From the Inside Out: The Compilation (Scorned, Jealousy, Dylan, Austin) (44 page)

BEFORE AUSTIN AND
I take that next step in our relationship, I’m surprised in an entirely different way. Returning to my apartment after a week spent at Austin’s, I open the door and find a small box, about the size that would fit a ring. But when I lift the lid, there isn’t a ring inside. There’s a key.

Holding it up, it dangles from a numbered keychain. 27. In the box I find a folded piece of paper. Excited to see what Austin has in store for us, I grab it and read:

Here is the key to our life. It’s all the belongings and memories that made us and our apartment together a home. If I could change my mistakes and make it better, I would. Believe me. I would. I screwed up, and for hurting you, I apologize. I will always love you, just like you’ll always be my sweet Juliette.

Dylan

The address of a storage unit in the Bronx is listed under his name and I exhale heavily.

The key.

The key to our life.

The key to our stuff.

My stuff?

Dylan’s giving me my stuff back after four years. I pull my phone from my pocket and call Austin. “You miss me already?” he asks in that way that I can hear his smile through the phone.

“Yes. Always.” My heart races dragging my past into our future, but I need him now. I need him to do this with me. “I have a favor to ask.”

“Anything.”

“Will you go to the Bronx with me?”

AUSTIN HOLDS THE
door open for me and I walk in. “Hi,” I say to the man behind the counter who’s reading the paper.

The older man looks up and smiles. “Hi. How can I help you?”

Holding the key up, I say, “I have a key to a unit here.”

“Number?” He starts typing on his computer.

Austin rests his hand on my shoulder, and I reply, “Twenty-seven.”

His eyes leave the screen and meet mine. “Ms. Weston?”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Somers told me I should expect you.”

“Yes, he gave me the key.”

Austin’s hand squeezes gently and I’m not sure if it’s a reaction to hearing Dylan’s name or in support of me. Either way, I’m grateful he’s here, so I cover his with mine.

The man stands up with a clipboard in hand. “He left you more than the key. He left the unit in your name and paid for a year’s worth of rent.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” he says, pointing. “Right here.”

While studying the document, I reply, “That was nice.”

“Mr. Somers is a good man. I miss our chats now that he’s handed over the unit.” He sits back down. “We talked Yankees versus Mets. We may not have agreed on baseball, but seeing you now, I see we agree on women.”

Austin cuts off this conversation, obviously uncomfortable with the details of Dylan’s feelings toward me. “Austin Barker,” he says, introducing himself. “Ms. Weston’s boyfriend.”

The man shakes it, his expression friendly. “I’m Joey.”

Austin asks, “Nice to meet you, Joey. Can you direct us to the unit?”

The man smiles, then points to his left. “Down there. The end unit on the right hand side.”

“Thank you,” Austin responds and walks ahead of me. When he looks back, his smile is tight. “We should get going. We have a reservation at eight.”

I tell Joey, “Thank you,” and follow Austin down the hall. The corridor is wide and we pass a loading garage door on the way.

When we reach number twenty-seven, Austin takes the key and unlocks the large padlock, then removes it altogether. Looking at me, he asks, “You ready?”

Standing here now, my nerves start to take over, but I nod anyway. The five foot wide garage-style door is lifted, a light pops on, and my mouth drops open. I was excited.
I thought.
I was prepared.
I thought.

I wasn’t. At. All.

Everything is here—everything from the couch to the dresser to my grandmother’s crocheted throw. My eyes can’t settle on any one item when there’s so much to see. My heart begins to race as I step inside. “I never thought I’d see any of this again.” It’s like stepping inside a time warp of my life before Austin.

“Why’d he take it?” he asks.

Over my shoulder, I see Austin with his hands still holding the door up. I shake my head. “I don’t know really… to hurt me?” Opening a box in the corner, I say, “Maybe if he didn’t want our life together anymore, he didn’t want me to have it either. I’m not sure I’ll ever really know.”

The dresser in the corner holds our framed pictures, all set upright on display. I remember we had ten. I used to count them when I was cleaning. I step up on the loveseat and count them now. Nine. Sighing, I realize I can live with nine. A memory of seeing a frame on his desk the one time I visited him at work comes back to me and curious, I wonder if that might be the missing photo. Honestly, it would make me sad if he hadn’t keep any mementos at all. I’m not worried what else he took. Suddenly standing here in the middle of all of this stuff, I realize like the coffeemaker and prisms, none of it holds any power over me anymore, just like he doesn’t. My future matters more than my past. Austin matters more.

I spend the next hour rifling through everything as Austin sits on the couch watching while giving me the time I need. With a shoebox of college memorabilia in my lap, I rub his leg and say, “You never finished your story about Christina.”

His brow furrows as he leans back. “You want to hear about that now?”

“Seems apropos to be amongst the skeletons and ghosts of my past.”

He sets a book down on the side table and says, “Our senior year at college, we were so busy making plans for the future that we forgot to live in the present. Cliché, but true.”

I set the shoebox down and give him my full attention. “We all do that.”

“We worked together. One day, she was late. I kept calling her because I thought they would fire her if she didn’t show up soon, but she never answered.” He drops his head into his hands and scrubs harshly as if the thought itself is hard to have. “I finished my shift,” he sighs, then continues, “apologized for her missing her shift. I made up a story about her going to the health clinic or something. I can’t remember now.”

Austin is so handsome, one of the most attractive men I’ve ever seen, but right now in this small space full of mine and my ex’s clutter, he’s telling me his darkest secret. It’s a story that pains him so much that he looks exhausted under the harsh fluorescent light. The story itself contorts his beautiful features into anguish. “I found her passed out. Something about meds mixing together. That’s what her parents told me the doctors told them. It wasn’t the meds. It was her. They knew. They thought she would be happier after she graduated. They convinced her of that and in turn, she convinced me. She said she wanted New York and I believed her, so we moved.”

Leaning forward, I run my fingers through his hair, then turn his chin toward me. “If this is too much, you don’t have to talk about it.”

“I want to. You should know.” He looks around, then back to me. “You shared your past with me and I should have told you a long time ago.”

“There’s a difference. My past forced itself on you.”

He takes my hand. “I want you to know.” Then he stands and walks to the doorway. Leaning on it with his back to me, he says, “She killed herself three months later. In our apartment.”

My gasp echoes between the cinderblock walls. “Austin.”

“The neighbors found her when they saw the front door open.” Turning around, he peeks up at me. “By the time I was called, the police were in my apartment. I was interrogated as I stood next to her body. She still had some color to her face and I remember leaning down and listening for air, feeling for a heartbeat. They had declared her dead an hour earlier, but… yeah…” He sighs and sits on the arm of the couch.

“You’re not to blame. You know that right?”

“Logically, yes. But I was there. I saw the changes in her. I thought she just needed more time to acclimate to the city. I found out later that her parents talked her into giving the move a try. They thought the change would be good for her, but she didn’t want to be there. She didn’t want to be with me.”

“You don’t know that. You’re filling in the blanks to find answers, but those answers aren’t necessarily the truth. I know this firsthand. I don’t think she would have moved if she didn’t love you. I do think she needed help after the first time. Her parents probably know more than they’ve told you.”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference if I knew or not. She killed herself. She took pills that were supposed to help her and killed herself instead of talking to me.”

“That’s on her though, Austin. Not you. You can’t shoulder the blame for her decision.”

Wanting to make him feel better, wanting to remind him of the good he’s had in the past, I ask, “What did she look like? Describe her.”

He pauses, looking at me curiously, but eventually concedes. “She was beautiful. Long blonde hair, big blue eyes. When she smiled, everyone smiled. It came from within and she shined. She fell for me before I grew into myself. I was awkward and kind of geeky, but not fully. I was still kind of sexy, so I was told.” I smile, imagining him scrawnier but charming.

“Oh, I just bet you were.”

He chuckles. “She was Miss Harvest Fest our senior year. Gotta love the Midwest.”

Pieces begin falling into place and my smile dissipates. “At the end… she was like me when we met.”

No traces of the lighthearted are left. “A little.”

“You can’t save the world, Austin.”

“I wasn’t trying to save you. I didn’t need to, Jules. You’re doing a damn fine job all on your own, just like I knew you would. You’re stronger than you think.”

I want the happy that we’ve had back, so I stand up in the middle of the ten by fifteen unit. I do one last turn, scanning everything, then grab my jewelry box, and say, “We can go.”

“What are you going to do with everything?”

“Nothing for now.”

Eyeing the box in my hands, he asks, “Is that all you want?”

“I think so.”

He steps over the arm of the couch and I maneuver my way out. “Wait!” Running back in I grab my grandmother’s crocheted throw, then step back out. Pulling the door down, he padlocks it again and we walk back toward the man on duty at the desk. “Goodnight,” I say as we pass.

Joey replies, “Goodnight.”

In the car, Austin looks over at me, my box, and the blanket. “How are you doing?”

I don’t hesitate, being there was easier than I expected. “I’m good. Better than I thought.”

“So he gave all your stuff back.”

Not a question. Just a statement. “Yep.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

Turning sideways on the seat, I shrug. “Not sure yet, but it seems I have a year to decide.”

He nods. “You hungry?”

“Starved.” I reach over and hold his hand because even though I thought I would be the one crumbling, he seems to need the comfort. “American Bistro?”

“Yes.” He kisses the top of my hand and smiles. “I know how much you like it.”

“I do. Thank you and thank you for coming here with me.”

“No problem.”

I can breathe again. Somehow Dylan giving all that stuff back, whether I keep it or not, has eased my lungs. Feeling lighter, I take his hand and kiss the palm. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”