Chapter Twenty-Three
Twenty-Three
Over the next couple of weeks my new life began to take shape.
Full-time employment was secured, and with my new medical insurance I’d even lined up a consult with a therapist. No time like the present to start working on myself, right?
As September began, Jackson’s started a trivia night; Nina and Toby and I were determined to wipe the floor with the competition on a weekly basis.
It was at that first trivia night that Toby looked across the table from me, apology in his dark eyes.
“I shouldn’t have told you to go for it,” he said. He dropped his eyes to study the surface of his IPA. “I didn’t think Alex was gonna—”
“Nope.” My response to hearing Alex’s name was automatic, and I held my hand up like a shield. I was still working on rebuilding the armor around my heart, and it was a little fragile.
“We don’t speak his name,” Nina said, her voice foreboding as she swirled red wine in her glass. “This is a relationship-free zone.”
Toby looked like he still wanted to say something, but he took a sip of beer instead. “As long as you’re okay,” he finally said.
“I’m good,” I said, almost meaning it. Across the bar the trivia host tapped on the mic; the round was about to begin, and I was glad to focus on something else.
There were only two things missing in this new life.
The first one, I couldn’t do anything about.
I could deny it all I wanted, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw a lock of reddish-brown hair falling over a forehead.
Warm brown eyes. Twenty-seven freckles sprinkled across a nose.
For all the good in my world these days, there remained an Alex-shaped hole in my life.
But that was fine, I told myself. Just another thing to bring up with my therapist, when we needed a change from my daddy issues.
I didn’t want to admit it, but there was a small, squishy part of me deep inside, the one that had watched too many romantic comedies with my mom when I was really too young for them, that half expected Alex to swoop back into my life.
It had become a familiar fantasy. When I least expected it, he’d pop up with his charming smile and his matching roses, ready to whisk me off to…
well, I’d never gotten that far in my fantasy.
It had just been the idea that I’d been enough for him.
That I was all he needed. And really, that alone was fantasy enough.
Sometimes I thought about texting him. Plenty of people were able to break up and be “just friends.” But I couldn’t make myself pick up the phone.
There was too much ice between us now, and I didn’t know how to break it.
What to say. “What’s up” wasn’t going to cut it.
And neither would “I’m sorry,” because what did I have to be sorry for?
Nope, better to just let this silence continue, and grow like clinging vines over my feet until I couldn’t take a step in his direction.
The second one…well, that was all on me.
The rental application for the apartment in Willow Creek Tower sat on the edge of my childhood desk for a couple weeks. The last piece of the puzzle that was the beginning of my new life, and here I was, stalling again.
The nudges from my family started out subtle at first. Mom suddenly decided she needed new cookware, and presented me with a box of her old stuff, which I knew for a fact she’d received two Christmases ago.
One day Mitch came home with an armload of boxes and offered to help me put them together to start packing up my stuff.
But it didn’t take long for even that little bit of subtlety to go out the window.
“When were you thinking about moving?” Mom asked the question out of the blue while I was helping her clean up after dinner one night. From the garage came the telltale clank of barbells. Mitch’s ankle was almost fully healed now, so he was back to his routine of one last workout after dinner.
“Sick of me already, huh?” I tried to sound chipper, but I attacked a saucepan in the sink with a little more elbow grease than was strictly necessary.
“Of course not.” Mom popped a lid on the leftovers and opened the fridge to stow them away. “I thought you’d be eager to have a place of your own. What did you think of those apartments? That old hotel, near the bookstore?”
There was something about the way she asked the question, a kind of forced casualness, that got my attention. I squinted in her direction while she filled the electric kettle.
“They’re fine.” A picture filled my mind of that cute little place. And no, I wasn’t doing it justice. “They’re really nice,” I amended. “And I can afford them too.” I was stalling again, wasn’t I? Even when there was no reason to. I rinsed the saucepan and finished loading the dishwasher.
Mom chuckled as she got down the tea bags. “Compared to New York? I’d certainly think so.”
“I’m making a lot less here too, you know,” I pointed out. I watched her fill two mugs, submerging the tea bags, and she just shrugged before handing me one.
“I’m not trying to kick you out or anything,” she said while I reached for the sugar. There was that elaborately casual tone again. “I just thought you’d like to have your own place…”
I held up a surrendering hand. “Okay, okay. I have the application in my room. I’ll bring it in tomorrow when I go to work.”
“What a good idea.” People shouldn’t look that smug when they’re sipping on chamomile, but Mom pulled it off pretty well.
A memo must have gone around, because the moment I stepped into the bookstore the next day, Emily poked her head out from the back room.
“Hey! Did you get a place yet?”
I threw up my hands. “Oh, God. Not you too. Did Mom call you?” I was starting to feel ganged up on.
“I just hear they’re going fast.”
“And who are you hearing that from?” I crossed my arms, suddenly suspicious. “Are you getting a kickback or something?” That sweet older lady in the leasing office didn’t seem the type, but you never could tell.
Emily was all wide-eyed innocence. “Just looking out for you, that’s all! Why don’t you go at lunchtime? You can pick up sandwiches while you’re out.”
Ah. Okay. Maybe that was her ulterior motive. I was fine with that; this was my job now, and if picking up lunch for my aunt was the most menial thing I had to do today, then my life was going pretty great.
“You got it,” I said. “It’ll even be my treat. I just got a full-time job as a bookstore manager, so I’m loaded.”
She flashed me a grin from behind the counter, but as the morning went by she seemed a little more manic than usual. Nervous about something. When lunchtime came she seemed hesitant as I made to leave. “You really don’t mind picking up lunch?”
“Of course not. And you’re right; I need to get this application in.” She was right. Mom was right. I needed my own place. And a desk that didn’t give me bruises on my knees.
The leasing manager remembered me, and she glanced over my application with a smile.
“This looks fine,” she said. “We have to run a credit check, but we should be able to finalize this by tomorrow.” But her forehead pinched. “I do have some bad news, though. The last one-bedroom apartment just leased yesterday.”
“Oh.” Disappointment made my stomach dip. Dammit. That was what I got for stalling. But then why was she running a credit check? Just to mess with me?
“There’s a studio left, next door to the one-bedroom that you looked at last time. It’s the last unit available.” She searched in a drawer before handing me a key on a small brass ring. “Why don’t you run up and take a look, and if you like it, it’s yours. What do you think?”
I looked up, as though I could see all the way to the fourth floor from here in the lobby. “How small are we talking?”
“Oh, it’s cozy,” she said, which seemed like a red flag. But what choice did I have? Before I knew it, I was in the elevator making that slow climb to the fourth floor.
“Cozy, my ass.” I left the door open, and my voice bounced off the four walls of the apartment.
Walls that were way too close together. This was either a very tiny apartment or a very big room.
It had all the basics, though: small kitchen at one end, door to the bathroom off to the side.
The single room was a wide-open, window-lined space that would fill up fast when actual furniture started to make an appearance.
I glanced at the informational brochure on the counter.
Yep. Four hundred and fifty square feet—the whole place was a little bit bigger than my childhood bedroom.
But my footsteps echoed off original hardwood floors as I went over to look out the window.
This place had fewer modern touches than the unit I’d seen previously, which was a plus for me.
I was already picturing how I would settle in here: bed in this corner, couch tucked over there.
Mitch could help me mount a small television over the mantel of the nonfunctional fireplace.
I didn’t need all that much space, did I? It was just me.
Just me. It didn’t sting as much as it had a couple weeks ago. Maybe I was going to be okay.
I stared out the window into the street as out in the hallway a door opened, then closed.
The footsteps in the hallway were background noise as I leaned against the old, slightly rippled glass, looking for Read It & Weep.
I could just barely make out the sign, down at the end of the block.
A couple doors down was a red and yellow sign for a kitschy jewelry shop that had been in Willow Creek for as long as I could remember.
The stuff in there wasn’t my style, and Emily had already filled me in on the owner, Carla.
Apparently she was the head of the Chamber of Commerce, and she sucked. God, I loved small-town gossip.