Chapter 24 Moving Day
“ W here do you want these boxes?”
“Uh, you can just set them in the kitchen area.”
Monica nodded, blowing a strand of dark hair out of her eyes as she heaved the box up in her arms, heading off toward my new kitchen. My very tiny new kitchen.
“Thank you guys for helping again. You really didn’t have to take off work to help me move.”
“Eh, I needed a day off anyway.” Monica brushed off my gratefulness while setting the box full of my minimal kitchen supplies on the floor. “This last week has been non-stop meetings and depositions and wedding planning. Plus, I wouldn’t want to miss today for you. It’s a big day!”
“It’s not that big,” I laughed. “It’s not like it’s my first apartment.”
“But it is your first apartment by yourself and that’s big.”
Monica’s reminder that this was my first time living alone was bittersweet. Someone’s first time being on their own should be fun and exciting, and in some ways it was.
Mostly it was nerve-wracking and padded with guilt over the reasoning I decided I had to live alone.
“So, what do you think of it? I know it’s not much but…”
Steering my gaze around the barren apartment I’d call home for the next seven months, any sentiments of blind positivity failed on my tongue.
I really didn’t know what to say about it.
It wasn’t anything great. It was small and I had to pretend I couldn’t see the faint stains on the living room walls.
The carpet beneath my feet felt like a softer version of velcro, and the tile lining the kitchen was chipped in more places than not.
Thanks to the vanilla scented candles I lit before we started moving my stuff in, the smell of smoke wasn’t so bad anymore. It was more so in the hallways than anything. It wasn’t a palace, but it also wasn’t Monica’s place, and that was the only selling point for me that mattered.
“It’s, uh…” Monica turned her stare to each corner of the room, and I knew she was struggling for something nice to say about my apartment. “It’s got charm.”
Busting through the front door like he’d hoped he could knock it off its hinges, Ethan chimed in, “It’s got mold.”
Ethan wasn’t even attempting to mask the disgust in his voice or on his face as he walked in carrying two cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other. With his arrival, the apartment seemed to shrink into itself with the glowering energy that he brought with him.
From the corner of my eyes, I saw Monica give Ethan a scolding glare and in that same second, I saw Ethan shrug her off.
Oof.
“I like it,” I said, feeling defensive over my new apartment. Even though I actually didn’t like it all that much, I didn’t like Ethan criticizing it even more.
Without meeting my stare, Ethan grumbled, “I don’t know why you won’t just stay with us until you find something nicer.”
“Because she’s an adult who can make her own decisions. Lay off, babe.”
I spared Monica a grateful smile that only lasted for half a second before Ethan’s next words wiped it clean off my face.
“Yeah, well this is a bad decision.”
And with that, he trudged out the front door and down to the moving truck. As soon as he left, he pulled the blanket of doom and gloom that he’d laid over the room with his presence away with him, and the whole apartment sucked in a deep breath, finally able to breathe.
“I’m so sorry—”
“No, no it’s okay,” I cut Monica off, waving my hand in front of me. “He’s just being overly cautious is all.”
Monica shook her head, crossing her arms with distress between her eyes. “I’d like to believe that’s all it is, but he’s been like this all week! It’s like something crawled up his ass and died, I swear.”
Truthfully, I couldn’t say I’d had the same experience. Especially considering that he and I hadn’t spoken many words since that one night nearly two weeks ago.
I couldn’t sleep.
I couldn’t sleep last night and tonight was proving to be no different. The clock on my phone read past 3 am. Whenever my emotions ran high, sleep was the furthest possibility in reach.
Probably the attributing reason to why I was about to go a good 48 hours without more than the occasional nodding off of sleep.
Fed up and hungry because of it, I stomped out of my bedroom and right into the kitchen, grabbing my half-eaten pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Flicking on the light above the oven, I hopped up on the counter and popped off the lid, sinking my spoon into the first bite of creamy dessert.
I was only halfway through swallowing my first bite of ice cream when Monica’s bedroom door opened and shut.
The ice cream sliding down my throat clogged, and I nearly choked to death as Ethan rounded the corner into the kitchen. His eyes jumped right to mine, the look in them such a pointed focus that I was almost positive in that moment that he knew I was out here.
Had he been waiting for me?
We hadn’t spoken since yesterday — since our entire universe was thrown off orbit in about a hundred different ways. I was moving out. Monica and Ethan had an official wedding date. I was to help plan and participate in their wedding.
And now, we had to somehow maintain some semblance of small-talk.
I offered the first effort.
“Can’t sleep either?”
Ethan, who was leaned against the edge of the wall, pushed his weight off of the wall and strolled into the kitchen. “Not really. Then I heard you out here.”
“Oh.” I gestured my pint of ice cream up at him with a sheepish chuckle. “I guess I thought loading up on sugar might help me sleep.”
The side of Ethan’s mouth twitched up in the illuminated darkness of the kitchen.
“With that logic, we might be up all night out here.” For a brief second, I was confused. That was, until Ethan opened the utensils drawer and pulled out his own spoon.
A smile tried to fight its way to my lips, but I rolled them together to stop it in its place.
He walked the couple steps it took to reach where I was sitting on the counter, and I held the carton of ice cream out to him.
He’d come so close I could feel the energy of his presence like pricks against my skin, but ignored them just as Ethan seemed to be ignoring the idea that he might be too close to be considered appropriate.
His eyes followed the spoon as he dipped it through the ice cream and scooped out what he wanted.
Still without meeting my stare, the spoon disappeared between his lips and I couldn’t seem to tear myself away from the way he ate the ice cream in such thoughtful silence.
It was such a simple thing, but the movement of his lips as he tasted the dessert, to the soft breathing coming through his nose all had me hopelessly enamoured.
I probably could have sat there watching him slowly eat ice cream for hours if he hadn’t spoken up and ruined it all.
“We won’t be able to have anymore of these late night kitchen hang outs if you move out.”
With that, my stomach curved inwards, appetite vanishing. Heaps of frustrations and worries sank down on my shoulders and helped me fold into myself. Upset that he’d purposefully thrown a wrench into our semi-normal moment, I yanked my ice cream back all to myself.
“Yeah, well I’d take my third wheeling to an extreme if I still lived with you guys by the time you get married.”
My focus was on the carton in my hands, but I still heard the moment when Ethan’s soft breathing stopped altogether. He dropped his spoon into the sink right next to us, the clank of metal meeting metal bouncing across the kitchen.
“My mom called today. She got the Save the Date in the mail.”
Maybe it was just me and my sleep-deprived brain, but he didn’t really sound all that thrilled. Even as he continued on, the dejection in his voice grew heavier and stronger.
“She was so happy, she cried. She didn’t even care that it was such short notice for a wedding. She just kept saying how happy she was and how… exciting it was.”
“Well that’s good. It is exciting.”
“She already offered your sister her veil from my parents’ wedding, apparently. Says she was saving it for my sister, but she doesn’t ever think Mary will get married, so…”
A breath rattled through Ethan’s chest as he brought his stare to mine.
It moved in uncertain lines across my face, searching my eyes as if they were a map and my mouth like it held the secret code.
A painful cramping pinched in my chest as he hunted long and hard and still came up lost and confused.
“I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” he murmured.
The way he looked at me — like he’d gladly do anything I asked of him — nearly crippled all of my defenses. He was staring at me with the same desperation he had yesterday when Monica showed him the Save the Dates, and I still didn’t know how to react. What did he want me to say?
“You don’t know what you’re going to do about your mom?”
Ethan shook his head. “The wedding.”
“Ah, well.” Before I could answer him, I had to swallow past the pain that had tied a knot in my throat with the mention of their wedding. “It is soon, but like Monica said, it’s all the same, right?” As I asked him to confirm for me, the pleading in his eyes only brightened.
“You’re going to get married and you’re going to have a happy life,” I finished, proud of myself for getting through that without a stitch of sadness in my voice.
Ethan only gazed at me, his browline tight and his lips thinned. My eyes pulled to his mouth as he spoke as if I’d stolen the air right out of his lungs.
“Is that what you want?”
God. My heart felt like it was on fire, being stabbed, and strangled all at the same time.
What did he want me to say? ‘No, I don’t want you to marry my sister.
Pick me instead, please?’ I couldn’t say that, and I wouldn’t mean it either.
I didn’t want him to pick me over her. I wanted him to love her and choose her and help me forget all about how much I craved him.