23. Luisa #2
I looked away, then back, then away again.
“Mama.” Poppy tugged at my hand. “I’m scared of the thunder.”
“I know, baby.”
“Is Wade staying?”
I looked at Wade. He looked back at me. His hair was plastered to his forehead. His shirt was see-through. His eyes were very, very blue.
“That’s up to your mom,” he said carefully.
I shrugged. Tried to make it casual. Failed completely.
“The storm’s bad. You might as well stay.”
“I’ll take the couch.”
“Fine.”
“And Poppy can yell if she’s scared,” he added, crouching down to her level. “And I’ll run to her. I’m very fast at running to scared dragons.”
Poppy beamed. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
The storm didn’t break. It raged through the afternoon and into the dark, until the windows had gone black and leaving wasn’t a question anyone thought to ask.
I showered her first, washing the storm out of her hair, getting her into warm pajamas. She fell asleep faster than usual, exhausted from excitement and fear. I stood in her doorway for a long moment, watching her breathe, before finally making myself walk down the hall.
To my bedroom.
Where Wade would need to shower.
Because he was soaked.
And I’d need to find him clothes.
Fuck.
I knocked on the bathroom door. “Wade? You can use my shower. I might have some clothes that’ll fit.”
“Thanks.”
I went to my dresser. Pulled open the bottom drawer.
His clothes were there.
The ones I’d kept, stolen from his side of the closet before I left Boston. The shirts I sometimes slept in when I was feeling pathetic and lonely and couldn’t stop missing him.
A gray t-shirt. A pair of sweatpants. Things he’d worn around the house on lazy Sunday mornings. Things that still smelled like him, faintly, even after four years.
I was holding them when the bathroom door opened.
Wade stood there in just a towel.
Water dripped from his hair, running down his chest, tracing paths through the tattoos I’d spent so much time trying not to think about. The wolf, the dancing couple, the chocolate croissant, the coordinates. And on his back, I knew without seeing it, my face.
He looked at the clothes in my hands.
Looked at me.
His expression softened.
“Lu.”
“Shut up.” I shoved the clothes at him. “Don’t say a word.”
“You kept them.”
“I said don’t say a word.”
“I kept yours too.”
I froze.
“Everything you left behind.” His voice was rough. “Every t-shirt. Every hair tie. Every book you forgot to pack. I kept all of it. I even kept buying the brands you liked, your coffee, your shampoo, your stupid expensive hand cream.”
My eyes were stinging.
“I ate the sweets you liked.” He was still holding the clothes, not moving to put them on. “The ones I hate. Those disgusting chocolate-covered ginger things. I ate them because it made me feel closer to you. Like some part of you was still there.”
I couldn’t speak.
“Shut up,” I managed again, and fled.
I waited on the couch, arranging blankets and pillows with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. Set out everything he’d need for the night. Tried not to think about him in my shower, using my towel, putting on clothes that I’d stolen because I couldn’t bear to let go of him completely.
Then I saw the ceiling.
Right above where his head would be, there was a water stain I’d been meaning to fix for months. And as I watched, a drop of water formed at its center and fell.
Then another.
Then another.
The roof was leaking.
“No no no no no.”
I grabbed a bucket from under the sink, shoved it onto the couch cushion. But the leak was spreading. Another drop. Another. The ceiling above the couch was slowly weeping storm water.
Wade came down the stairs.
The clothes were too tight on him. He was bigger now than he’d been when he’d worn them last, more muscle in his shoulders and chest. The t-shirt strained across his arms. The sweatpants sat low on his hips.
He looked at the couch, at the bucket, at the drops falling from the ceiling.
“It’s fine,” he said.
“It’s not fine, the roof is leaking-”
“It’s fine.”
He lay down. Arranged himself on the couch, his head directly under the leak. A drop of water landed on his forehead. Then his cheek, then his nose.
He didn’t move.
Just lay there, perfectly still, like if he didn’t acknowledge the water it would stop existing.
“Wade.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Wade, you can’t sleep like that.”
“Watch me.”
The couch groaned.
Then, with a sound like a dying whale, it collapsed.
The whole frame gave way at once, dropping Wade six inches onto the floor in a pile of broken wood and cushions and blankets. Water dripped onto his face. He stared at the ceiling.
“Okay,” he said calmly. “Maybe not fine.”
I burst out laughing.
I couldn’t help it. The whole situation was absurd, the storm, the leak, my ex-husband lying in the wreckage of my couch with water dripping on his face, looking like he was questioning every life choice that had led him to this moment.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I’m so sorry, this couch has been dying for years, I should have replaced it-”
“It’s not your fault.”
“You can’t sleep on the floor.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Stop saying that.”
He sat up slowly, brushing debris off his shirt. “Where do you want me, then?”
The words hung in the air.
I swallowed.
“The bed,” I said. “You can sleep in my bed.”
“No.”
“Wade-”
“It’s your bed. I’m not taking your bed.”
I rolled my eyes. “We used to be married. We can share a bed for one night. I’ll build a pillow wall and everything.”
His eyes went dark.
“Are you sure?” His voice was rough. Lower than before.
“Yes. But JUST sleep.”
“Just sleep,” he agreed, hand over his heart.
“I mean it.”
“I believe you.”
We went upstairs.
I built the pillow wall. A fortress of cushions down the center of the mattress, separating his side from mine. He watched me do it, amusement in his eyes, maybe. Or hunger.
We got into bed.
The storm still raged outside, wind and rain and occasional thunder, but it felt distant now. Muffled. Inside my bedroom, there was only the sound of our breathing and the darkness pressing in around us.
I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, hyperaware of his body just inches away.
“Lu.”
His voice came out of the darkness, soft and close. His hand found mine across the pillow barrier, fingers interlacing with mine.
“What?”
“The question you asked that day. At the hospital. If I ever loved you.”
My heart clenched.
“I loved you the whole time.” His thumb traced circles on my palm. “Every year. Every second. You were the only one. Her, Dolores, I liked her. She used to be my friend, before everything got complicated. It was the way you like a hallway. You pass through it, you never once think of it as home.”
My eyes were burning.
“But you, Luve?” His voice cracked. “You were always my home. The place I always yearned to find my way back to.”
I let out a few tears.
And when his hand found mine in the dark, I didn’t pull away.