Ruby walked to Hollis and enveloped her.
“Hold on. Yes?” Hollis asked. “Did you just say yes?” Briefly, she looked over Ruby’s shoulder to me and I gave a nod and a small smile before seeing myself out.
With Marlon at the boarders’, I came home to an empty apartment. The furniture was still there, but every sign of Eli was gone. The only thing out of the ordinary was the slim white box on the kitchen table. Atop it was an envelope addressed to me. Eli’s harsh and angular handwritinghad practically cut through the page. I ran my fingers along the back of the paper and felt the indentation of his letters there as I began to read.
Vera—
I’ve just finished clearing the apartment of the last of my things. Like I said before, the place is still yours if you need it.
I haven’t been my best self for the last week or so. I know that.
You infuriate me. The way I feel about you infuriates me.
I don’t know how to have anything in between or casual with you. I don’t know how to tell you to go back to LA and explore this opportunity with Brody. That would be the mature thing to do. That would make me the bigger person. You’re supposed to let something go so that it can come back to you.
But like I said when I followed you to New Orleans: I want to be everywhere you are. I want to be the only person you ever wake up next to again. I don’t know how to feel any other way. I don’t know how to do this halfway. I want something you can’t give right now.
I don’t trust myself to be here when you get home. I don’t trust that I will be the person who tells you to spend time on yourself when you could be spending it with me. But you deserve to figure things out without me complicating it all. You’ve taken care of everyone but yourself for so long, Vera.
You deserve to choose yourself and I think both of us need you to make that decision without me.
This whole letter feels wrong. I want to stomp around like a caveman and keep you to myself. But I’m scared that if I try to do that, there will be nothing left of you to have.
So maybe I’m weak to say all of this in a letter instead of to your face. But when you’re ready, so am I.
—Eli
PS—I decided to give you your Christmas present a few weeks early. If you decide to give it back to me, I’ll throw it in the pool.
I stared at his letter for a few minutes, rereading bits and pieces.
I wanted so much of what he wanted. But I didn’t know how to have it. The temptation to just drive straight over to his house and tell him I was ready was a bottomless ache. But I couldn’t cheapen his letter like that. If I went back to Eli, I needed him to know I meant it. I needed to know I meant it.
Decomposition Day 9
He gave me a brand-new laptop and I couldn’t even bring myself to peel the cellophane wrapper off the box.
I didn’t trust him not to throw it in the pool either, so I left it on the kitchen table, and it haunted me like creaking floorboards in an old house. The only way to stop your mind from playing tricks on itself is to ignore the sound all together.
Decomposition Day 11
I sat at the kitchen table with a half-eaten bagel. I’d seen Eli around the main building, but only in spare glimpses. It had me wondering if he was avoiding me or if I saw him so much before because he had always sought me out. Either way, it seemed unfair that he would ask me to take time to myself when he had the nerve to walk around with that honey-blond hair falling in his eyes, overdue for a haircut, and the veins in his forearms twitching as he shoved his hands into his pockets.
I licked the Nutella off my butter knife and then used it to open the plastic covering of the laptop box. The lid of the box slid off with a satisfying pop. It was the nicest laptop I’d ever had.
No, not had. Because this couldn’t actually be mine. I’d find a way to give it back to Eli without him throwing it in the pool.
I peeled back the interior packaging to find a brushed gold laptop. My fingers hovered above it, but I put the lid back on the box before I could let myself get too familiar with this laptop that definitely did not belong to me.
Decomposition Day 14
It was Saturday and Ruby had an appointment to go wedding dress shopping at ten in the morning, but I woke up at four and couldn’t go back to sleep.
I tried sitting on the couch and watching old episodes ofGilmore Girls, but eventually I wandered toward the kitchen and I couldn’t do that without walking past the laptop on the table.
As I made my coffee, I watched the box like it might move if I looked away.
When my cup was done and doctored to my liking, I sat down in front of the box and tried to sip my coffee, but it was too hot.
