Chapter 19
Idrive home with the radio off, windows up.
The world could be ending all around me with flaming meteorites crashing down and I probably wouldn’t notice. It’s the kind of drive where, when you finally get where you’re going, you have no idea how you arrived safely because you were dissociating the whole time.
By the time I reach my apartment building, my hands are sore from gripping the steering wheel so tight.
I ride the elevator up in silence, staring at my own reflection in the metal doors. My suit still looks perfect: jacket, skirt, crisp white blouse, not a wrinkle or a smudge.
And for a moment, looking at my reflection, I imagine what I’d be doing right now if I had won. I’d probably be hugging my clients so tightly that we squeeze the breath out of each other. I’d be out for drinks with the team to celebrate. I’d be reading congratulatory texts from my colleagues.
Those daydreams are interrupted when the elevator doors slide open.
My bag is dead weight on my arm as I step inside, dropping it just past the threshold.
Salem meows from the couch and scurries over to me.
I drop to my knees and bury my face in his fur, finally allowing my tears to fall.
Salem indulges my sobs for a moment before squirming out of my arms and sauntering off.
In the kitchen, I fill a glass with water and then set it down, untouched.
The trial replays in my head. The objections I might have missed. The witness I could and probably should have pressed harder. The verdict.
A wave of nausea rides up my throat. I grip the edge of the counter and count backward from ten. It doesn’t work.
I check my phone and see a message from Nash.
Trouble
You did well.
It’s time-stamped forty minutes ago. I should text him back.
Instead, I put the phone back on the counter, face down.
There’s an ache in my legs, my lower back, my shoulders. My feet throb in the heels I’ve worn all week.
But nothing hurts worse than this relentless feeling like I’ve let everyone down.
I slide to the kitchen floor, knees pressed to my chest, and let the guilt wash over me. I see the faces of my clients, the teenage son’s sad eyes, the solemn look on Mrs. Wilkinson’s face.
I didn’t just fail my clients. I failed James, too. He gave me this case, trusted me with it, spent hours helping me prepare for it. He believed in me in ways I never managed to believe in myself.
And I failed him.
I failed Nash, and I’d venture to say I even failed Vanessa, no matter how little she contributed to this case. I failed everyone.
And for what? For all the hours I spent tangled up in Nash or dissecting every look James ever shot me across a glass wall? For all the nights I went to bed thinking about these two men instead of actually sleeping?
Was it worth it? Was any of it worth this sick, gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach?
I press my forehead to my knees, squeeze my eyes shut.
This is too fucking much.
I’m already dreading work on Monday.
I can’t face the tight, sympathetic smiles from the rest of the office, or the disappointment from James, or the inevitable round of commiserating from Nash, who will mean well but only make it worse.
I need a week where no one is allowed to look at me. I need a week where I am not a walking disappointment.
It takes me twenty minutes to build the courage to send the text. I type and retype it, fingers trembling with every draft. In the end, I go with the simplest possible version.
I need some time to regroup. I’d like to take next week off.
I hit send, then turn the phone face down again.
I peel off my suit, leaving a trail of clothing from the kitchen to the bedroom, shedding it like a skin.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror: hair unraveling, mascara running, eyes red-rimmed. For a second, I don’t even recognize myself.
I didn’t even look this disheveled when Pierce dumped me.
I slip under the covers without brushing my teeth, without washing my face. Salem jumps up, kneading the comforter and then curling against my ribs. I close my eyes and let the exhaustion drag me down, hoping that tomorrow it will hurt a little bit less.
***
It doesn’t.
I wake up the next morning to three messages from James.
James
Take the time you need.
You did everything right, Avery. Juries are unpredictable.
I’m here if you need me.
The words should comfort me, but they twist in my gut, a reminder of my failure.
I set my phone down on the nightstand, watching the morning light trickle in from my window, only to hear my phone buzz with another text.
Closing my eyes and releasing a deep breath, I debate whether to check it or not. It’s probably the first of many pity texts I’m going to receive.
With that in mind, I decide I may as well get it over with sooner rather than later.
Trouble
I have a show tonight. Feel like being my groupie? ;)
I stare at the message for a long time. The thought of loud music and floors made sticky by beer and people yelling in my ear is, frankly, horrific. I am not fit for human interaction today. Or tomorrow. Or possibly ever again. But it’s sweet, the way he keeps checking in.
Smiling, I type out my reply.
Can’t tonight. Got a hot date with my couch and a Twilight marathon.
His reply is quick.
Trouble
Team Edward or Team Jacob?
The corner of my mouth tilts, and it’s the closest I’ve come to a smile since the trial ended.
Teenage Avery would’ve said Jacob. I had the biggest crush on Taylor Lautner. Like, thought I’d somehow meet him and convince him to fall in love with me.
Trouble
But now you’re team Edward?
I laugh.
No, I’m team Charlie and Carlisle.
Trouble
The dads?!
He’s distracting me. He’s making me feel better. Then again, he always has that effect on me.
The very hot dads ;)
Trouble
You know what? I get it. So, should I start growing my moustache out or dye my hair blonde?
LOL. How do you know so much about Twilight anyway?
Trouble
My mom. She loves those movies. Still plays em all the time.
I do too. They’re my comfort movies.
Trouble
If you change your mind about the show tonight, let me know, yeah?
Yeah <3
It’s stupid and pointless and exactly the kind of exchange I need to get me through the bad days. I stare at the screen for a long time after, not ready to let go of the thread.
But the silence swells in the corners of the apartment, and eventually I drop the phone beside the pillow and let myself drift, wishing the morning away.
***
The week leaks past, each day bleeding into the next.
I sleep in until the sun is high, then pull the blanket over my head and sleep more. I wear the same shabby pajamas until they develop their own funk. I change only to shower, and even then it’s more a rinse than a proper wash. My hair goes unbrushed, and by Wednesday it’s a frizzy mess.
There’s an unopened pile of mail on the entry table, and the only groceries I bother with are microwaveable.
I finish two novels and start a third, but my attention wavers. I can’t remember half of what I read. When my mind drifts to thoughts of James or Nash, I watch baking competitions where people scream at each other over meringue to distract myself.
I don’t answer calls. I don’t return texts.
Nash sent a photo from his show: a blurry crowd, a stage doused in purple light, the text reading “missed you.”
I stared at it and then set the phone to Do Not Disturb, hating the way the words feel like a hand at my back.
My email is a heap of unread notifications. There are at least three firm-wide memos in the mix, but I refuse to look at them. If there is fallout from the trial, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to see the polite “we thank Avery for her dedication” bullshit.
There is no comfort in it. Just a low, insistent hum of failure that never stops vibrating.
By Thursday, the laundry basket is so full I have to make a decision: either do a load or admit defeat and buy new underwear. I opt for the former, sorting colors in a bathrobe I haven’t washed since who knows when.
When the cycle finishes, I leave the wet clothes in the machine for ten hours, then run them again, embarrassed even in my solitude.
I catch my reflection in the microwave door: under-eye shadows, lips chapped, hair unruly. My skin looks dull, almost gray. I run a finger under my eye, marveling at the exhaustion.
Salem follows me into the bedroom and flops onto the sheets, belly up.
The sun sets, and I realize I haven’t left the apartment in five days. I think about going for a walk, maybe even just to the mailbox, but the idea of seeing other humans makes my skin crawl.
My Twilight marathon has long finished, and I have shifted to my comfort shows. Things like New Girl, Gilmore Girls, Gossip Girl.
All the girls, really.
I finish an episode, then another, then another.
When the week finally tips over into Friday, I am so far inside myself I can barely remember a time when I wasn’t.
I miss Nash. I miss James. I miss Mina, who would know exactly how to rescue me from this but would also be pissed that I let myself get to the state I’m currently in.
I close my eyes and listen to the city outside, the heartbeat of a world still moving without me.
Tomorrow, I’ll try harder to be myself again. I have to sooner or later.
***
Saturday morning, I wake to a pounding on my door.
For a moment, I consider letting whoever it is go unanswered, but maybe it’s Mina. Or maybe someone finally sent the police to do a welfare check on me.
I shuffle to the entryway, dragging the comforter like a cape, and squint through the peephole. On the other side, Nash is holding up a tray with two coffee cups and a paper bag, a grin stretching his face.
I hesitate. I don’t want him to see me like this. I usually look perfectly put together for work or our little “date nights”. He’s seen me after we’ve woken up in the mornings, but even then I didn’t look like this.