22. Robin
ROBIN
Idon't remember the walk home. I had intended to call an uber, but I just kept walking and somehow ended up home.
When I tried to recall any specific part of the trip, all I found was static.
One moment I was standing in a restaurant parking lot looking at Micah.
Next, I was unlocking my apartment door.
Everything in between felt lost beneath the weight of what had happened.
The apartment was dark when I stepped inside. Normally that wouldn't have bothered me. I'd lived alone long enough to find the silence comforting. Tonight it felt wrong. The quiet settled around me, amplifying every thought I was desperately trying not to think.
I tossed my purse onto the counter and stood motionless in the middle of the living room.
Then I laughed. A single sharp sound that echoed through the apartment. Because what else was I supposed to do? Cry? Scream? Throw something? All three remained viable options.
Instead, I dropped onto the couch and stared at the blank television screen. The reflection staring back at me looked shell-shocked.
I couldn't stop replaying it. The look on Micah's face gutted me.
But then I saw Pastor Nottingham proudly introducing his middle son. I felt like I was stuck in the soap operas my mom used to watch going up. Only if someone had pitched this plotline to me, I would have told them to make it more believable.
My phone buzzed on the coffee table. I picked it up without even looking at it and turned it off. I already knew what was waiting there. I knew there were more apologies and explanations coming. I just wasn’t ready to hear them yet.
The worst part was that I believed him. I believed that he didn’t believe what they believed and that he was the guy I knew.
That was what made everything so complicated.
If Micah had actually been like his father, this would have been easy.
I would have blocked his number, deleted his contact information, and moved on.
Instead, I kept thinking about meteor showers and French toast and all the kind things he’d done.
You've become my favorite part of the day.
I was going to tell him I was falling in love with him tonight. The memory hit like a punch.
I groaned and dropped my head back against the cushions.
For several minutes I sat there arguing with myself.
One side pointed out that Micah wasn't responsible for who his father was.
The other side pointed out that he'd had weeks to tell me.
One side reminded me that he'd looked genuinely devastated in the parking lot.
The other reminded me that I'd practically handed him dozens of opportunities to be honest.
But when it came right down to it, he lied, even if it was a lie of omission, it was still a lie, and I didn’t know what to do with that.
Eventually I stood and wandered into my office.
Habit more than intention carried me there. When life became overwhelming, I tended to seek out things that made sense. Spreadsheets made sense. Databases made sense. Numbers behaved predictably. Computers didn't hide secret identities and casually emotionally destroy you.
The monitors flickered to life.
I logged in and pulled up the accounts almost automatically. And yes, maybe part of me needed proof that he had not sold me out to his family and told them about the money I’d been funneling to Lantern House.
The church records appeared. Everything was still good. The monthly transfers were still taking place. The money was still moving exactly where it was supposed to.
I sat back in my chair and stared at the screen. I was almost positive he wouldn’t have told them, but now there was a doubt that hadn’t been there before. That was the part I didn’t know what to do with.
If Micah decided wanted revenge, he could destroy me.
One conversation with the wrong person would have been enough to start unraveling everything. Yet I didn’t even question whether he would sell me out. He wouldn’t. No matter how angry I was, the version of Micah I'd come to know didn't suddenly disappear.
I knew he was, or at least I thought he did.
That raised a question I didn’t know how to grapple with.
How had I been so wrong?
I thought of myself as someone who could read people. I could meet people and see their intentions. I had a strong gut and I trusted it. That was a core piece of me. Yet, I had been so wrong about Micah.
I thought about the first night we met. The ridiculous priest costume. The wink.
All of it from the night we met to the night we watched a meteor shower under the sky. I replayed every conversation, every moment I'd let my guard down. Somewhere along the way, I'd stopped questioning him. I'd trusted him. Completely.
The realization made my stomach twist because trust wasn't something I gave easily. I knew that about myself. Years of experience had taught me to be cautious and investigate and verify. I lived with a perhaps unhealthy amount of skepticism.
Then Micah arrived and somehow convinced me to ignore all of that.
I closed the account records and leaned back in my chair.
I pulled up a different site. It was one to run background checks. This was something I should have done after he left that morning, but he’d been so disarmingly nice, I didn’t. That mistake was on me. I should have known better.
I typed his name in and he popped right up. It was time to start digging, to see who Micah Nottingham actually was.
After about an hour I stopped. From all accounts and digging I could find, he’d told the truth about everything else.
He was a high achieving student, went to an Ohio University, came home and started teaching.
He played in a band. Apparently won first prize in a science fair for making a telescope.
Everything tracked exactly to who he told me he was.
Everything except the fucking church website.
That site showed a devout son and purported man of faith.
He played in the church band and smiled in photos with his family.
He had a smile I didn’t even recognize. This man I didn’t know, yet I continued to stare at him trying to make sense of it all.
I needed to see where the truth was. I needed to trust myself again because right now I felt so lost and utterly heartbroken.
Outside darkness had fully settled over the city.
Thanksgiving continued somewhere beyond my apartment walls.
Families were eating pie and falling asleep on couches.
Meanwhile I sat alone in front of glowing computer screens trying to determine whether I'd lost a relationship while discovering the truth.
Unfortunately, I had no idea which answer was correct.
I migrated back to the couch and fell asleep sometime during the opening credits of a movie I wasn't actually watching. The nap should have helped. It should have given my brain an opportunity to reset and approach the situation with something resembling perspective.
Instead, it turned into the kind of sleep that leaves a person feeling worse.
I drifted in and out of consciousness for hours, never fully resting.
Every time I woke up, I found myself thinking about Micah.
The image of Pastor Nottingham proudly introducing his son was seared into my brain.
Pleasantries were exchanged while my entire world quietly imploded across a Thanksgiving dinner table.
Then I would fall asleep again.
Then wake up angry.
Then fall asleep.
Then wake up hurt.
The cycle repeated for several hours when I finally gave up, stumbled into the kitchen, and made coffee despite the fact that it was a terrible idea.
I drank it anyway.
At that point I was operating almost entirely on caffeine and spite which was how I found myself sitting on my couch at twelve o'clock at night slaughtering digital zombies.
The familiar sounds of Project Undead filled my living room as I tore through wave after wave of infected monsters with a level of aggression that probably warranted professional attention. Normally, I enjoyed the strategy aspect of this game. Tonight I was mostly there for the violence.
The zombie currently being introduced to a flamethrower had done absolutely nothing wrong, but unfortunately it occupied the same general universe as Micah Nottingham and therefore became collateral damage.
I stayed there on my couch until eventually exhaustion overtook me and I fell asleep for the night.
My phone had spent the entire day attempting to remind me that other human beings existed. My parents called. Belle texted. Zella had apparently entered a panic spiral and sent approximately fourteen increasingly dramatic messages asking if I was alive.
I hadn't answered any of them. Including Micah… especially Micah.
The thought of reading whatever explanation he was trying to offer made my stomach tighten. I wanted to call him an asshole and a liar and write him off. Yet, I know in my heart that is not who he is. That didn't make any of this hurt less.
How could I have not seen this coming? I felt so dumb. That bothered me almost as much as the sadness. Fuck! I hated this.
A particularly unfortunate zombie exploded on screen. I felt marginally better.
The knock on the door arrived so unexpectedly that I nearly launched myself out of my chair.
For a second, I simply stared toward the hallway.
Every muscle in my body tightened, like maybe if I was still enough whoever was on the other side would go away.
Slowly, I stood.
The apartment felt unnaturally quiet as I crossed the living room. Whoever stood on the other side of the door knocked again before I reached it, and the sound echoed through the apartment.
I wasn't ready to talk to anyone, but there was a part of me that was simultaneously dreading and hoping that it was Micah. Part of me wanted to open the door and tell him exactly where he could shove his explanations. The other part of me just plain missed him.