He glanced back into their apartment, nodding, before returning his sights to me. “Call me at work.”
“I will.” I slinked down the stairs and opened the front door to their building. It was snowing. Big, fat silvery flakes floating to earth. It wasn't sticking, except to the patches of ground skirting the trees along the sidewalk. I trudged down the steps and sat on the bottom tread. It was freezing and I didn't care. I didn't even put on my mittens. Part of me wanted the cold to just take me.
I pulled out my phone and called Eamon.
“What happened?” he answered.
“It was bad. Really, really bad. She never wants to speak to me again.”
“What? No.”
“What, yes.”
“She’s in shock. Give her a few days to cool down. You two will patch things up. She loves you. I know that much for sure.”
I rested my elbows on my knees and looked up at the black sky, letting the snow land on my cheeks and lips. I couldn't feel them melt when they hit my skin. I was already too frozen. “I’m not so sure.”
“Where are you now?”
“Sitting on the steps outside her building, hoping to become part of an eventual snow bank. Maybe the borough of Brooklyn will just scoop me up in a plow.”
“Do you need me to call you a car?”
“Yes, please. Thank you.”
“I love you, Katherine. It will all work out. I'm positive.”
“I love you, too,” I said, understanding in that moment exactly how much I needed him.
Chapter Twenty-One
In the daysfollowing my cataclysmic visit to see Amy, I began subsisting on cheese-flavored crackers and wine. It wasn't like I cared that much about heart disease any more. If that ended up being the reason I croaked, at least I could first slip into a deliciously salty coma.
Eamon had been busy writing during the day while I was at work. Supposedly. He declined to play a single song for me, not even a few bars, insisting that nothing was ready yet. Frankly, he was being weird about the whole thing, avoiding the topic or getting testy when I brought it up.“You can't force creativity, Katherine,”he'd say. Who was I to debate him?
After another day of avoiding Miles at work and getting exactly zero phone calls from my sister, I'd settled in on the couch with a fresh red box of crackers, paired with a passable Cabernet. Eamon waltzed into the living room and sat next to me on the couch.
“I thought you were keeping off the carbs. Your bridesmaid's dress.”
Cheeks packed like a hamster, I shot Eamon a look that said he'd better stop right there. “I’m self-medicating,” I mumbled, hoping my breath didn’t smell like a cheese shop. I washed it all down with a long slog of wine. “This is the only thing that feels good right now.”
“If you want something to feel good, Fiona goes to bed in two hours. This isn’t the healthiest approach to dealing with your sister.”
“I know it’s not healthy. It's horrible. It's dysfunctional and stupid. But I can't help myself.”
“I see.” He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Don’t worry. I’ve got it all figured out. I'm going to buy a t-shirt that says ‘Body by Cheez-Its’ and then everyone will know what happened to me."
He cracked half of a smile. “I do love your wobbly bits. More of you to love.”
Oh, great.More of me to love—exactly what I’d never wanted Eamon to say about me.
He grabbed the box and took a handful, while I tried to squash down my territorial feelings about the cheddar-parmesan duo. They were my favorite. And that was the only box in the apartment. “Now what?” he asked.
“I don't know. I have a hideous sparkly binder dedicated to her wedding, but she doesn't want my help. I have a million things I want to say to her running around in my head, but she doesn't want to talk to me. And to top it all off, we have to go to this stupid couple's bridal shower this weekend where I get to pretend that everything's fine when it isn’t.”
“You're the maid of honor. No getting around that.”
