Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Alicia
“This is fine,” I whispered to my windshield, as the sun set in gorgeous shades of bright gold and deep purple. The branches of the trees hung heavy with snow reflecting the sky.
My ex-husband worked in this little town.
He’d been on one knee.
He had a Maisey.
He was good at his job.
He was still hot. Bullshit.
“Where was death when you needed it?”
God, I’m in pieces.
Resisting the urge to cyberstalk him over the past five years had been .
. . challenging—and let’s be real, in the first two years, unsuccessful.
But after seeing him tagged in a few too many photos with beautiful women hanging on his arms, I’d found a therapist to help me resist that particular impulse.
It was the right choice. I was struggling to move on, and every time I walked down that particular Internet path, I’d end up wallowing, pouring salt into old wounds, and never letting them heal.
But if I hadn’t given up that little toxic behavior, I wouldn’t have been blindsided today. I would have known.
Furgie fidgeted in the front passenger seat. She’d been itching when I parked in front of the pharmacy to dash into the bone chilling cold just to find the doors to the establishment locked.
I was accustomed to city hours. But I guessed this was the hard way to remember places like this worked on a different schedule.
But then, a middle-aged woman with long dark hair streaked with silver pushed open the door I’d just turned away from. “You here from the vet clinic?”
I must have looked ridiculous blinking at her with my mouth open. “Uh, yeah.”
“Come on in.”
A few minutes later, I paid, and she handed me a paper bag.
“You’re lucky, Remi called in the nick of time, I was just locking up.”
A frantic trill of a laugh fell out of my mouth.
Lucky?
She stared at me a bit more apprehensive than she’d been just a moment before. It was as if she expected something from me, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.
After a few moments she asked, “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“Oh.” I shook the bag in my hand rattling the pills inside. “No. Thank you.”
Hurrying back outside, I took hold of my driver’s side door. The hinges creaked and warm air hit my skin as I slid back into my seat. The drive back to my duplex was easy. They had scraped the main roads clear of snow, piling it into frozen waves along the shoulders.
I wanted to be home so badly. Not this new rental.
But Chicago. I wanted to grab a basket of fries and a seltzer with Sadie and tell her this wild AF story where I was face-to-face with the man who had been the foundation of my life.
How when that foundation had been blasted apart, it wasn’t a rocky mess underneath but a black hole that sucked me through.
It rearranged all my molecules, and when I shot out the other side, I was still me, but completely different.
I was a tightly wound bundle of frayed emotions and confusion.
I didn’t want to be alone through this.
There was a painful drilling pressure in my sternum. He was the most familiar stranger, when there had been a time that I knew everything about him. There had been a time when he was my favorite person. There had been a time we’d entwined our futures.
Back before our relationship died a death of a thousand cuts, one petty infraction after another.
So many stupid arguments about how I felt ignored and he felt like he couldn’t do enough to make me happy.
Mornings of his silent treatment, turned into nights of me out dancing with my friends ignoring his calls and texts.
Repeated. Chiseling away at our affection and patience.
Our marriage wasn’t well. Then it was a feeble thing, too weak to stand.
I was so angry and immature. Outraged.
Desperate for his attention. And spiteful.
When I filed for the divorce papers, I wanted him to call my bluff.
But he’d signed them and closed the door in my face.
Seeing him . . . Old wounds, new salt.
Patting Furgie’s head, I looked for comfort just as much as I gave it. We’d curl up on the bed my employer had rented and rest.
Perhaps, I just needed perspective. Yes, it was a small town, but what was the likelihood of me running into him? It had to be pretty low. If we found ourselves at the same establishment, we’d just avoid each other.
This could be good. He couldn’t surprise me again. Now that I knew he was here I’d always be on guard.
I turned onto my driveway and came to an abrupt halt. At the sight of long legs no longer clad in tie-dye, I almost put my car in reverse. Even from this distance, with his back to me, I’d recognize him anywhere.
“What fresh hell is this?” I demanded.
Standing outside of my front door with his shoulders shrugged toward his ears and his hands buried into the pockets of his jeans was Remi.
I was torn between apprehension, and the knowledge that he’d violated my privacy this way. How did he get my address? Was it from my paperwork? But why? There was no way he wanted to relive that awkward encounter. I sure as hell didn’t.
He wasn’t even wearing a coat, just a long-sleeve, navy T-shirt.
Parking under my carport, I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel before deciding that I’d just let him know to forget my address. Whatever reason brought him to my front door, he could take it back home with him.
I didn’t need to know . . .
I kinda wanted to know . . .
It could at least wait until tomorrow when I wasn’t in such a weird state of mind.
Furgie and I hurried through the side door into the kitchen with it’s dark cabinets and a stack of broken-down cardboard boxes stacked next to the fridge. The slip of my laces untying seemed loud in the silence of my duplex as I waited for the sound of his fist thudding on the door.
Why isn’t he knocking?
I kicked my boots off. My house slippers were colder than my feet, but I put them on anyway. I moved through the kitchen with its dark cabinets to the living room. Furgie had hopped onto the sofa and curled up.
And I waited.
Grabbing one of her dog treats, I smooshed it around an antibiotic.
And waited.
She took the treat and pill with the little nub of her tail wagging excitedly.
My teeth were clenched so tight I was probably causing damage to my molars.
Jesus Christ, knock on the door.
He knew I was here. He’d seen me pull up. So, why wasn’t he knocking on the door? I wanted this over with.
This being a second encounter with the lost love of my life.
It was like he’d ripped my chest open and pointed at the place he still occupied. I was over him. But only in the most technical terms. I dated. I worked. I had friends and a life. I was fulfilled.
There was just . . . Loving him had changed me.
Losing him had changed me again.
I’d developed into who I was because of my relationship with him.
With all of that, I didn’t know how to make his presence outside of my door not matter.
His lack of knocking felt passive aggressive, just like when he’d say he wasn’t mad, then go days without talking to me until he would blow up about something stupid like makeup on the bathroom counter.
I’d hated it then, just like I hated it now.
But back then I would have been passively antagonistic back.
Not now, not today.
My slipper-covered march to the front door was loud enough that Remi looked up and met my narrowed eyes through the window. His brow knit together in a cringe, as if preparing for impact, and he sure as hell should because I was coming in hot.
I swung the door open fast enough to make a whooshing sound and blow the strands of his hair away from his face. I ignored the gush of freezing wind.
My irritated words came out in quick, angry puffs of steam.
“Remi Akerman, I don’t know what you thought pilfering my address off of medical forms—which hugely violates my privacy, and you know that!
Regardless of how poor that decision was, I was going to politely tell you to go home.
But you sitting out here waiting for me to address you, and not even giving me the courtesy of ringing the doorbell?
I have decided to be rude. Whatever bad idea has brought you here, turn around and take it home. ”
He pulled his lips to one side squinting an eye shut and letting out a rumbling groan.
I held up a manicured finger. “No, don’t stand there groaning like a bear. Go. Home.”
“I can explain—” he started, but I cut him off.
“No. No excuses. I never would have thought that you’d behave so creepy—because you know this is creepy.” I was speaking so quickly all my words strung together into one.
“It is, the way you’re seeing it, it is creepy.”
I nearly screamed, “The way I’m seeing it?!”
I paced a few steps toward him and then back, my arms crossed over my chest. “Reality, that’s what I’m seeing.
What is so important that you came to my house?
My God, if you are going to abuse personal information, you could start with my phone number and text me.
We could have met in a public place and talked about whatever is going on.
What could be so important? Did you secretly have my baby?
Are you here to tell me I have a four-year-old? ”
He held out a calming hand. “ ’Licia, I swear I can explain.”
“Not today, you can’t. Today I don’t have ears for it. Go. Home.” I gestured wildly to anywhere that wasn’t here.
“Leese.” The firm edge of his tone cut whatever I was about to say off from the tip of my tongue. His shoulders sagged, and the ends of his eyebrows turned down. With a shake of his head, he said, “I am home. But I’m locked out.”
My breath caught. Even with my mind rejecting to comprehend his words, I remembered broad shoulders from this morning and the little remark Millie from the café had made.
I looked over my shoulder to see the door positioned maybe two feet away from mine.
There was a snow-covered Adirondack chair next to it.
“No,” I whispered.
His head hung low, and he pushed his hands even deeper into his pockets.
“This . . . isn’t possible.” I hugged my arms across my chest. My stomach churned.
“It does feel pretty unreal.”
“How?”
A bewildered smile tugged at one corner of his mouth; it fit beautifully in the dusting of his scruff.
I hated it.
Shaking his head, he said, “I can’t even imagine.”
I hadn’t figured out how to close my mouth yet. It just hung open, weighed down by the sickening coincidence.
He shivered once. “I’m sorry I didn’t warn you at the clinic—”
“You knew at the clinic?” I asked in a weak voice.
“Kinda.” He squinted at the gray sky. “I saw the back of your head before work this morning, but then . . . I didn’t think it was you.”
I gingerly brushed my fingertips under my hair. “The back of my head?”
“It hasn’t changed.”
“That’s a strange thing to say.”
His chest sank with a heavy sigh, and he shivered again. “Yeah.”
“It’s freezing out here, why aren’t you in your car?”
He pulled his right hand from his pocket and pointed.
I looked over my shoulder again. Hanging from the seam of the door just below the knob was the loop of a burgundy lanyard.
“I was heading back out, and they swung behind me,” he answered without me asking.
“That is so fucked up.”
His laugh sputtered, more of a cough. A bodily function he couldn’t control.
I snorted. One corner of my lip pulled upward but I forced it back into place. “What are you gonna do?”
“I’ve called a couple of friends, but I haven’t heard back.” His shivering wasn’t sporadic anymore, but a constant tremor. “You don’t happen to have a ladder in your place?”
My expression was enough of an answer for him.
Chuckling, he nodded. “I didn’t figure you would. Mine is locked in the shed.”
“You have an open window?”
“Yeah the kitchen one under the carport is unlocked. It’s just gonna be a pain in the ass to get up to it.”
“Is it the same size as the one on my side?”
“Yeah.”
“Remi,” I scoffed. “Even if you got up to it, you’d never fit in that thing.”
“It’d be tight, but I could do it.”
“Maybe if you dislocated both of your shoulders.”
The smile that spread across his face was too much for the situation, too big for all this wide-open space to contain. Too overwhelming for my system to know what to do with.
“It doesn’t matter, anyway. You don’t have a ladder, and I can’t get to mine. I’m sure one of my friends will get back to me soon.”
I chewed on my bottom lip and glanced toward my open door.
“You don’t have to invite me in,” he said as if the prospect was as traumatizing to him as it was to me.
Behind him a line of near black chased after the sunlight across the sky. Pulling my coat tight around me, I pointed out, “The sun is setting. It’s cold out here, and it’s gonna keep getting colder. You don’t even have a coat on.”
“I’m fine. I promise to knock on your door before I lose any fingers or toes.”
I forced myself to look up at his face. His thick eyebrows flicked upward, and he met my gaze. His lips pursed slightly, the way they did when he was thinking. Not for the first time, I wished I could read his mind.
Jerking my head to the door I’d left open behind me, I took a step backward. “I’m gonna go inside.”
“Good.”
I was half-turned away from him, when he spoke again. “Leese, I’m sorry I scared you.”
The apology fell from his lips like it cost him nothing and froze me like a deer in headlights. There had been a vast list of sorrys I’d wanted from this man, but they never came. Then there was this one that he just gave away. What was I supposed to do with it?
“Um . . . I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
“Thanks.” He jerked his chin toward my rental. “Get inside. I’ll be okay.”
In the quiet and warmth of the indoors, I took my coat off and threw it on one of the kitchen table chairs. And I ignored the little voice remarking about how unsafe it was to leave him out there like that. He said he’d be fine.
But will he?
“Damn it,” I hissed.