27
Lia
Our flight home is delayed by four hours. I’m exhausted and sticky and about ten degrees past hangry when Owen and I finally schlep my suitcases through the front door of my building.
“Just stay over tonight,” I tell him, roller bag wheels clapping against the front steps. “You don’t really want to drive home, do you?”
“That would be great,” he says, carrying twice as many bags as I am.
“Hang on, I just want to grab the mail.”
Archie starts baying from inside my apartment, clearly having smelled and heard us. Nolan dropped him off a few hours ago when I let him know our flight finally landed, so it’s not like he’s been alone for long, but he’s always been a needy boy.
“Just one second, little prince,” Owen says through the door. “Your mom and your best friend will be inside soon.”
“Assuming the role of best friend, already?” I ask, fiddling with the little mailbox key until it finally jams sideways and scrapes open—piece of junk.
It’s a small but stark reminder of my real life as the glamour of Paris fades into the rearview.
I pull out the small stack of mail, then push the mailbox door shut and relock it.
“Oh yeah, Archie told me so himself.”
“He did, did he?” I ask. “Was that the same day I woke up and found you spooning him?”
“Sometime around then, yeah.”
I unlock the door to my apartment and sure enough, a happy, flabby monster is on the other side waiting for love. Owen and I collapse onto the floor on either side of him.
“Ciao, bellissimo. Come stai?”
“Who’s the best guy? Who’s the best guy?”
His face is to me and his butt is to Owen, happily giving licks and receiving scritches.
“Why do you speak Italian to your dog?” Owen asks.
“I don’t know,” I muse, kissing the top of Archie’s head. “Maybe because my Nonna spoke Italian to us when we were little. In my brain it’s the language you use to speak to cute, little things.”
He shrugs. “Makes sense. Any good mail?”
The pile of paper sits abandoned on the floor, tossed aside in my haste to get to the dog.
“Oh yeah, all riveting,” I say about the predatory loan advertisements and magazines I never subscribed to. “Wanna have a look?”
He reaches over and reads aloud. “Capital One, boring. Ashmore alumni newsletter, want to keep that one?”
I shake my head. “Garbage.”
“Comcast flyer, RCN flyer, and… hey, this one might be actual mail.”
He holds up the white letter-sized envelope with my information on the front and no return address.
“I’ll bet you twenty dollars it’s the Jehovah’s Witnesses,” I say, standing and putting my outfit to rights, then reaching for Archie’s leash.
“They sent me a handwritten letter a few months ago about how morally corrupt I am but—good news!—it’s not too late to save my soul.
Sei pronto, mio caro?” Archie’s tail wags as I clip the leash to his collar.
“Oh I’ve gotta see this. Can I open it?” Owen asks.
“Sure, I just have to take him out real quick. Be prepared for beatific enlightenment while I’m gone. And please order us some food. If I don’t eat soon, I will kill myself and then you.”
“Suicide then murder? Always the unexpected with you. And hey, are you okay walking him alone? I can come with, if you want.”
I give him a look of extreme incredulity, too tired and hungry for this. “I can take him out front for thirty seconds by myself, Dad.”
He relents, bending to scratch Archie’s ear again. “Okay, have fun buddy. You’ll be a good guard dog, won’t you?”
I snort as we leave through the apartment door.
The walk is perfectly uneventful—a pee and a sniff and several barks at my neighbor’s poodle—but when I walk back in, Owen’s tone is anger and fear.
“Lia, what the fuck is this?”
I unclip Archie’s leash, tossing it onto my bed before walking over and grabbing the paper in his hands. From the first four words, I can feel my pulse accelerating, pounding in my chest—harder, harder, harder. My hands are sweating and the muscles in my arms lock up as I force myself not to stop.
Read it. Read all of it. Face it and then fix it.
“Did he—”
“Wait,” I snap. I need to finish. I need to see it all.
“Amel—”
“Stop!” I shout, pulling away from his gentle touch on my arm and storming across the room, the final sentences like a shot of adrenaline and I can’t control it, can’t stop my body.
My hands are shaking—so visible, so vulnerable—and I hate it as I slam the letter down on the table and walk back to the door.
Owen steps in front of me, blocking my path, saying, “Lia, tell me what—”
“Get out of my way right now.” I stare straight through him, straight through those ice blue eyes to whatever part of him fears me, commanding it to back down.
He does, stepping aside, letting me swing open the door and barge out.
I need to be alone. Need space from this. Don’t want to be watched. Don’t want to be judged. I’m not ready to be seen like this; unprepared, a mess, a fucking wreck.
I storm down the block and I can hear Owen following me. My muscles brace for him to catch up, to tug me, stop me, make me do as he says, push me past my limit.
But he doesn’t.
He follows, and I know he’s there. Two paces behind. Not trying to catch me, but not leaving me either. Another twenty paces and I can’t think like this, can’t process like this, I need to be alone and unseen but he’s right there so I spin on him.
“What do you want, Owen? Why are you following me?”
I expect Why do you think?
I expect I want you to stop being a bitch.
But I don’t get either. Instead I get a pensive stare as I notice the letter, still folded open in his hand.
“You read the whole thing, didn’t you?” I ask.
The words on the page flash behind my eyes
…always hated your stupid games…
…think you’re too good for me now?...
…and now I know where you live…
…stupid bitch…
“It’s him, right? It’s Connor?”
“It better be. It would be horrible news if I have two stalkers.”
“Lia.” He takes a step towards me, one hand raised like I’m a feral animal. “We can work with this. This is good evidence. We can take it to the police and probably get a restraining order—”
“Ha!” I laugh in his face. “You still think you have all the answers, don’t you? I told you before, I don’t need some lawyer to tell me what to do.”
“I do have answers. I have professional experience with this kind of thing.”
“Well I have personal experience with it!”
I’m yelling but he refuses to meet me there as he calmly says, “And I’m not discounting that, but from an objective standpoint—”
His patience boils my blood. How dare he be so unaffected when my chest is carved open, my most vulnerable parts spilled onto the concrete?
I march up to him and shove his chest, forcing him off balance as I say, “Fuck you.”
He grabs my wrists, firm but desperate. “Why are you doing this, Lia? Why are we going backwards? You know I’m on your team.”
I break from his hold. “Yeah? Well everyone’s got an ugly side, Owen. So why don’t you show me?” I shove him again. “Show me now. Get mad. Yell at me. Just be fucking honest with me so I know what I’m getting myself into. I won’t be surprised again.”
He takes each slicing word in stride, saying calmly, “I’ve always been honest with you.”
I turn and march away, down the block, needing to calm down, needing space.
But he’s there too and he won’t give up, saying, “I just want to help.”
He wants to help. Well, fine. But I want to fight. I want to rage. I want to push him and have him push me back, past my limits, because then I’ll know I was right—no one can be trusted. Nothing is ever safe, especially not a heart.
I say, “I don’t care.”
“Don’t backtrack now, Lia. You were letting me in. We were getting there.”
“Were we? Because from my perspective, we ran away to Paris for a week and then came back and things are even worse. You said you would help but we have no fucking plan, so I guess I have to do it by myself like always.”
Everything’s closing in. Connor sent me a letter. He knows where I live. He’s never going away, and telling Owen the truth hasn’t changed any of those things. I’m so tired and it’ll never stop and I’m trapped here, helpless.
But Owen says, “You’re wrong. You’re so wrong. There are people all around you who want to help—your friends, your family, me. You just have to let us in. Let us love you, Lia. Please.”
“Don’t fucking patronize me!”
“Then don’t push me away the moment things feel out of control!”
“Hey!” A man in a Bruins shirt pops out of the building on my right, barreling down the stairs and pushing between us. He’s facing Owen, tucking me behind a thick arm as he says, “Walk away right now or I’ll call the cops, buddy. We’re not havin’ a domestic disturbance tonight. Not on my block.”
“I wasn’t—” Owen starts to say but then an older woman is there, maybe seventy, kind eyes furrowed in concern as she pulls me aside.
She asks, “Is he bothering you, sweetie?”
The man follows. “Need me to get rid of him?”
I look across this pair of strangers as they pass judgement on us, drawing all the wrong conclusions but saving me from myself—from the toxic, volcanic pressure in my chest.
I say, “Yes, he’s bothering me.”
“Li—”
“Hey.” The man steps towards Owen. “She doesn’t want you here. You need to leave right now, buddy.”
In Owen’s eyes, I see utter devastation. Layers of it.
Owen as a child, unable to protect the people he cared most about.
Owen as a young adult, isolated and lonely, blaming himself.
And Owen today, heartbroken that someone he trusted—someone he let into the deepest parts of his heart—would turn him away like this, paint him in this horrific light. The abject fear that he’s become the very thing he hates most.
But I’m shattered too. Broken and scared and exhausted, with nothing left to give.
Owen says, “I’m sorry,” and the words are a crush of sadness, voice low and trembling, but I have nothing to say, not now. He steps backwards, watching me with horror and sorrow and shame as he stumbles towards his car.
Without another word, he climbs inside and drives away.
“You okay, sweetie?” the woman asks me.
Numb and crushed, I have no words to reply.