18. Rae
RAE
I didn't plan to go to the little house that Thursday.
I was supposed to be at Ruben's shop until five, but we'd finished the blueprints for the Maldonado extension ahead of schedule and he'd waved me off early with a grin, saying something about not wasting daylight.
I sat in my car outside the shop for ten minutes, hands on the wheel, engine off.
I told myself I was going back to Enid's.
I drove to Cibolo Heights instead.
The whole way there my stomach was in knots.
I kept my hands tight on the wheel and didn't let myself think about what I was doing or why.
The highway stretched out ahead of me, familiar and empty, and I focused on that instead.
On the white lines. On the exit signs. On anything except the fact that I was hoping he'd be there.
The street looked the same as it always had when I pulled up—quiet, lined with live oaks, the kind of place where people knew their neighbors and left their porch lights on.
I cut the engine in front of the little house and sat there for a minute, just looking.
The flower beds were blooming. Marigolds and zinnias, I thought, bright orange and pink against the dark mulch.
The mailbox stood straight. The porch didn't sag.
The trim was painted a crisp white that I didn't remember choosing but liked anyway.
Nash's truck was in the driveway.
My hands went cold. I hadn't expected him to be here.
Well, that was a lie. I'd hoped he'd be here, which was worse.
I'd told myself I was just checking on the place, seeing how the work was coming along, but my heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat and my palms were sweating and I knew exactly what I'd come for.
I should have left. I should have started the car and driven back to Enid's and pretended I'd never come. I got out instead.
The porch didn't creak when I stepped onto it. I remembered the way it used to groan under my weight, the boards soft and uneven, and the silence now felt strange. Wrong, maybe. Or just different. The front door was unlocked. I pushed it open and stepped inside.
The living room walls were still that soft grey I'd seen weeks ago, but the room looked different now.
Lived in was the wrong phrase. We didn't live here.
But it looked less empty than it had. The couch we'd bought together seven years ago sat against the far wall, the blue one with the worn armrest where Nash used to prop his feet.
The coffee table was back, the one with the water ring I'd never been able to get rid of no matter how much polish I used.
A lamp I recognized sat on the side table, the brass base tarnished but familiar.
There were books on the shelf by the window, our books, and a throw blanket draped over the arm of the couch that I'd picked out at a flea market in our first year of marriage.
He'd brought things back from the storage unit.
The floor was different too. The scratches were gone, the boards sanded smooth and refinished to a warm honey color that caught the late afternoon light. The baseboards were new, painted white, and the windows were so clean I could see straight through to the backyard.
"Rae."
I turned. Nash stood in the doorway to the kitchen, a paintbrush in one hand and a rag in the other. He was wearing an old T-shirt I'd seen a hundred times, grey and faded, and his jeans were streaked with paint. His hair was a mess. He looked tired. He looked good.
God, I'd missed him.
I hated that I'd missed him. I hated that just seeing him standing there made my chest ache and my throat go tight and every stupid instinct I had scream at me to cross the room and touch him.
"I didn't know you'd be here," I said, which was a lie and we both knew it.
"I'm here most days." He set the paintbrush down on the counter behind him, wiped his hands on the rag. The paint on his forearm was pale yellow. "I didn't think you'd come by."
"I just wanted to see how the work was going."
"Yeah." He nodded, didn't say anything else. The silence stretched between us, uncomfortable and thick, and I wanted to leave. I wanted to stay. I couldn't do either.
"The floors look good," I said, because I had to say something.
"Thanks. Took forever to sand them down. There was more damage than I thought."
"And the baseboards."
"Yeah." He glanced at them, then back at me. "Had to replace most of them. The old ones were rotted through in places."
I touched the bare place on my left hand without thinking, rubbing my thumb over the skin where my wedding ring used to sit. "You brought the couch back."
"Yeah." His gaze flicked to my hand, then away. "And the table. Some other stuff. I've been going through the storage unit, bringing things here."
"I can see that."
"You want to see the rest?" he asked. "I've been working on the kitchen. And the—" He stopped. "The other rooms."
I should have said no. "Okay."
He led me through to the kitchen, and I tried not to notice the way he moved, the breadth of his shoulders under that old T-shirt, the paint smudged on the back of his neck.
Tried and failed. The kitchen was half-finished.
The cabinets were the same ones that had been there before, but he'd painted them white and replaced the hardware with brushed nickel pulls.
The countertops were new, a pale grey quartz that picked up the light.
The walls were still bare drywall in places, taped and mudded but not painted yet.
"I haven't decided on a color," he said. "For the walls."
"The yellow," I said. "That pale yellow we looked at. Before."
Before we'd stopped talking about the house. Before I'd given up on him finishing it.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I remember."
He showed me the bathroom next, the new tile and the refinished tub, and then we were standing in the hallway outside the second bedroom and I knew what was in there. The yellow walls. The room I'd painted myself years ago, hoping.
"I'm still working on it," Nash said. He didn't open the door. "It's not done."
"Okay."
We went back to the living room. I stood by the window, looking out at the yard, and Nash stood a few feet away with his hands in his pockets. Neither of us said anything for a long minute.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked finally. I turned to face him. "The house. All of it. Why?"
The question came out sharper than I'd meant it to. Nash flinched, just a little, and I felt like an idiot. He looked at me for a long moment, something uncertain in his expression, something raw, and then he said, "Because it's what you wanted."
My stomach flipped. "What I wanted?"
"The house," he said. "Fixed up. A place we could—" He stopped, shook his head. "It's what you wanted, Rae. I'm not doing this for me."
I didn't know what to say to that. My throat felt tight, my pulse kicking up, and I hated how much I wanted to believe him. How much I wanted this to be real and not some temporary thing that would fall apart the second I let myself hope.
"You didn't have to," I managed.
"I know."
"So why?"
"Because I should have done it years ago," he said. "Because you asked me to and I said I would and then I didn't. Because I kept choosing the airline over you and I told myself it didn't matter, that you'd understand, that we had time." His voice roughened. "We didn't have time. I ran out of it."
He stepped closer. I made myself stay where I was even though every instinct I had was screaming at me to step back, to keep the distance, to not let him close enough to hurt me again.
He stopped a few feet away, close enough that I could see the paint smudged on his forearm, the exhaustion in the lines around his eyes, the way his jaw was tight like he was holding something back.
"I need to say something," he said. "And I need you to let me say it."
I nodded. Didn't trust myself to speak.
Nash took a breath, let it out slow. His hands were still in his pockets. He looked like he wanted to reach for me and didn't know if he was allowed.
"I screwed up," he said. "I know that's not—it's not enough, but I don't know how else to start. I made you promises I didn't keep. I told you I'd be there, that we'd build a life together, and then I wasn't there. I chose the airline over you. Every single time. For seven years."
His voice cracked on the last part, and something in my chest twisted hard.
"You'd ask me to stay home and I'd say I would, and then I'd take the call anyway.
I'd leave you standing there. I'd get on the plane and tell myself it was just one more trip, one more deal, one more thing I had to handle personally.
And you'd be alone again. You were always alone, Rae.
You lived alone in our marriage and I let it happen. I made it happen."
My eyes were burning. I blinked hard, trying to keep the tears back, but my vision blurred anyway.
"I told myself I was building something for us," he said.
"That the airline was for both of us, that you'd understand, that it was temporary.
But that's bullshit. It was never temporary.
It was never for us. I was building something for me and I used you as the excuse, and I didn't even see what I was doing to you until you asked me what you wanted more than anything and I got it wrong. "
I remembered that. Standing at Enid's door, asking him, and watching him fumble for an answer that made sense. Watching him get it wrong.
"I thought you wanted security," he said.
"I thought you wanted to know I could take care of you.
And you just looked at me like I'd punched you.
" He rubbed a hand over his face, and I saw that his fingers were shaking.
"I didn't understand. Not then. But I do now.
You didn't want me to take care of you. You wanted me to be there.
You wanted a husband who came home. You wanted a marriage that felt like one. "
"Nash—"
"I'm not asking you to forgive me," he said, and his voice was rough and low and it cut straight through me. "I'm not asking you for anything, Rae. I don't have the right. I just needed you to know that I see it now. What I did. What I took from you. The years I wasted. I see it."
I couldn't breathe. The air in the room felt too thin, too hot, and I wanted to say something but I didn't know what. I wanted to tell him it was okay, that I understood, but it wasn't okay and I didn't understand and the words wouldn't come.
Nash reached up, slow and careful, and brushed his thumb across my cheek. His hand was warm. Rough. I realized I was crying.
"Rae," he said, so quietly I almost didn't hear him.
I stepped into him. I didn't mean to. My body moved before my brain caught up, and then his arms were around me and mine were around him and I was pressed against his chest, breathing him in.
He smelled like paint and sweat and sawdust and something else I couldn't name, something that was just him, and God, I'd forgotten what this felt like.
The heat of him. The solid weight of his hands on my back.
The way he held me like I was something precious he'd lost and found again.
I pulled away.
He let me go immediately, his hands dropping to his sides, and I stepped back until there was space between us again. Safe space. My heart was racing. My hands were shaking. I felt like I'd touched a live wire.
"I can't," I said. My voice sounded wrecked. "Nash, I can't do this."
"I know."
"I'm scared." The words came out in a rush, clumsy and desperate. "I'm scared this is only temporary. That you'll go back to the way you were and I'll—" My throat closed up. I forced the rest out. "I won't survive it again. I can't."
"I know," he said again. He didn't move. Didn't reach for me.
"I don't forgive you."
He nodded. Didn't argue. Didn't try to convince me or tell me I should or make excuses. Just stood there, looking at me like I'd gutted him, and maybe I had.
"The divorce went through," I said. It felt important to say it out loud, to make it real. To remind both of us. "We're not married anymore, Nash."
"I know."
"So what are we doing?" I asked. "What is this?"
"I don't know," he said. His hands curled into fists at his sides, then relaxed. "I just know I can't stop. I can't walk away from this. From you."
My chest ached. I wanted to close the space between us again, to let him hold me, to pretend that everything was different. That we were different. That he'd changed and it was real and permanent and I could trust it. But I couldn't. I didn't. And the wanting hurt worse than anything.
"I should go," I said.
"Okay."
Neither of us moved.
We stood there in the living room of the house we'd dreamed about together, the house he was fixing up for a life we didn't have anymore, and I couldn't make myself leave.
I couldn't make myself stay, either. I was stuck, caught between what I wanted and what I knew I couldn't have, and Nash was looking at me like he understood. Like he felt the same.
Like he'd wait as long as it took.
His jaw was tight. His hands were still fists. There was paint on his neck and exhaustion written all over him and he looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered, and I hated that I wanted that to be true.
I made myself walk to the door. Made myself step outside onto the porch that didn't creak anymore. Made myself keep walking to my car.
I didn't look back.