Chapter 9 Deli
Deli
Deli plumbed the fresh shipwreck of her heart, combing through the years, minutes, seconds for the moments she’d made into something more. How could she have been so stupid?
Her mouth moved uselessly. She tried again. “Scarlett?”
Deli kept a catalog of tones Trey used with different people. He answered her with the one he used for strangers. “Yes. Scarlett.”
The name shone dully, like she’d heard it before.
It had been a long time since Deli had asked in depth about anyone Trey was seeing.
They were always young, beautiful, promising, and doomed to fail.
In the end, it only hurt her to know. So she’d stopped asking, and he’d stopped telling in any real detail, and she never committed them to memory.
He’d certainly never mentioned anyone serious.
Deli thought Scarlett might have been the name he mentioned one night walking tipsily together after a long dinner.
Yes, that had to be it. She’d made a joke about the board game Clue.
Miss Scarlet in the kitchen with the knife.
“So . . . this is all for her.” It wasn’t a question, and Trey didn’t respond. Deli nodded slowly. “Sure,” she said. “Of course it is.”
She mechanically packed up the scattered contents of her bag.
Trey cleared his throat behind her. “Deli, can we talk more about this later? I feel like there’s more to say.”
She never wanted to be anywhere near this moment again. “Better to say it now.”
“It’s just . . .” He glanced at the clock.
Oh, she thought as it hit her . . . Oh. She mustered the will to look at him.
“She’s . . . ?”
Trey hung his head. It was answer enough.
“Okay. Okay, I’m leaving.” Deli wanted to sound dignified, but her voice betrayed her pain and she choked out the last word. Everything was swirling around in her head, too bright and too loud. She moved for the door. She’d been so sure as she walked in.
Her feet throbbed as she touched the handle, but a thought broke through the surface and stopped her. “Wait. You didn’t actually answer my question. Why did you invite me here tonight?”
His eyes flicked to his watch, looking torn. Deli recognized the battle he was fighting in his mind between pushing her away and trying to care for her. His shoulders sagged and his rigid posture faltered. It plucked the chord in Deli’s chest.
“I . . .” He took a breath as he worked his jaw and started again. “I wanted you to tell me that I—that this—was good enough.”
Her brows drew together. “That what was good enough, Trey?”
His eyes abandoned hers. “I needed you to tell me . . . um, that when I asked Scarlett to be my girlfriend tonight, she would say yes. That it would be okay.” He met her gaze. “That I would be okay.”
Trey flinched at the scoff she failed to smother with her hand.
He made a frustrated sound. “Okay, alright. I guess I just needed you, Deli. I needed you to tell me that I . . . made the sauce right.”
Deli felt like she was a million miles away—like she was watching herself in a horrible glass dream.
“Deli, please—I know I should have told you about . . .” Trey didn’t say her name. “And I probably shouldn’t have asked you to come over here. I just didn’t want things to change between us. You know?”
She could only imagine what her face looked like. “You didn’t want things to change between us?”
Trey’s ears burned red. “You’re my best friend, Deli, and I needed you. I knew you’d come. You always do. And I don’t know what I’m doing.”
She’d been so close once. So close. And then he’d kissed her, and she’d been too spineless to do anything about it. He’d put his heart on the line with that kiss, and she’d said nothing. What had she expected him to do? Wait for her forever?
It wouldn’t be fair to punish Trey for her insecurity. Her mistake.
So, standing in the threshold of his door, Deli finally did the brave thing. “The sauce is awful. Start over. More salt, red pepper flakes, lemon juice. Taste it as you go.”
Trey caught the door behind her looking more miserable than she’d ever seen him, but she couldn’t feel it the way she usually did.
“Please, Deli,” he begged. “Please. I can’t lose you.”
And just like that, Deli saw her life unfold—thirty-five, in the same apartment, at the same job, with the same wanting, aching heart that had never been brave enough to yell into the wind.
She saw Trey with a thousand more anonymous girls who never aged—girls he would spend sparkling evenings and glittering summers with—before coming home to lay his head in Deli’s lap and call her his best friend.
There would be nothing glittering in Deli MacDonald’s world. Just long stretches of darkness, desperate for the thin moments Trey’s sun would eclipse her life as she made order out of the chaos of his heart so he could leave again.
“Trey? I’m in love with you.”
Trey’s face cemented in a mask of surprise. His chest began to rise and fall faster. He took a step toward her—full of purpose and urgent. “Deli, I—”
But his apartment’s buzzer struck him silent.
Deli knew she was out of time. She chose her last question and hoped against hope he’d say the right thing. “Do you notice me, Trey?”
Trey looked like he might cry. “Deli, I need you.”
Her eyes flushed with tears as the buzzer went again, and she reached inside and pressed the button to unlock the gate. “Don’t forget the lemon.”
Neither of them looked away as the door clicked shut between them.
Deli forced her feet to move. She couldn’t sob in Trey Evans’s hallway. She would make it to the elevator, even if she was carrying all the pieces of her heart in her hands. She rocked back and forth, holding her middle and pressing the call button over and over so she could fall apart.
A girl who looked like she belonged on a red carpet—all legs and golden hair tumbling over smooth skin—stared at Deli in surprise as the elevator doors parted. Deli knew who she was. Who she had to be.
“Sorry!” Scarlett said as she tried to step around the spot where Deli was glued to the floor and shimmy past her into the hallway. “God, I swear, I’m always in the way.”
Deli scraped up a smile as they swapped places. She watched Scarlett smooth her crimson dress and square her shoulders, and Deli could imagine them together. She could see Scarlett beside Trey for their glittering mornings, glittering dinners, glittering moments of simple, wonderful things.
The glittering girl stared down the hallway and whispered to herself, “Okay, Scar. It’s just another night.”
This was the person Trey loved. The elevator dinged, and the doors began to close.
“You look beautiful,” Deli said. She hoped it was what Scarlett needed to feel brave.
Scarlett’s smile nearly knocked Deli to the ground. “Thank you!” She waved as she disappeared. “So do you!”
The elevator began to move, and Deli began to sob.