CHAPTER FIFTEEN Empty Side of the Bed
Jalen called immediately.Maya almost declined.Instead, she answered.
"Hey."Her voice sounded broken even to herself.
"I'm sorry," Jalen said.Maya laughed bitterly.
"Are you?"He went quiet."I don't know," she admitted.
"That was mean." "You don't have to protect my feelings right now.
" "Apparently I'm not very good at protecting anybody's
feelings.""Don't do that to yourself.""Andre packed a suitcase because of me.""Because of us."The word us made Maya's stomach twist."There shouldn't be an us.""Maybe there shouldn't. But there is something." Maya lay on her side of the bed and looked at Andre's
empty pillow."He said I cheated."Jalen was silent for a moment."Did you?"Maya frowned. "You tell me.""I'm not going to lie to make you feel better. If I were
him, I wouldn't like that we were talking in secret." "So you agree with him.""I understand him."Maya closed her eyes."Then why did you keep calling me?""Because I'm selfish when it comes to you. I thought I
had grown out of that. Maybe I haven't grown as much as I thought.
"The honesty disarmed her."I don't know what I'm supposed to do now.
""Nothing tonight. Sleep.""I can't.""Then talk to me until you can.
"So she did.They stayed on the phone for nearly two hours.Maya told him about the house Andre wanted to see, about the lemon tree in the backyard.
She told him how Andre had looked when he said first did not mean forever.
She told him she felt split between the woman she had become and the girl who still remembered Jalen's hand in hers at eighteen.Jalen listened.He did not tell her to choose him.That restraint made him feel safer than he was.Near one in the morning, he said, "Do you remember the night we graduated?
"Maya smiled through tears. "You mean the night you swore we were going to move to New York and become rich?
""I was going to play ball. You were going to run an ad agency.
""Neither one of us moved to New York.""You basically run an agency.
""And you definitely don't play professional basketball.
""My knees thank God every day."She laughed.The sound startled her.It had been hours since she had felt anything but grief.
"There she is," Jalen said softly.Maya's smile faded.
"Who?""My Maya."She went still."Don't call me that.
""Sorry.""I'm not yours.""I know."But the old part of her heard something else.Not yet.Maya ended the call at 1:23.
She slept badly and woke reaching for Andre.
Her hand landed on cool sheets.For one confused second, she forgot.Then everything returned.The conversation.
The suitcase. The door.She checked her phone.No message from Andre.One from Jalen.Jalen: Morning.
Hope you got some rest.Maya put the phone facedown.She wanted Andre.She wanted Jalen.She wanted her old life back.She wanted to know whether the old love could become something new.She wanted impossible things and hated the world for refusing to let them all be true at once.In the bathroom mirror, her eyes were puffy and her skin looked dull from crying.
"What are you doing?" she whispered to herself.No answer came.Downstairs, Andre's coffee mug was still in the drying rack.Maya held it for a long time before placing it back exactly where he had left it.She told herself he might be home in a few days.She did not know yet that some departures begin long before the person actually leaves.