Page 39 of One Mistake

“If you want to come back in tonight, you can work through dinner.” He chuckled. “Doesn’t pay much, but you can eat here. Pick up any shift you want. We’re always busy.” I nodded still eating. “We open at six, so we start prep at four-thirty. Switch over at ten, but we serve breakfast all day.” He continued filling me in. But it didn’t matter if he said I had to swim naked through the grease trap. This job meant I could eat again. Like a human being. Now all I had to do was find a place to live.

And no harm in asking around.

Jack chuckled. “I have a room. It’s not much. But if you kick in a little rent…” He shrugged.

Weird? Yeah. As a measure of last resort, in the arena of what other choice did I have, at the intersection of tired of sleeping in the park and maybe this was my bounce back, I leaped at the chance of an indoor place to stay.

15

Reese

“Someone bought the house?” I clutched the phone tighter. Until this moment, I hadn’t been dead set on my plan to let the house go. But Jerry from the bank was on the phone and it seemed the choice was out of my hands. Dammit.

He explained the short sale and what it meant and that the new owner was more than willing to give me as much time as I needed to clear the place out. Would probably even be willing to rent the place to me.

I looked at the sofa, a spot where Ryder and I had…now piled high with boxes. Then the chair…also a place where…also piled with boxes. The counter. The kitchen table. The hallway carpet. Boxes. Boxes. Boxes. And memories of Ryder.

Funny. I was in Mom’s house, and I had more memories of Ryder and me than I had of Mom and me. Or that was how it seemed.

“Thanks, Jerry. But I have the mover’s scheduled for Monday, so I’ll drop the keys off with you, then.” I hung up before he could answer. “I’ll be damned.” Now that the choice was out of my hands, it upset me more than I could understand. What if I’d wanted to stay? To buy my mother’s house myself?

“Too little, too late, stupid.”

I was still holding the phone and could’ve called my boss to tell him I was coming home. But I didn’t. Not because I wasn’t coming home, but I still had to book a flight, had to make sure everything got shipped…I sat down on the floor in the middle of the kitchen and crossed my legs.

Loss hit me and I laid back to stare at the ceiling. Wow. It needed a painting. And the wallpaper was torn at the top of the window. The brick above the fireplace was blackened with soot. The window itself needed cleaning. The carpet needed…my mind whirled with the things I would do if I’d been the one who bought the house. It wouldn’t have taken much to spruce the place up. Some paint. A good scrub. Maybe replace the carpet with a nice wood laminate.

Didn’t matter now. I didn’t have a choice. Someone had bought the house out from under me.

And if that was the only thing bothering me, maybe I would’ve been okay. Maybe my eyes wouldn’t have pooled with new tears. Maybe I wouldn’t have laid on the floor picturing me and Ryder here, lying on the sofa watching TV together or eating dinner on the back deck, or planting flowers around the tree in the front yard.

It was ten years ago the last time I had thoughts like these, the last time I saw my future with someone else in it. I couldn’t be sure if it was a coincidence that both times it was Ryder in those fantasies or if the fantasies were because it was Ryder. All I knew for sure was that the fantasies were the same, and they all had Ryder as the star.

The door opened and Avery and Felicity walked in. Considering a couple days ago, Felicity had come in and caught us, I should’ve probably instituted the knock twice rule but since I was heading home soon, there really wasn’t much point.

“Are you home?” Felicity walked toward the back of the house, calling out while Avery breezed past me into the kitchen. They couldn’t see me over the boxes stacked on all the available surfaces.

“Down here.” I waved an arm but didn’t sit up. “Unless you have wine, go home.”

Felicity peeked her head around the wall of cardboard. “What are you doing?”

“Moping.” Not much point to lying.

My friends walked around and sat next to one another beside my prone body. “What’s wrong, grasshopper? Is your boy toy being more boy and less toy?” She nudged Avery then nodded at me. “I hate when Finn is like that.”

I threw my hands up but didn’t answer.

“Avery has some gossip.” She rolled her eyes. “You know professors know all the best stuff.” When I didn’t move, she tugged my arm. “Come on. Sit up. This is too juicy to lay down for.”

I dragged myself into a seated position, a mopey, back-curved, chin on fist on knee, legs crossed, eyes down mopey position.

“Did somebody die?” Avery swiped my hair away so she could see my face.

“I’m going home. They sold the house.” Saying it out loud made it real. Hurt.

“Wasn’t that the plan all along?” Felicity looked at Avery then they both stared at me.

“Yes. I just didn’t expect…”