But today, it feels like being slapped with a future I missed out on, and I can’t move. That is, until I remember even if I hadn’t left, I still couldn’t have had that with him.
I give her a weak, “Hi, Zoe,” then start backing away toward the house.
“You okay?” Eli asks me, a deep furrow forming between his brows. The expression is too familiar, too reminiscent of the way he used to worry about me, when I still had a right to his worry.
I hum a response. “I—It was nice seeing you again.” Then, before I can wait around and see just how badly I can break down, I run to the place I just escaped.
Chapter 2
Iwake up the next morning with a jolt.
The mattress in the guest bedroom hasn’t gotten more comfortable while I was away, and a familiar kink pulls at my neck as I straighten in bed. The golden ticking clock on the bedside table tells me it’s almost 8:00 a.m., but I didn’t fall asleep until 3:00 a.m. this morning, tossing and turning. It was all too much. Almost drowning, seeing Eli, and then coming back inside a house that felt drained of life... I didn’t want to handle it anymore. Without bothering to eat dinner, I picked up the knitted quilt from the living room that smelled musty and felt like being wrapped up in childhood, then walked straight past the master bedroom. I’d feel like an intruder if I entered it, so I went into the room I used to occupy when I stayed over. Nothing had changed in it, not even the pink bedspread she got for me when I was twelve, as if she’d left it ready for me to use. Sleep evaded me, but I remained there, gaze lost on the cracks in the ceiling. It feels like only five minutes ago when I finally drifted off.
I stand from bed, then realize what woke me up when a high-pitched voice passes through the window. I pad to the bay window’s bench where I used to sit for hours, knees tucked againstmy chest, staring out. It’s oriented toward the Grants’ house, which is how I noticed Eli for the first time. I had gotten to Ruth’s place during the night and hadn’t been able to go to sleep, so I’d sat here to watch the sun rise over the ocean, and at around five in the morning, my attention had turned toward the two people who’d come out of the house, carrying coolers and stacks of water bottles. Later, I learned Eli had been helping his father load his food truck, which sold burgers and lobster rolls by the beach during summer months and in mall parking lots during the off-season. From my vantage point, he looked short but gangly, at that strange period when boys have started growing but not symmetrically. I’d been ensnared by the way this boy, who looked to be around my age, interacted with his father. There was no animosity. No shouting or flinching at rough voices, and no things being thrown to the ground in tantrums. The older man was passing boxes and tin foil plates over to his son, who picked them up and stacked them in the truck, and the boy did so with a smile. I heard laughter coming from there, even at the early hour when darkness still colored the horizon. It looked like something out of a movie. I couldn’t believe some families actually worked like that. Throughout the years, I continued watching the gangly boy who eventually turned into a man, and never lost that fascination.
Now, though, Eli isn’t the one standing outside his house. A woman who could be in her late twenties or early thirties is knocking at his door in a frenzy. Her navy crewneck almost meets the hem of her jean shorts.
“Eli, open up!” Her voice is loud enough that I can hear it through the window. Her rounds of knocking continue, even when there’s no sign of him coming to open the door after a minute. Whether it’s because he’s not there, or because he doesn’t want to is probably what keeps me watching.
Another minute passes, and the woman looks more and more distressed. Even from here, I can tell she’s crying by the way her shoulders are shaking and her back is spasming.
“Please, Eli,” she shouts once more, but this time, it sounds less demanding and more desperate.
Finally, the front door cracks open, and out steps Eli, barefoot and dressed in pajama pants and a white T-shirt, muscles bunched from his crossed arms. He remains impassive in front of the woman who begins gesticulating and stepping closer. I can’t look away, my breath fogging up the window, and when he finally moves, it’s his head that tilts and turns.
Right in my direction.
I jump, backing up ten steps until I can’t see anything happening outside, but it’s too late. He clearly saw me watching, as if he could feel I was there.
My pulse is pounding from getting caught, but I feel a tiny bit better now that I can’t see or hear them. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve watched him from this exact spot, but this feels different. We don’t know each other anymore.
There’s no way I’ll be able to fall back asleep with the way my body is pumped full of adrenaline, so I put on a sweater and walk out of the bedroom to the kitchen.
I didn’t think to bring groceries with me yesterday, but I also didn’t think about how there would probably be nothing in here. Someone—I’m not sure who—emptied the fridge, and the cupboards are mostly bare. My stomach grumbles, which makes me realize I haven’t eaten since I left my apartment yesterday morning. I should grab my keys and go to the grocery store down the street, but the thought of all the people I might come across makes me freeze. I’m a grown adult, and yet being here feels like stepping back in time, into the body of a lonely teenager who would’ve done anything to be invisible.
I decide I’ll be brave tomorrow, then reach for the box of likely-stale saltines that will have to do for now. Snack in hand, I walk to the kitchen table, still covered with Ruth’s hand-stitched checkered tablecloth and take a seat while I pull my phone out of where I’d plugged it in the wall. I have seventeen notifications, including four from Emily, my favorite colleague who became my one good friend in the city.
Em: Hope you got there safe.
Em: Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.
Em: Can’t wait to see you when you’re back.
Em: Love you xx
I like herlast message, then close the app, not interested in thinking any more about the job I was forced to walk away from. It might only be temporary, but it felt like a slap in the face nonetheless when Sariah—the chief nurse on the labor & delivery ward—met with me for the first time in six years to let me know I would need to take a leave of absence “for my own good”. We both knew it wasn’tforme, but rather because I’d fucked up, though she was nice enough to not say so.
My job has always been the one thing I pride myself on. Even when everything in my life was going to shit, I could at least tell myself I had the best job. I loved interacting with my patients when they got to the hospital in labor, being their advocate for the birth plan they’d drafted, accompanying them as they grew their family. And I was good at it. But as I listened to Sariah tell me about the terms of my leave and eventual return, I saw that silver lining crumbling like a sandcastle at high tide.
I snack on a few saltines, but I’m not that hungry anymore. I push the box away, and just as I stand to go get dressed and decide where I need to start with this whole executor thing, the sound of knocking stops me in place. At first, I think it’s coming from Eli’s place again, but when another set of three knocks resonates through the house, I realize it’s here.
I didn’t tell anyone I was back, but I guess secrets don’t exist in this place.
Straightening my shoulders, I get to the door, but when I open it, I wish I’d have hidden inside and pretended I wasn’t here. Mysister stands there, her face a stony version of the one I used to know.
Keira and I have always looked alike. We used to joke that when she came of age, I could borrow her ID anytime. I left before that could happen. Now, though, we could not be more different. Her short, brown hair looks so kempt compared to my faded blond highlights and broken tips. She’s clean-faced and dressed in athletic clothes, contrasting with my old pajamas I brought for the sake of comfort. What’s most different, though, is the belly that seems ready to pop like a balloon under her shirt.
I feel the blood drain from my face as my gaze remains on that part of her body. Ruth told me she had a son three years ago, and I’ve even sent him birthday and Christmas gifts every year, but I wasn’t aware of this one. I blink, the image of someone who looks so much like me with the one thing I’ll never have stealing the breath from my lungs. I hate that it’s the gut reaction I have, too. Jealousy instead of happiness.
