11. Neil
— ? —
Neil
The floor was concrete. My back ached and my legs were numb. I’d used the second-floor bathroom three times, and each time I’d sprinted back, terrified she’d open the door while I was gone.
She hadn’t.
In my lap was a notebook. I’d bought it at a convenience store at four in the morning, along with a pack of pens and the worst coffee I’d ever tasted. The pages were covered in my handwriting.
April third.
I’d written it at the top of the first page.
Then I’d spent the night on the phone, calling everyone who might remember what I’d forgotten.
Mateo first, because he’d been my roommate back then.
He’d answered on the fourth try, groggy and annoyed, but he’d told me about the song.
The one I’d played on repeat for weeks after that day.
Billie Holiday. The Very Thought of You.
I’d called Anwesha next. She’d told me about the blue cardigan, the broken umbrella, the way Anika had smiled when she talked about me the next day.
By four-thirty, I had three pages of notes. By eight-forty-five, I had them memorized.
At nine o’clock exactly, the door opened.
Anika stood in the doorway. She was wearing paint-stained clothes again, her hair messy, her face bare. She looked like she hadn’t slept much either.
She looked beautiful.
“You’re still here,” she said.
“I never left.”
“The super called me this morning. Said there was a vagrant refusing to move. Wanted me to confirm I know you before he calls the police.”
“Did you say I’m your dedicated husband?”
She didn’t smile. “Phone.”
I pulled it from my pocket. Walked to the row of mailboxes in the entryway. Dropped it into hers.
The metal clang echoed in the quiet hallway.
“Now,” she said. “Tell me about April third.”
I took a breath. Held her gaze and started talking.
“April third. A Tuesday. It rained all day. Your umbrella was blue and broken, one of those cheap ones from the drugstore, and you were fighting with it outside the library like it had personally insulted you. I walked up and gave you my jacket. The brown one with the coffee stain on the sleeve that I got the week before when I spilled my drink during finals.”
Her expression didn’t change, but something shifted in her eyes.
“I asked you to be mine, and you said yes before I finished the sentence. You were wearing a blue cardigan your mother gave you for Christmas, the one with the buttons you kept losing. We went to the coffee shop on Ninth, the one that closed three years ago. I held your hand across the table even though my palms were sweating. There was a song playing.”
I paused.
“Can I get my phone? Just for a second?”
She studied me for a long moment. Then she walked to the mailbox, fished it out, and handed it to me.
I found the song. Hit play.
Billie Holiday’s voice filled the hallway. Old and scratchy and achingly romantic.
“I walked you home the long way, through the park, even though we were both soaking wet. I didn’t want the day to end. I didn’t want to let go of your hand.”
Her eyes were wet now. Mine probably were too.
“I called your mother at three a.m. She wasn’t happy.”
She blinked. “You called my mother?”
“You called her that same night, back then. Crying happy tears. She remembered the date in two seconds. Remembered everything.” I held out the notebook. “I rebuilt the whole day, piece by piece, because I needed to remember. Because you deserved someone who remembered.”
She stared at the notebook. At the phone still playing Billie Holiday. At me.
“I’m never forgetting any of it again,” I said. “April third. March fifteenth. Every day that matters to you matters to me. I’m going to learn them all.”
The silence stretched between us. The song played on.
“That’s not forgiveness,” she finally said.
“Yes, far from it.”
“That’s acknowledgment that you’re willing to work for it.”
“I’ll take it.”
She stepped aside.
“Phone back in the mailbox. Then come in.”
I dropped it in. Walked through the doorway. It felt like crossing into another country.
The apartment was small, cluttered with canvases and paint supplies. It smelled like turpentine and coffee and something floral, probably her shampoo. It smelled like her.
“Sit down,” she said, pointing to a worn couch covered in a colorful throw blanket.
I sat.
“We’re going to talk,” she said. “And you’re going to listen.”
She talked.
She told me about all the times I forgot a date. Every time I left early. The gala where I’d abandoned her to network. The birthday Giovani handled. The anniversary I’d missed for Sundream. The way I checked my phone during dinner, during movies, during conversations that mattered.
Every time she’d made herself smaller so I could be bigger.
I didn’t interrupt or defend myself. And I didn’t make excuses.
I wrote it all down.
“Why are you writing?” she asked eventually.
I looked up from the notebook. My hand was cramping, but I didn’t stop.
“Because I’m going to fix every single one.”
She stared at me for a long moment. I couldn’t read her expression.
“We’ll see,” she said.
But she didn’t tell me to leave.