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“So, you are avoiding the fact that you haven’t heard from Lizzy.”
“You know what? Fuck you, Rams.” I turn, get into my truck, and start driving.
I don’t need him giving me a hard time over this. My phone rings. It’s him calling, but I ignore it. I won’t come tonight at all. I’ll send an apology text to Meredith later. I keep driving, not wanting to go home, but not having anywhere else to go since Noah’s a dick. Somehow, I find myself in front of Elizabeth’s house. I can’t keep driving by because she’s unloading groceries and she glanced over her shoulder at the sound of the engine, dropping three bags when she sees it’s me, so I go ahead and pull into the driveway.
She’s standing there with one grocery bag left in her hand, but she hasn’t tried to pick up the ones she dropped. I get out and come to stand across from her. There’s a disconnection between us. I can feel it. If there wasn’t, she’d be smiling. She’d have said hello already. She wouldn’t look nervous because I’m here. I should probably say something, but I can’t.
No single word, or string of words, seem to sound appropriate or good enough. She’s standing over there in a pair of heels, slacks, some dressy top, a coat, and that lipstick. She must have just come from work. She’s fucking beautiful. Hey is not a good enough word to say to her. How are you? is too plain and not well suited for this because her eyes are bloodshot and puffy. I can figure out how she’s doing; I don’t need for her to tell me.
But what is she going to do? Is she going to break and let me hold her? Or is she going to go off on me? Which part of Elizabeth is winning the war inside of her right now? The one who wants me, or the one who has dealt with so much pain in her life that she gets stuck and stops moving forward?
“What are you doing here?” she asks in a tone just shy of a normal conversational tone.
I shrug. “You’ve been ignoring me.”
She nods. That’s it. No excuses. No lies. No act of defending herself. Just a simple acknowledgment of the truth. Her eyes are already welling with tears, even though the conversation has been relatively light.
“What happened?”
She shrugs.
“Elizabeth.”
“Why are you standing way over there?”
“I’m right here.”
“No, you’re not.” She holds her arm out and it’s not long enough to reach out and touch my chest.
She’s a few inches short. Her arm drops.
I walk forward until she’s having to crane her head back to look up at me. The other bag falls as her arms loop around my waist and her face presses to my chest. Only now do I relax. As long as she’ll let me hold her, then things will be okay. As long as she’ll let me hold her, then she isn’t pushing me away.
“Marco,” she whispers. Why hadn’t she said that sooner? Maybe she doesn’t realize that all she has to do is tack that o to my name and I immediately know she needs me. All she has to do is call me that, and I’ll come running. Why hadn’t she said it sooner?
It doesn’t matter now.
“Polo,” I whisper back.
“I’ve missed you.”
“Didn’t have to,” I point out.
“Would have anyway.”
I cup her face, making her look at me. Silent tears fall down her face. I kiss her gently. “Go unlock the door. I’ll get the groceries.”
“We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Marc,” she starts, but I interrupt her.
“Elizabeth, go do as I asked.”
“You didn’t ask.”
I smile because this Elizabeth I can deal with. I remove her arms from around me and nudge her toward the door. I pick up the groceries from the ground, then the rest from the trunk of her car, and close it, feeling proud of myself that I managed to grab all of them to make only one trip. Elizabeth is in the kitchen. She’s changed into a pair of sweatpants, a long sleeved T-shirt that looks too big for her, and her hair is up in a small ponytail. She starts putting things in their rightful places while I watch. She knows where she likes to have her groceries and I’m not about to mess with her system.
