , I texted Brittany.
Thanks for taking such good care of me. You two are the best, and I promise I’ll never put you through anything like that ever again.
I did want to apologize, but I also longed for a comforting response.
No problem! Happy to do it! Everything will be okay, and you’re doing great!
Brittany didn’t text back.
The last few bites of toast were so thick and dry that I gagged.
I shoved the remains down the disposal and slumped against the sink.
Each day that passed was another opportunity lost. What would I have done if a man at the brewery had wanted to go home with me?
The question filled me with fear and dread, which suggested I might be stuck with dating apps.
I feared and dreaded those, too, but at least the safety of a screen would make it easier to start a conversation.
Yet I didn’t pick up my phone and create a profile.
I stared at the greasy smears around my drain.
No. Ingrid. No.
My eyes squeezed closed. Several minutes passed before I was able to release my grip on the sink.
I rinsed away the peanut butter, but it still looked dirty.
I got out the cleanser and scrubbed, and then I noticed that the counters needed help.
Then it was the appliances, the floor, the small window that overlooked the parking lot.
It wasn’t long before everything in the room was clean.
Our whole kitchen—our whole apartment—was small, not just the window.
This was the second place we’d lived together.
We had lived with our respective parents during the first three years of college—two at the community college and one at the University of Central Florida—to save money to help pay for our education.
Thriftiness was necessary and long ingrained.
Our families did okay but never had much to spare.
My parents were high school teachers, which meant college wasn’t optional, but they also couldn’t pay for all of it.
By the time Cory and I were seniors, we were eager to move out and start our life together.