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“I can listen.”
“Not if I don’t want to talk.”
“Honey…”
I shut my eyes. “Please don’t,” I whisper, my heart an empty, grasping void.
She falls silent.
“I think I need to head home on my own tonight,” I finally say. “Can I order you a ride?”
“No,” she says quietly. “I got it.”
“I’m sorry,” I say for what feels like the hundredth time.
“It’s all good, Drew.” She wraps her hand around my wrist. “It’s gonna be okay.”
I wish I could agree with her. I wish she and I still wanted the same things from each other. But instead, I stay silent like a fucking coward.
I wait with her outside for her ride to pick her up. After I hug her goodbye. I order one for myself. While I wait the five minutes promised, I text Olivier.
You still with her?
1204
I’m dropping her off.
Can I come up?
1204
Sure
I turn off my screen and lift my face to the cold wind and the heavy sky. The air is thick and wet with snow that hasn’t yet fallen, and Chelsea is full of noise at this hour. Music spills from open doorways. Tires grind through slush. An ambulance siren wails. The smell is asphalt. Winter. And garlic from the restaurant I just left with my relationship status now in the “it’s complicated” category.
I hope I didn’t hurt her.
But I know I did. I can only hope it hurts more like a terminal illness…an expected death. Like accepting the inevitable. Not like I took a hammer to her heart.
My ride pulls up, and I slide into the back seat, pretending to be engrossed in my phone so I don’t have to speak with the driver. Since Olivier ended up paying for the meal and the wine, I can afford this ride, which I’m grateful for because I don’t have the bandwidth to navigate the subways it would take to get not only across town, but sixty blocks up. I have about three hundred bucks left on my credit card, and I still need to pay the plumber.
I can’t afford for anything else to go wrong, but I somehow know it will. The next expensive disaster is just around the corner, and I ruminate over what it might be. A visit to the emergency room. An unplanned trip home. Anything medical would fuck me over.
My thoughts turn the Manhattan traffic into a mortal threat. I flinch when the driver cuts someone off, and I have to shake my head and look back down at my phone. I’d rather be carsick than think about all this unpredictable life shit.
I do get a little nauseated as the driver speeds up, slows down, takes hard turns, and weaves in and out of cars like he’s on a Formula One track, but before I get too sick, he’s pulling up to The Eastmoor.
I use my key to enter through the service entrance. It’s risky coming into the building like this. The part-time night doorman is on duty, an older man whose name actually is Jack. He’s a solid guy, but he’s not one to get up and move around if he doesn’t have to.
And I’m also at the point where I don’t really give a fuck if he sees me. I need to be in 1204 right now. I need eyes on Olivier. I need to apologize for dinner and lay my hands on black cashmere and tug his curls, and I need… I need…
Anything.
Anything but this sinkhole of a feeling that makes drowning seem like a decent idea.
I get into the service elevator undetected and scrub my hands over my face. I take off my coat, already in a light sweat I can’t explain. Fuck, I hope he’s not angry with me. But it is my fault. I put him in that position tonight—one he was uncomfortable with from the start. It was my dumb plan. My stupid, thoughtless way of keeping track of him because I don’t like not knowing where he is.
I’m not normally like this, so why am I like this with him?
