Page 36 of The Lipstick Flip

I carried the clothes toward the bathroom. And I was tired. And I was off-balance because of the whole underwear thing. Which maybe was why, before I realized what I was saying, I answered, “I don’t go on dates. I’m too busy.”

But Noah, of course, was unfazed. “What about when you hook up, then?”

And it was definitely the exhaustion. Definitely the weirdness of this whole fucking day, starting with that fucking Christmas tree and all the way through to this conversation right now, because I muttered, “I wish. Two years, longest fucking dry spell of my life.”

And then I realized what I’d said.

My whole body went tight. I stopped walking. I waited for the laughter. For the jokes.

Nothing.

Because I’ve got zero common sense, I glanced over my shoulder, and Noah’s face was…soft. So fucking soft. And I had no idea what that meant.

Noah was the one who moved first, sitting up, then getting to his feet. He cleared his throat, and his voice came out strange when he said, “I guess I should go.”

I nodded.

His mouth moved, but nothing came out. And then a moment later, he said quietly, “Tell Si I love her.”

“Yeah.”

And then he was gone.

12

The visit to Si went about as well as it could, I guess. By the time I got there, they only let me stay for an hour. Her condition hadn’t changed. The doctors weren’t ready to bring her out of the coma yet. She looked smaller in the hospital bed, colorless, her hand spongy when I took it in mine. She’d worked her whole life. Her hands still had calluses. But they weren’t her hands, not anymore.

I drove home in the dark. Back to a dark house. That dark room upstairs.

Why hadn’t I hung any pictures on the walls?

When I got there, I couldn’t get out of the truck. It felt like too much. Going back inside. Going back into that big, empty house. By myself. Again.

I laid my head back. The engine was ticking down. The cold was coming in. I buried my hands in my pockets, and I was so tired that when I closed my eyes, it was like tipping backward, like I was about to fall. Maybe I’d sleep out here where it wasn’t so dark.

It wasn’t exactly sleep. It was that place on the edge.

When he died, they asked me to leave the room. They didn’t say why, but I knew they had stuff to do. And it was just me, anyway, so it wasn’t like it was a big deal. Ralph was already gone. And I’d go home later that day and find Mom covered in her own puke, and that’s how I’d spend the night. It wasn’t like they had to clear out a crowd. But I forgot my phone, and when I went back, they were already working on him. I stood there and watched as they pulled out that fucking tube. And that’s when I knew he was dead. I left my phone where it was, and I went and walked. And walked. And walked.

I came up like I was breaking water—with a jolt, a sharp breath.

Shadows.

The cab of the truck.

And for a disorienting moment, like I was speaking out loud, Now he can sleep in that fucking barn.

But he hadn’t. We’d bought him a pine coffin. And I’d been the only one there when they put him in the ground.

I wiped my face

The brain is a fucked-up place to be.

For another moment, the desire not to go inside came again. But that was stupid; I couldn’t spend the rest of the night out here.

So, I went inside.

And it wasn’t dark.