52. Chapter Fifty-Two #3
The tears come up out of nowhere, a hard shove in the chest, and my eyes are streaming, and the cold turns it to ice on my face.
My nose is running, and I’m dragging my sleeve across it like a kid.
I put my hand over my mouth to stop the sound from leaving my throat.
I can’t sit here under her window and cry.
I look up at the dark windows, and the sound comes out anyway.
It’s ugly, doesn’t sound like me, and I fucking hate it. I hate that I’m like this.
I catch my breath and think about anything else. It works after a while. The guys are willing to help me get her back, and I think maybe I should let them help because if I keep doing things my way, I’ll just keep fucking everything up.
I stay on the bench until my teeth are chattering hard enough to hurt my jaw, until my fingers stop reporting in, until the streetlight buzzes and stutters and comes back on brighter.
I keep thinking she’ll get up for water.
I keep thinking a light will come on and I’ll see her shape crossing behind the curtain and that’ll be enough, that’ll be something.
No light comes on.
I’m freezing like I used to as a child.
Then I get up and walk home.
When I get onto Hawthorne, I notice that every light in the house is on. I ease in through the side door, and Stanley’s head pops around the corner of the hallway before the door’s even shut.
“He’s home!”
Three more heads appear behind him. Benson. Blue. Rowan with a blanket around his shoulders.
“Thank God.”
“Okay. That’s good.”
“Finally.”
I stop in the hall and wipe my face with the back of my hand. I know it’s blotchy.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
He holds up my phone. My phone. “We know you didn’t text her. Did you at least talk to her, wherever you just went?”
I storm towards him. “Give me my fucking phone.”
He tosses it to Benson. Benson catches it, looks at Stanley like he’s tired, and hands it straight to me.
Stanley throws both hands up. “Reeve.”
Benson shrugs.
Then Stanley drops his arms, and something goes out of his face, and he says, “We’re fucked. She’s going to Chicago for Christmas.”
I stand there with my phone in my numb hand, and I don’t believe him. She’s not going there. She hates Chicago.
“Melly said she leaves tomorrow,” Blue says quietly.
“But finals aren’t even done yet.”
“She’s done, man,” Blue says.
Stanley adds, “Last minute decision apparently.”
“The girls are trying to stall her.” Benson’s got his arms crossed. “She’s driving. They’re working on a plan.”
“And given the fact,” Stanley says, and his patience is gone, actually gone, which almost never happens, “that you did not text her, you need to move. Right now. Tonight. Did you talk to her or not?”
I shake my head.
“Percy.”
“I sat outside her building.”
Nobody laughs. That’s how I know how bad it is.
“We need her on that trip,” Stanley says. “This is do or die now. Call her.”
I look at Blue, because Blue is the one who’ll say it’s a bad idea. Blue’s been the brakes on this whole thing since the bags hit the table.
Blue nods. Once.
I look at Benson. Benson’s staring at my phone like he’s waiting for me to call her.
“It’s in the middle of the night,” I say. It’s not. It’s almost one. “Her lights are off. She’s sleeping.”
“Like that ever stopped you before.”
“She leaves tomorrow?” I ask, not believing it.
Stanley nods and smacks Blue in the arm with the back of his hand. “Tell him, man. Why am I always the only one talking in this house?”
Blue looks at me. “It’s true.”
I go down the hall and shut my door behind me. I sit on the edge of my bed in my coat with snowmelt running down the back of my neck, and I open my phone and find her name.
I hit FaceTime before I can think about it.
My heart’s going like a puck off the boards, back and forth, back and forth.
It rings.
And rings.
And rings.
And then it stops ringing, because there’s only so long a phone will ring for someone who isn’t going to answer it.
I sit there and look at my own face on the screen. Red nose. Wrecked eyes. A guy who walked miles in the cold to look at a window.
I go back out into the hall and shake my head at the guys who are waiting. I walk out to the living room and look back at my phone. I check my screen to see if she’s calling back. She’s not.
Stanley claps his hands together, one loud crack that makes Rowan flinch. “Alright. You heard the man. We’re doing this shit tonight.”
Benson blows out a long breath. “I’d rather wake up early.”
Rowan raises two fingers without taking his chin off the blanket. “Same.”
“Fine.” Stanley points at all of us, one at a time, like he’s assigning positions. “Everybody up before the sun. And I mean up, not lying there with your eyes open. We have to be ready before she wakes up.”
“You can’t be serious,” I say.
They’re already peeling off toward their rooms. Blue claps my back on the way past. Rowan trails his blanket up the stairs.
Stanley stops in front of me and puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Be ready,” he says. “It’s gonna be unforgettable.” He walks off. “Get some sleep. See you in the morning.”
He goes. The lights go off, and I stand there in the dark for a while with my coat still on, looking at the stack of plastic bags against the living room wall.
I don’t get any sleep.
I still don’t know what the plan is.