Overdue

Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I had always disliked April Fools’ Day. Like most librarians, I prided myself on knowledge—knowing at least something about almost everything—so it felt unbearable to be caught unawares, proven gullible, or deceived.

For instance, I knew the holiday had been around for centuries but that historians still weren’t sure where it originated.

I also knew that I was a fool. I had been caught unawares, proven gullible, and deceived myself.

It felt as if Cory and I had spent the last eleven years playing an elaborate and cruel prank on ourselves.

Telling my parents about the breakup had been harder than telling Riley.

I hated having to admit to them that I had failed at something very big and very basic, something that should have been obvious to me because it had been obvious to so many others.

But my parents didn’t treat me the way I was treating myself.

They were sad for me and surprised. They were understanding and kind.

And they told me, as they often had, that I could handle it.

I would figure out how to get through it.

It was one of those evenings when my loneliness was so raw it was incapacitating.

When I wished I had the sort of parents who would go the extra mile, drive the literal miles up from Florida to comfort me in person.

They had only visited me twice, though, once when Cory and I had first moved here, and then again a couple of years later.

It was the first Sunday of the month, and I had been home alone all day.

Weekends were hard. At least work provided a distraction.

It was still early, but I was already in bed when there was a muffled thunk outside my front door.

My eyes shot open. I listened.

Nothing.

Realizing it was probably a delivery I’d forgotten about—perhaps even the care package of Australian chocolates that Kat told me she’d sent, although it was too quick to actually be that—I settled back down.

But then my phone illuminated in the blackness of my bedroom: Macon.

We hadn’t texted since I’d watched Edmond, so I reached for my phone with curiosity.

He was the only person apart from Kat and Riley that I would have picked it up for.

A blurry photo showed a stack of containers on my welcome mat.

Try to eat something , the message said.

I lurched out of bed. I was expecting to find him already down in the parking lot, but when I threw open my front door, he’d only just reached the stairs.

He turned around in surprise.

“How do you know where I live?” I wasn’t sure why this was my first question because I didn’t mind that he knew where I lived.

“I dropped you off once when your car broke down.”

“Oh. Right.” I was still confused, though. “But how did you know which apartment was mine?”

“Library card,” he said, as if it was obvious. I supposed it should have been. He winced. “Sorry. I tried to do this quietly. I haven’t seen you eat anything all week, so I thought you might need… something.”

I hadn’t even told him about my unsuccessful trip to the grocery store, so I was surprised that he’d noticed.

I looked down at the containers. There were five, neatly stacked by size.

Every week, he doubled most of his cooking and delivered the extra meals to his mother, who lived in his same neighborhood.

This week, he must have tripled it. I lifted the Pyrex off my welcome mat, a half circle of a yellow sun with cheerful rays.

“I like your mat,” he said.

I snorted.

“I do,” he insisted.

We stared at each other for a moment.

“See you on Tuesday morning,” he said, and turned abruptly to leave.

I thanked him as I tried to get back inside, but it was tricky holding all the heavy glass containers. He noticed and hurried over to hold open the door. I caught his curious glance into the darkness behind me. “You can come in,” I said, already heading toward the kitchen.

Macon hesitated.

And then he followed me inside. The door shut softly behind him.

I set the Pyrex on my counter and flicked on the switch.

As he stepped into the light, he inhaled in a way that meant he was smelling something in the air.

“Oh God. Does it stink?” I sniffed myself.

“I didn’t shower today. Or clean all week. Or for the last month.”

“No.” He looked embarrassed, as if I’d caught him doing something secret. “I was only noticing that it smells like you.”

“Oh,” I said. Because I wasn’t sure what else to say.

Also, I hoped I didn’t smell like a dirty apartment.

Suddenly I became aware that I had been lisping.

That I was still wearing my night guard.

“Shit,” I said, taking it out. Thit . I rinsed it off in the sink and set it in the dish rack to dry. “I’m sorry. That’s so gross.”

“It’s not gross,” he said.

Under the harsh overhead light of my kitchen, I felt exposed in my sadness and night guard and pajamas.

The pajama bottoms were old and thin with stripes of pale pink and white.

I was braless underneath my white camisole.

Thankfully, I had also worn a thick cardigan to bed.

I wrapped it over my chest, blushing, wondering if he’d noticed and what he’d seen.

He took an unusually large step toward my counter.

“Uh, so it’s just a few things that I thought would be easy to eat and would keep well in your fridge.

” His gaze was averted, determinedly giving me some privacy as he unstacked the containers.

“Kale salad with spiced walnuts, sesame noodles with edamame, avocado and tempeh bacon sandwiches—”

“Sandwich es ?”

“—salsa verde bean enchiladas, and roasted pumpkin soup. Maybe eat the sandwiches first. They’ll taste better now.”

“A few things,” I said.

His embarrassment seemed to intensify, so I backed off and started loading everything into my fridge. “Thank you. It all sounds great.” I picked up the soup container and examined the pretty pale orange color. “You said this is pumpkin?”

“From my jack-o’-lantern last Halloween. I had some puree left in my freezer.”

“You carved a jack-o’-lantern?”

“My neighborhood gets a lot of trick-or-treaters.”

I turned to look at him directly again. “Are you one of those people who hands out boxes of raisins?”

His eyes held mine. “Granola.”

It made me smile.

“I give them candy,” he said.

My smile deepened. “I know you do.”

We stared at each other for a beat too long. A pulse of energy ricocheted between us. It was the same charged thrill I had felt during all those years before I’d tried to kiss him. My smile faded. I turned away from him, hurt and confused.

“Ingrid,” he said.

I had never heard him say my name like that. With sorrow.

I was crying again. That damned faucet, wide open.

“Oh God,” he said with surprise. He glanced around and saw that my living room was littered with crumpled tissues. He grabbed a handful. They weren’t clean, but he picked up the snotty dried tissues anyway and brought them to me.

“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t see the box.”

“What’s wrong with me?” I asked. But what I meant was: Why can’t I stop crying?

Why didn’t it work out with Cory? Why didn’t I see it coming?

Why didn’t you want to kiss me? I wanted his arms to wrap around me.

I wanted to be comforted and tightly held.

I would have accepted even a loose hug. I didn’t know what he thought of me, but I did know he cared for me.

That much was obvious. Yet he didn’t touch me.

“Nothing’s wrong with you,” he said, reaching for the empty spot behind his ear where his pen normally sat. His hand ran through his hair instead. “It just takes time.”

“I’m so tired of crying.”

“You’ll stop eventually.”

I managed to laugh. “Like, soon?”

“Eventually.”

“Fuck,” I said, and blew my nose.

“Your apartment looks different from how I imagined it.” He was trying to get me to think about something else.

His arms crossed, as if he were giving himself the hug that I wanted, before he drifted away to examine my belongings.

There wasn’t much to look at, but he stared at my bookshelves for a long time.

“How did you imagine it?” I finally managed to ask.

“Like your welcome mat. Colorful. Warm. Friendly.”

“Ha, no. It’s very beige. Our landlord won’t allow us to decorate the walls.”

He peeked into my bedroom, but the light was off. Mirroring my own behavior at his house, he didn’t turn it on.

“Decent view, though,” I said. I’d stopped leaking, so I led him onto the back patio that overlooked the woods.

“That is nice,” he agreed.

“Maybe I’ll eat your sandwiches out here.”

He laughed.

“You’re one to talk,” I said, circling the conversation back around. “Making fun of my apartment when you’ve got that whole empty house.”

“I wasn’t making fun of it. It was an observation.”

“Ah, okay. Sure.”

We leaned against the railing and stared into the sky. It was a clear, cold night, and the moon was a breath away from fullness. The pines tasted fresh and sharp in my lungs.

“So. Did Cory take all the good stuff, too?” he asked.

“We didn’t have any good stuff. But yes, I noticed Danielle took all of yours.”

He laughed again, but it was darker and more tired.

“Seriously, what’s that about?”

“It was her stuff.” He shrugged. “I’ve been meaning to replace it, but… I don’t know. There’s always so much work to do in the garden.”

“What about winter? Couldn’t you liven it up during the offseason?”

“When it’s cold outside, I’d rather read.”

I understood this instinct—understood it completely—yet I still didn’t accept it as an excuse. “It could be so cute, though. Your house has great bones. And it wouldn’t take much, not really. A few curtains and rugs, some new furniture, definitely some paint—”

Macon was already grumbling.

“Seriously, that bland kitchen is not worthy of your vegetables and herbs.”

“Oh God. Now I’m bland.”

“Your kitchen is bland. Your house shouldn’t look so much like my apartment.”

I thought I could score another laugh, but his expression grew somber again.

“I took care of the outside,” he said, “and Dani handled the inside. It was unspoken, but that was the deal. When she moved out, we had just gotten vaccinated, and I still wasn’t comfortable going into stores.

” He sighed, and it puffed in a visible cloud.

“Now it just seems like a lot of effort.”

“You took care of the outside. She handled the inside.”

“I don’t know why you’re emphasizing it like that.”

“I’m just saying… maybe it’s time to take care of the inside.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Hey.” I nudged him. “My relationship ended a week ago. You’ve had two years.”

“You’re right,” he said, touching the place on his arm where I’d bumped him. And then he shoved away from the railing. “I should go.”

“What?”

He was already headed back to my front door. I trailed after him. “I’m serious,” he said, avoiding my eyes again. “Eat something, okay?”

Macon abandoned me to a familiar turmoil, although this time I wasn’t sure what I had done to make him leave so suddenly.

But I did decide to eat the soup because he’d gone to all that trouble.

As I reached for the refrigerator door, I froze.

A dozen faded images of myself with Cory were smiling back at me.

I’d remembered to hide our framed photos from potential suitors, yet I’d looked right past these.

They were such a part of the landscape that they’d become invisible.

Cory and I had forgotten about the photos still hidden in the closet, just like we’d forgotten to divide these.

Or perhaps he’d left them all behind on purpose, forcing me to make the decision about whether to keep them or throw them away.

I never had brought another man into our apartment. I wasn’t sure why, other than that I hadn’t wanted them there. Yet I’d invited Macon inside without any thought.

My tears fell again for what Cory and I had lost by breaking up. For what we had lost by staying together for so long. I wondered if breaking up had been a mistake.

I knew that it wasn’t, and that felt even worse.