Chapter 28 The End?
The End?
After thanking Alan again for the lift, I carried my bag up the two flights of stairs to the quiet third floor hallway. I gave the door to number thirty-three a forlorn look before sliding my key into my own lock.
Being back somehow felt worse than being away. I was so close but also farther away than ever.
No. Fuck this. I was getting to the bottom of this mystery from hell.
I dropped my bag, spun on my heel, and strode across the hall. I knocked on Jack’s door with three sharp raps. I held my breath, listening over my thundering heartbeat for the sound of footsteps coming to the door. Silence.
I knocked again. And waited.
Still nothing.
After a full minute, I gave up and went back across to my apartment. Which was now locked.
Fucking fantastic.
I grabbed the handle with both hands and shook.
The one-hundred-year-old solid hardwood door did not so much as budge.
After months of obsessively carrying my key everywhere I went, I had finally managed to lock myself out of my apartment.
Part of me was surprised that it had taken me so long.
But that part was microscopic next to the part of me that was furious.
I scream-growled and banged my fist on my door in frustration. Not only did I not feel any better, but now my hand hurt.
Taking a deep breath, I paced down the hall while I considered my options.
Jack had a key, and TJ had a key. Today was Saturday, so TJ wouldn’t be here.
I could walk over to the admin building and check for the key in her desk, but between the holiday and the fact that it was a weekend, the admin building would likely be locked up too.
That just left Jack. Who (maybe) wasn’t home.
I could go down to Alan’s place on the second floor and wait there for Jack to get back. But Alan had mentioned he had some errands to run when he dropped me off, and he wouldn’t be back for a couple of hours.
That just left Jack. Jack, who was absolutely avoiding me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I sat down and leaned back against the door to wait. I ached for the release of a good cry, but no tears were forthcoming. Nothing was going to go my way today.
After thirty seconds, I stood up, too restless. I paced up and down the hallway. That got old after two passes. How the hell did people in old movies pace for hours at a time? I couldn’t imagine.
But I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t risk missing Jack if he came back. I never expected hell to be a hallway, but here we were—me and my rage, trapped indefinitely.
I was in downward-facing dog position with my hands down and ass in the air when the door to number thirty-three opened and Jack stepped into the hall. He was dressed for a cold-weather run with tights under his shorts and a puffy vest over his long-sleeved tech shirt.
And he was just as surprised to see me as I was to see him.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
I jumped my feet up to my hands and spun around so I could look at Jack straight on. My face was on fire, and I hoped he would assume it was because of yoga and not embarrassment.
It took every bit of effort to stand still. I wanted to go to him, to throw my arms around his neck and hold him close, but the stoney expression on his face had me frozen where I stood.
“Being a nuisance in the hall,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood.
“Figures.”
He brushed past me on his way to the stairs.
“Wait,” I called.
Jack hung his head in a long-suffering sort of way, but he did turn to look at me. My breath caught in my chest as his stormy eyes locked onto mine.
“What is it, Mel?”
He sounded tired. And exasperated. Like I had just told him that my dog ate my homework even though both of us know perfectly well that I don’t have a dog.
But this was it. He was right here. This was my chance to talk to him—to ask him what was wrong. I held his dark gaze as I opened my mouth to speak.
“I… uh… I locked myself out of my apartment.” I chickened out. “Do you still have a spare key?”
“You locked yourself out.” His voice was flat. Lifeless.
“Yes.” I tried to smile, but it felt more like a grimace.
“How? You know what—it doesn’t matter.” He stalked back to his door, pulling out his own key, presumably to retrieve mine and not to hide out again.
I followed him back to his door. “I actually locked myself out because of you.”
“I’d love to hear how this is all my fault,” he grumbled.
“That’s not what I said.”
“Whatever.”
Anger bubbled in me at his dismissive and downright rude tone. “I came out in the hallway to try to talk to you. Though, I guess you couldn’t hear my knocking despite obviously being in there the whole time.”
He paused and his shoulders rose a fraction of an inch. He was busted. But he opened the door, grabbed my spare key from its hook, and tossed it to me in one smooth motion.
I barely got my hands up to catch the bit of metal—time that Jack used to pull his door closed and turn away from me.
“Hey!” I called after him.
He looked back at me when he reached the door to the stairs. “What else could you possibly need from me?”
I was taken aback by his harsh tone. It had been months since he had spoken so rudely to me, and even then, his words had lacked the bite they carried now.
This wasn’t the sweet, playful, considerate man that I had fallen for.
Tears stung in the back of my eyes, threatening to fall.
But I had been waiting all week to speak to him. I couldn’t miss this chance.
I mustered my courage and took a step toward him. I hadn’t thought I was capable of being any more embarrassed, but then, my voice cracked when I asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
My heart fractured. “Okay,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. “So, then I guess this is it?”
“Yes.” There was no hesitation or room for doubt in his response. Our relationship was over.
This time when he pushed open the door to the stairway, I turned my back rather than watching him walk away again. Hopefully, I turned fast enough that he couldn’t see tears start to roll down my cheeks. Who was this girl—this girl that cried over a man?
My face stung as though he had slapped me. I thought crying was supposed to make me feel better, but I just felt wrung out.
I let myself into my apartment and flopped down onto the couch. I grabbed the nearest pillow and held it over my face while I screamed. I didn’t feel better. But now my throat felt just as raw as my emotions.
One thing still bothered me more than anything else. I still didn’t understand why. I had absolutely no idea what I had done to earn his ire. It must have been something awful.
Maybe if I could figure that out, then I could make up for whatever it was and reconcile.
I loved him. That had to be worth fighting for.
Though, as I considered that possibility, I dismissed it.
Even if we could make up, this relationship always had an expiration date, and we were nearly out of time.
There was no point in reconciling. Not really. The most I could hope for was closure.
Without meaning to, this had become the most intense relationship of my life, and having it end so abruptly was jarring.
There was an empty space inside me where he used to be.
How had I let that happen? This was supposed to be a fling—something fun and mutually beneficial to pass the spare time.
But somehow, he had become so much more to me.
Once the tears ebbed, I slunk into my bathroom.
I used a concentrated acetone solution to scrub off the little turkey feathers that I had painted for Thanksgiving until I was down to my bare, natural nails.
I perused my collection of polishes and none of them spoke to me.
For the first time in as long as I could remember I left my nails bare.
A little part of me wondered if TJ might be disappointed.
But that was really the least of my concerns at the moment.
After stowing my nail kit, I glanced around my apartment wondering what to do next. I felt restless, but I wouldn’t go for a run, not while Jack was outside. I couldn’t bear to see him right now. Not yet.
I checked my email, but there was nothing new. I picked the Tessa Bailey novel I had been reading and flipped to my bookmarked page. My eyes scanned the same sentence three times before I slid the bookmark back into the same spot and closed the book.
After months with Jack, I suddenly felt painfully lonely. With nothing else to do, I pulled a fuzzy blanket over myself and laid down on the couch to watch TV. A while later when I heard footsteps in the hall and a door open and close, I didn’t even look up from where I lay.
***
“You look like death warmed over.” Ashley raised a sharp eyebrow as I slid into the chair across from her, coffee in hand.
“I didn’t have a great weekend.”
“Want to talk about it?”
I considered, then shook my head. “No, but thanks for offering.” Ashley hadn’t known about my romance with Jack, and telling her now wouldn’t do any good.
“Well, I’m here if you change your mind.”
I smiled and nodded in acknowledgment.
“So, when do you expect Richmond to make a decision about the chemistry post? The semester is practically over, so it should be any time now, right?”
My brow furrowed. “We still have three weeks left.”
“Technically, yes. But finals week doesn’t really count. And the week before will just be review for finals. And that just leaves this week which has already started. So, the semester is basically over.”
At that moment, my phone pinged with a new email. “It’s from Richmond,” I said. “A meeting request for this afternoon.”
Ashley pointed at me with her fork. “I’ll bet he’s going to tell you his decision. Mark my words.”
I sipped my coffee while I thought. Ashley’s logic made a kind of twisted sense, but it felt too soon. I was still aching from losing Jack. The prospect of officially losing Newbury too was more than I could handle.
“Maybe.” I tried to sound nonchalant, but the word came out sounding extremely chalant.
“Definitely. And I’m sure you got it.” Ashley had more than enough confidence for the both of us.
I snorted. “How can you be sure?”
“Manifesting,” she said, eyes wide. “I’ve been putting good vibes out into the universe all semester. The universe is bringing it back.”
“I didn’t realize you were so spiritual.”
“I’m not. But manifesting is science, not woo-woo stuff. For example, at the beginning of the term my request for new textbooks was denied due to lack of funds. But then two weeks ago, I was notified that my request was being granted thanks to a large unexpected donation.”
“You manifested a donation?” I couldn’t hide my smirk.
“You can’t manifest a donation. That would be ridiculous. But I do think that I manifested wealth and abundance.”
“Ah. I see. And what have you been manifesting for me?” I asked.
“Sisterhood and feminine power.”
My smile softened. Ashley could seem blunt and insensitive at times, but she really did care.
“Well, I hope you’re right,” I said. “I’ve been mentally preparing myself for a dismissal, but I would love to stay. This place is home.”
My smile turned sad as Jack slipped unbidden to the front of my mind. He had been a large part of what made this place somewhere I wanted to be. It was so much more than a job.
Ashley picked up on my melancholy but misinterpreted it. “See, you can’t think like that. Don’t think about what can go wrong, only what can go right. Repeat after me: I am a good person, and I deserve good things. Say it!”
“I am a good person,” I repeated, dutifully. “And I deserve good things.”
But wasn’t Jack also a good person? Didn’t he also deserve good things? As far as I was concerned, he had dealt with much more than his share of bullshit between feeling like an outsider, working twice as hard as anyone else, and still not getting ahead. Not to mention his cheating ex-girlfriend.
No, he hadn’t deserved any of that. He was a good person that kept drawing bad hand after bad hand through no fault of his own. He deserved a few good things too.
“There you go,” Ashley said. “Keep up that attitude, and you will be manifesting abundance before you know it.”
I wished Ashley a good day and excused myself from the table. I helped myself to a to-go cup of coffee before making my way to Franklin Hall to teach Fun Chem.
My heart broke a little at the look Jack gave me when we transitioned between sections. If I had thought his indifference hurt earlier in the year, it was nothing compared to the loathing that I saw there now. I barely made it out of the building before the tears came again.