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Her mouth drops open.
“Hi,” I say.
She bites her lips and says nothing.
I sit down on the coffee table in front of her, facing her. I reach for the remote and pause the TV. I set my backpack on the floor and unzip it.
“Got your tiara back.” I lift a Ziploc bag out with the tiara inside.
Her hand goes over her mouth.
I put it beside me.
“Told them we didn’t want the panties. They can burn them. I got this back, too.”
I pull out a velvet pouch and hand it to her.
She holds her hand out. I drop it in her palm, tickling that palm briefly by tracing my index finger across it.
Her eyes are on me and they’re filled with pain.
She opens the drawstring and reaches in and pulls out an emerald and amber monarch butterfly broach. It’s fucking hideous. She sees it and starts to ugly-cry. Women call it ugly-crying, but she’d never be ugly to my eyes. I want to reach for her, but have no idea if she’ll punch me in the face or not.
“I got word which pawn shop had it, over in Rochester, so I stopped there on my way here. Still looking for the rest.”
I reach into my bag. “This is kinda stupid now after all that. Maybe I should’ve done this first…”
“What?” she whispers from behind her hand, clutching the butterfly to her heart.
I pull out a McDonald’s hot apple pie, a small bunch of bananas, and a bottle of hot cock sauce and put them on the table.
Her shoulders shake with laughter. She’s still got tears in her eyes.
I still don’t know if this is gonna go my way or not.
I reach into the bag and pull out another Ziploc.
“Five thumb drives. Incriminating evidence about girls I’ve… I used to hook up with. These are the only copies. You can destroy them.”
I see a half a bottle of water on the table.
I grab it and uncap it and pour the water directly into the Ziploc and zip it back up. I set it down on the table. She watches all this, saying nothing.
“I’m an idiot, Carly. I’ve spent years being the kind of guy just waiting on the edge of my seat for someone to try to fuck me over, so I could fuck them back. I could blame my mother with her pawning us off on the help, with her cheating, I could blame my father for being a workaholic. I could blame the few women that fucked me over, but truth is that I lose out on the ratio because I fucked a lot of them over before they could fuck me. I was raised in the same house as Austin and Adele and they’re not as fucked up as I am. I’ve decided to stop being fucked up over stuff that’s in the past. It was a cautionary tale when I realized I held onto that DNA test for a year just so I could be angry and brood about something that wasn’t even real. I’m done with that shit. I took the video of Bella down. I deleted that channel. I know people on that email list saw, but I had the video down the day after you left me. It took a few more days of having my head up my ass and feeling lost without you before I decided to come up here and try to get you back. I don’t know if she got my message or not, but I texted Bella to tell her I’m done warring with her. It’s safe for her to come home if she wants to.”
She puts the broach down and reaches into the pocket of my sweatshirt that she’s got on for a wad of tissue. She pulls one out and dabs at her eyes, putting the rest of it on the table.
“Happy Birthday, peaches,” I say. “I didn’t bring you a present. I didn’t know.”
She closes her eyes and sucks on her lip.
“I’ll let you keep my sweatshirt that you evidently stole.” I whisper. “Will you go on a date with me? I’ll buy you more Hot Apple Pie from McDonalds.”
She opens her arms up wide, chin trembling. I grab her, spin around and sit on the couch so she’s straddling me and I hold her tight.
She starts crying into my jacket.
“I didn’t steal your sweatshirt. You g-got Joshua to b-bring my stuff back from NYC and this was packed with it. I didn’t notice until I got here.”
