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“Have you seen the guy who lives here lately? Marcus?” I ask, ignoring her question in favor of my own.

“Mm, not much lately, no. But I did see him this morning.”

Relief slams into me. This morning is good. It means he left his apartment today, so maybe he really isn’t in there.

She must read something in my face as I try to make out what her response means, because her expression softens. “You a friend of his?”

“Something like that.” My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to. “I flew in today, but he’s not answering the door.”

“Oh.” She glances at his door like it might tell her something new.

“Yeah.”

“Not sure what to tell ya. Maybe he’s out or something.” She nods slowly before disappearing back into her apartment, leaving me alone with my bag in the hallway.

I check the time and realize just how late it’s gotten and I’m giving up hope that he’ll open the door tonight. My phone is dying, so I book a hotel two blocks away while I still have battery and text him one more time.

Me:

I’m getting a hotel a couple blocks over, but I can come over here at any moment. Please let me. We can work through whatever it is together.

I watch the message sit there, once again delivered with the little timestamp mocking me every time I check it.

I feel stiff and heartsick with the unknowing, but I stand and press my palm flat against his door one more time. “Marcus, I’m going to go to my hotel now, but call me or text me, please, and I’ll come right over. I promise.”

This isn’t how I imagined this trip going at all. I don’t sleep much, even though I’m exhausted because being in a hotel room without him feels wrong. My phone stays clutched in my hand on full volume waiting for a response that doesn’t come.

CHAPTER 27

Marcus

Ialmost had myself convinced I was delirious and there was no way Evan could really be at my door.

But it’s definitely him.

“Marcus? It’s me. Please open the door.”

I’m lying on my bed in the dark, my phone still face-down on my nightstand, and despite the plea in his voice, I don’t move. It’s less of a decision and more of a paralysis. My body is simply refusing the instruction my brain keeps sending it: Get up. Go to the door. He flew across the country for you. Let him help you.

But nothing.

Getting to work this week took everything I had. The thought of standing and unlocking the door is too much. That’s what nobody understands about my depression, especially not my own mother. It isn’t that I don’t want to get up. I want to so badly that it aches underneath the numbness, but I just… can’t. I can’t engage. I can’t get my body to cooperate.

I pull my knees up and curl in on myself.

Because with him, there’s also the fear. If I did have the strength to open that door, he'll see my mess. The sheets I haven’t changed since he slept in them. The dishes piled in the sink. The record still exactly where I set it in December when he was here, proof of a promise I couldn’t keep for him. My unshaven face.

Right now, there’s still a chance I’m the guy who took him to the Bean and made him breakfast. The guy who made him laugh, who washed his hair, who took control in bed. If he walks in here, that version of me is gone. Erased. He’ll see the real one and I can’t handle that.

I hear him settle against the door. Hear the small sounds of him getting comfortable on the floor.

“I’m going to sit out here. I’ve got nowhere else to be.”

I hate that I’m so messed up. That even when the one person I want most is twenty feet away, I can’t get to him. He’s worried, and I want to call out to him. I get as far as opening my mouth, once, twice, and nothing comes out. My throat’s closed because I’m still convinced that if I just stay quiet enough, small enough, still enough, this will hurt less than reaching for him and finding out I’m not enough. I don’t know how I’d survive him leaving.

Sometime later, I hear him stand before he speaks through the door again.

“Marcus, I’m going to go to my hotel now, but call me or text me, please, and I’ll come right over.”