Chapter 28
My body is vibrating as I climb the stairs up to the third floor of my building. I don’t even know which emotion comes from where. It’s just a mess of confusion, hurt, and an absurd, embarrassing hope, all swirling into a perfect storm inside my rib cage.
Rationality tries to step in—excuse after flimsy excuse about how I could be wrong, how my broken brain has mixed up the facts—but as I arrive at my welcome mat, my heart isn’t buying it. My pulse still hammers in my chest, making it almost impossible to fit my key in the dead bolt.
When I finally do, I throw open the front door.
I didn’t close the curtains before I left, so the streetlamp outside sends long shadows across the room, half illuminating the Persian rug and worn blue sofa.
It’s familiar, but now it has a completely different feel, like the space has finally removed its disguise.
I don’t bother taking off my coat as I turn on the lights and walk over to the trash can.
The memory box is still sitting there at the bottom.
I reach in to extract it, careful that nothing falls out, then bring it to the sofa.
The bottom left corner is marked by an oblong wet patch from where it had been resting against an old tea bag, and I know it will probably stain my dress, but I don’t care.
I sit down and place the box in my lap, trying to ignore the sound of my pulse in my ears as I lift the lid and drop it to the floor.
Inside are all the items I’ve been poring over for weeks. The Monopoly dog. The museum map. The movie tickets and the bookstore receipt. And there, underneath all of them, the piece of red-and-white string.
My heart stumbles again.
I know that string. The fact that I didn’t recognize it before is almost as startling as where I know it from: Modern Pastry. It’s the same string that tied up the box for my lobster tail yesterday. The same one from when Ben bought me a pastry all those weeks ago.
I push the box onto the cushion beside me, as if I just discovered a bomb inside.
This isn’t full of memories with Matt. It’s full of memories with Ben.
Anger and pain flare together in my chest. How had I missed this? And how could he stand by and watch as my broken brain tried to figure it out, and not say a word?
What would you have done if he had told you?
a voice whispers in my head, and I can’t help but pause.
What if he’d told me the truth that first day I met him?
Or when I first revealed all the items in the memory box?
He had been a veritable stranger then. Would I have believed it if he told me all these items were from memories with him?
Even if I had, I still wouldn’t remember him, or whatever it was that had been going on between us.
But I deserved to know, I remind myself. I still do.
So I pick up the shoebox and walk back through my front door to stand in front of Ben’s. And then I knock.
Silence.
Then I hear footsteps from inside his apartment.
A moment later, the door opens and Ben stands on the threshold.
The view reminds me a lot of that first time I knocked, when I was positive I’d woken him up.
This time his sweatpants have been replaced by a pair of jeans, and he has on a dark navy sweater.
But his expression… he looks awful. Bags under his eyes, his mouth slack. Like he hasn’t slept in a year.
My heart constricts as I hold the box close to my chest and say, “I need to talk to you.”
He stares down at me, the fluorescent light in the hall making the line of his brow look that much more stern. But I can still make out how his eyes are slightly more amber than brown tonight.
He opens the door a bit wider and steps back, giving me space to enter.
I walk into an apartment similar in shape to my own, but slightly bigger, more lived-in. There is a kitchen to the left, small and neatly organized, with a small coffeemaker in the center of the turquoise linoleum counter.
In the living room, there are bookcases along each wall, surrounding the space with a haphazard collection of books stuffed into every available crevice.
A dark green sofa sits in the center of the room, its deep cushions worn and uneven, as if they remember the weight of each person who’s ever relaxed there.
Near the window is a wide armchair with faded plaid upholstery and a book tented over one arm.
There are a couple of lamps on, drenching the space in warm light. It pulls the edges of the room closer, a place carved out for the person who lived there.
I walk to the rows and rows of books along the wall.
Ben remains near the door, watching me closely as I scan each title, like he knows exactly what I’m doing.
Which is good because I have no idea. I’m just waiting for something to register with my brain.
A clue that will tell me I’m not crazy. That everything I’ve connected in my head is real.
Then I get to the corner. There, behind the armchair, low to the ground, is a pile of old board games. Battleship. Yahtzee. And, at the bottom, a long-faded red box with Monopoly printed on the side.
I bend down and put my shoebox on the floor so I can pull the game from the pile, careful so the others don’t topple over.
When it’s free, I place the box in front of me, slowly lift off the top, and remove the board.
There’s the pile of money, the property cards, the dice, and a small divot that keeps all the metal game pieces together: a top hat, a cat, and a battleship.
A penguin and a thimble. But there’s no dog.
I turn to where Ben still stands a few feet away in the doorway. He’s waiting, and his expression, a mix of anxiety and sorrow, makes my heart lurch.
“The dog is missing,” I say. It’s impossible to mask the hurt and anger in my voice.
The soft line of his mouth is straight as he nods once. “Yeah. It is.”
I knew it would be. Even if my brain didn’t remember, my heart knew. That only makes the ache in my chest worse.
“You didn’t tell me,” I whisper.
“I didn’t know it was missing. Not until you told me you found it in your apartment.” The corner of his mouth twitches, but it’s not the same as I’ve seen before. He’s not holding back a smile, he’s forcing one. An apology.
My chest tightens, and I suddenly feel like I can’t get enough air. There are too many emotions in there, taking up too much space.
“This whole time, you knew.” My voice sounds harsh, but I can’t bring myself to care. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He lets out a deep sigh, like the words he’s about to say will hurt. “Because you didn’t know who I was.”
“So you just followed me as I went to every place you and I had been before and you didn’t say one word?”
“Marnie—”
“What was going on between us? Were we sleeping together?”
He reels back, like I’ve hit him. “Jesus, Marnie—”
“Were we?”
His jaw ticks. “No.”
“Then what?”
“You were my friend.”
“No.” I shake my head. “If we were friends, you would have told me the truth!”
“What was there to tell?” he asks, unfamiliar urgency in his deep tone.
“That we’ve lived across the hall from each other for months?
That somewhere along the way we became friends?
That you were the person I looked forward to seeing the most every day and never had the courage to tell you?
” He runs a hand through his dark hair. “Even if I thought that was a good idea, I wasn’t sure you wanted to know. ”
“Why not?”
“Because you had Matt,” he says, like he hates having to admit it. “I thought you had gotten back together with Matt.”
My brows stitch together. “Why would you think that?”
“A couple of days before the accident, you told me he had reached out about grabbing drinks. I knew he would want you back because he’d be insane not to.
That’s the night I found you downstairs.
You must have come back from meeting him and collapsed.
I took you to the hospital and stayed to make sure you were okay.
Then they told me I could go home because they’d been in contact with your boyfriend.
Matt Amos.” He shakes his head. “I thought you had gotten back together. And yeah, that hurt like hell, but I just wanted you to be happy, Marn. Even if it wasn’t with me. ”
My mind flits back to last night and his reaction to seeing Matt’s name on my phone, the pain and hurt that ultimately became resignation. Strong, infallible Ben, still believing he isn’t good enough. That in the end, he isn’t worth choosing.
“But why didn’t you tell me once you realized he and I weren’t together?” I ask.
“Because at that point, I thought you were remembering. You told me about your mementos, the places you wanted to visit. I thought it was coming back to you. That if I let you go at your own pace…”
“And if I never figured it out?” My voice is barely above a whisper.
He’s quiet for a minute, his expression stricken. “Then I was happy just to be used by you, Marn.”
There it is, the truth I’ve been searching so long for, and he’d been by my side the entire time.
I look back down into the box, at the items that meant so much to me that I kept them to remember forever. Suddenly, anger gives way to guilt, which is compounded by something tender and frightening.
I’m mad at Ben, yes. But I’m in love with him, too. It’s ridiculous that I didn’t notice before, because now I can’t feel anything else. It’s overwhelming, a love that’s so big and unwieldy it feels like it could swallow all my other emotions whole.
Ben sits down on the sofa across from me, his face looking tired and hurt. And terrified. Almost as terrified as I feel. But I’m also ready to be brave.
I reach into the shoebox and pull out the Strange Brew napkin, holding it up for Ben to see.
“What’s this from?” I ask.