Calm Like Home (25 page)

I feel the blood drain from my face, feel the pit of my stomach drop out, nose-diving for the floor. Every ounce of air is expelled from my lungs. I try to breathe in sharply but it feels like I'm drowning, choking on his words. The shock and horror of their meaning comes crashing into my reality, crippling my conscience. How can he be saying this? How can he ever think we can’t make this work? I stare up at him in disbelief, searching his face for some kind of explanation, but he won’t look at me. With each second I can practically feel him slipping through my fingertips, feel him drifting further from my reach.

“I need some space.” He exhales thickly, eyes fixed steadfastly on the floor. “I can’t think when I’m around you.”

“What is there to think about, Adam?” I ask, my voice breaking. I can hardly see through the cloud of tears shrouding my eyes. They spill over my cheekbones in thick salty rivulets, but I don’t bother to brush them away.

“You don’t have to be alone in this,” I whisper.

“Please don’t do this. Don’t make it worse.” His voice is strained, not his own. His eyes flick to mine for an instant and they’re so laced with pain that it breaks me to the core. Then he turns and walks out my door.

PART IV – The Winter

Chapter 24

I don’t know how long I stand there, door open, just staring blindly ahead, shattered, broken. I suck in a breath, feel it rasp in my chest. I’m slipping, falling, clawing for reality. I grip the door handle for stability, but I’m sinking to the floor. This cannot be real. This cannot be my truth. This cannot be happening. Not to us. Not to two people who love each other so fully, so completely. How could this be the thing to break us? A day ago I would’ve thought this impossible. Now he is gone. My hands and face are numb; the only thing I can feel is the gaping hole in my heart. I finally nudge the door shut and lean against it, my body ravaged with the pain of having pushed him away.

I did this.

I went too far.

I try to heave myself off the floor, try to clamber off the entryway tile, but my legs can’t seem to support my weight. I look around for something to grasp, but everywhere I look I see his face. He is spread out on my living room floor, eyes half-shut in ecstasy. He is relaxed on my couch cushions, spooning up heaping scoops of ice cream. He is carrying me through the kitchen, mac and cheese on the stove. The walls of my apartment feel like they’re closing in on me, taunting me with his memory. I know I can’t be here, not without him here with me. I press Annabelle’s number into my phone, struggling for words when she picks up.

“Can. I. Come over?” I ask between ragged breaths. Try as I might I can’t help the sob that breaks through. It is deep and all-encompassing, starting in the depths of me and working its way out.

“What’s going on?” Her voice is hushed but deeply concerned.

“He’s done.” It’s all I can manage.

“Oh my God, what? How can that be?”

I’m weeping, long, sad heaves into the receiver. “I. Can’t. Be here.” The words come out as broken, jumbled fragments; exactly the way I feel.

“I just got to work but there’s a key under the mat.” Her voice is tight. I know she doesn’t like hearing me like this. “Alexa, please be careful driving.”

I blindly grab for my purse and head out the door, not bothering to put myself together, not bothering to retrieve my coat. My hands are shaking as I fumble to fit the key into the ignition. When the car stirs to life I make out the familiar lines of a love song playing faintly on the radio. I jam my fingers into the volume button. I can’t take it. Not now. Not after this.

I don’t know how, but I make it to Annabelle’s apartment complex. I don’t remember the drive at all, just streets and houses blurring together outside my field of vision. I shut the car off but stay where I am, keys in the ignition, not bothering to pull them out. This is where it all came apart. If I had kept my mouth shut, if I had let him tell me in his own time, maybe he’d still be here with me. This is my fault. I wrecked this. My body slumps against the steering wheel, missing him madly already.

It grows bitter cold with the car shut off and no coat, so I finally stumble up the steps to Annabelle’s apartment. I fold myself into the corner of her couch, clutching my stomach, my chest, my heart. My face crumbles and tears fall, pathetic rivers flooding her pillows. Even the smooth fabric holds raw memories from last summer. I can’t escape him. I can’t get away. I feel like I’m caving in on myself, like I’ve been cleaved in two, my insides sputtering and throbbing with his rejection. I ache for him with every muscle, every fiber, every atom.

I can’t take the gnawing in my chest, the raw empty part of my heart that’s been overflowing with love for him for as long as I care to remember. I push myself up off the couch and scrounge through Annabelle’s kitchen cabinets. I just want to numb myself, to dull this ache long enough to stop crying. I find a bottle of vodka and make myself a drink. I mix it with orange juice, take a sip, and then add another heavy glug. I don’t want to remember anything about this day. I just want it to be over, to slip into oblivion, to not feel a thing.

When Annabelle comes home that night she finds me slumped on her couch, eyes red from copious amounts of tears and alcohol, silently scrolling through old text messages on my phone. She doesn’t ask any questions, doesn’t force me to relive the agony, just takes the sight in from the door and announces, “We’re leaving. Come on.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere Annabelle.” The words sound flat, lifeless, like they’re coming from someone other than me. “Please leave me be.”

In one quick, fluid movement she snatches the phone from my hands. I’m too stunned to move.

“No more text messages. You can have
this
back later.”

She pockets my cell phone. Despite my yearning to hold it in my hands, to feel even a fraction closer to him, I make no effort to stop her.

“Carly and I are playing cards with her new boy toy. I already told them you’re coming. Bring the vodka, but you’re coming.”

I don’t bother getting ready. I don’t care that I’m still wearing yoga pants or that my hair is unkempt or that I don’t have on a stitch of makeup to hide my blotchy face. I won’t be seeing Adam. Nothing else matters. When it’s time to go I scoop up my purse and the vodka and shuffle to her car. As she drives I lean my forehead against the pane of glass and stare out at nothing. All I see ahead of me is darkness.

The night slides by in slow monotony. One hand of cards rolls into the next and I barely pay attention to who has what. I don’t say a word. I just sip drink after drink and replay the last day’s events in my mind, wondering how everything went so wrong so fast. Would one slight change have made all the difference? If we’d simply stayed in bed, if that line-jumper hadn’t cut, if I’d stuck it out on the dance floor, if Damien hadn’t come to the booth, if I’d focused on the music in the car would the words not have come spilling out of me? Would any one tiny change have been enough to save this?

When it’s time to go, Annabelle takes me by the hand, grasping the remains of the nearly empty bottle of vodka in the other, and gently guides me towards her car. She climbs in beside me and we sit in silence for a moment. Then she pulls my phone from her jacket pocket and sets it on the center console. I can tell from her resigned expression it hasn’t rung. My fingers slowly reach out to grasp it. I don’t really want to look, don’t want the confirmation, but I do it anyway. The home screen is blank. No calls. No texts. Nothing.

I sleep most of the next day away on Annabelle’s couch. It’s a black sleep, all dreams blotted out from the massive amount of alcohol I consumed. When my eyes finally flick open I stare lifelessly at the ceiling above me. Dread hits me square in the chest, the horrific feeling that something is terribly wrong.

Annabelle appears at my side with a glass of water. I grip the glass in my hands, pressing my fingertips white against its surface.

“Need anything?” she asks gently.

I shake my head. I feel the misery clawing at my chest, screaming through my lungs, clamoring to get out. All I can see is the pained look in his eyes before he walked out. I can hear the finality of his words ringing in my ears. Tears come easy, my face slick and salty and flushed. I don’t bother trying to reel it in. I curl into her couch reliving the crush of Adam leaving me all over again.

Maybe I could reach out to him. Maybe I could try to fix this, but I know he’s back at school now and a phone call would never do this justice. We’ve never been great over the phone sharing guarded, unreliable words. I need him to see me. I need him to see it written on my face and in my eyes how sorry I am. I need him to know everything I did came from a place of love.

I stay on Annabelle’s couch as long as I can stand to. When I can no longer force away the image of Adam and me sleeping here, summer sun brightening his face, I decide to go. I reach my apartment and press the door shut behind me with a click. The noise seems to echo through the empty space. The quiet is deafening. This place should be filled with the remnants of his laugher; it should be filled with the memory of his beautiful words. Never this pulsing silence. Never his complete erasure from my life.

My eyes scan the living room and catch on the flick of fins in the corner. I click the fish tank light off; I'm not interested in seeing them right now. Too many haunting memories. Too much emotion. The pictures he brought me from formal are still lying on the coffee table where he left them. My fingers brush over the glossy edges, lightly tracing the curve of his jawline. I stare at his face with longing, wishing with everything in me I could take it all back.

My legs are so tired. My body feels so heavy. I sink to the floor, staring out at nothing. I don't bother with the stereo, feeling for once completely uninterested in music.

How can a love like ours end? Why can't he see I only had the best of intentions, that I only ever wanted him to let me in?

When I wake up the next morning I'm still on the living room floor. My back screams out in pain and I’m startled to actually feel something other than the ache in my chest. My phone rings beside me and my stomach lurches in response. I jerk the phone towards me, pleading with everything in me,
let it be him, please just let it be him.
I spin the display around and come crashing back down. I move my finger to silence the call. I don't feel much like talking to my mom right now. I don't feel much like talking to anyone anymore.

I try to force myself to study for finals, but I can’t seem to focus. All I think, all I see, all I breathe is Adam. Despite my better judgment, I’m compelled to feel some fragment of him, to know the last six months really happened, weren’t simply a figment of my imagination. I want to hold the shattered pieces in my hands and relive the ecstasy of being with him. Standing on a chair, I retrieve a blue shoebox from the top shelf of my bedroom closet. Even the box is special; the heels I bought for semi-formal came in this box. Inside it houses every note, every memento, every tangible piece of evidence that Adam loved me.

Piece by piece, I remove the items from the box. I finger the note he tucked under my windshield after work last summer asking if maybe, just maybe, I wanted to hang out. I unfold the tiny scrap of paper he slipped into my apron pocket telling me to meet him in the freezer for an “okay” kiss. I take out the birthday card he taped to my front door and trace my finger along my initials written in that upright scrawl across the envelope. I re-read every agonizing word of the letter he wrote me in August. The tears come furious and hard, splashing down my cheeks in a thick stream, spilling over the box and its precious contents, but I make no effort to stop. I am completely broken. I’ve come entirely undone.

I’ve called in sick to all my shifts at Milano’s since Adam left. It didn't even seem like a lie. I do feel sick. I’m nauseated by his absence, can feel it weighing thick on my chest, churning deep inside me. Despite my heartbreak, I know I have to go back eventually. I can’t keep dodging that bullet even though I know the misery awaiting me there. That place brought us together. It’s the last place I want to be when we’re falling apart.

I dress slowly, hating every minute. The uniform feels like a prison, a constant reminder of what I lost, what I pushed away. I see him in the length of my tie, in the empty apron pockets, in the crisp, white material of my shirt. I drive slowly and in silence, putting off the inevitable for as long as possible. When I finally walk through the door, I’m greeted with concerned glances and cautious hellos. Everyone knows. I wish they would choke on their sympathy, just keep it to themselves and stay out of my way.

The hostess seats my first table of the day. When I see it’s a young couple, I silently curse her for not skipping me in the rotation. I step up to greet them and freeze. I’d know the look on their faces anywhere. There’s an incredible softness when their eyes connect, the love between them almost palpable. I force myself to say hello and take their drink order. As I walk away the guy rises from his side of the booth and slides in beside the girl, draping his arm over her shoulder. The tenderness sends me over the edge. I barely make it to the bathroom before I break down. Crouching against the bathroom stall, deep sobs wrack through my entire body.

The realization hits me. That had been me. I had been in love, all out explosive, passionate love. It consumed me, knocked me sideways. It brought me sight when I’d never even known I was blind. It breathed new life into me. It made me feel whole when I’d never even realized all my life some part of me was missing. I drank in the feeling, soaked it in through every pore, let it devour me because I was certain it would never leave. But instead it twisted up inside me, changed me so entirely that without it I am lost. Without it I am a shell, a broken fragment of who I once was. All that remains is the knowledge that for a fleeting moment I’d been in love. I’d been complete. I’d been truly alive.