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“I’m not hungry,” I assure her. “But a glass of wine sounds great.”
The other voices I heard are Tori’s mom and stepdad, Mia and Luke, who also sit in the living room. A couple bottles of wine adorn the table. Mia beams at me. “Tori texted to tell me you’re going to be roommates. That’s great news. I worry about her living alone, a young woman in the city, you know.”
Mom nods in agreement, pouring me a glass. “Oh yes, it’s scary. Things aren’t as safe as they used to be.”
I take a seat beside her. “Have you heard from Garrett lately?”
“Last week. He’s doing well. At least he says he is. I can’t imagine anyone loving Alaska this time of year, but he says he’s raking in the money working on those oil rigs.”
It takes a few minutes for the conversation to turn to the Stokes. “How did she die?” I ask Mom. “I know you said it was an accident.”
“It was. She…fell asleep in her bathtub.” She gives me a look like we’re discussing something taboo.
I expected a car accident or a fall. “She drowned?”
I look over at Mia, who presses her lips together. “Yes, one of her friends found her when she didn’t show up for work.”
What isn’t being said is evident to everyone. She didn’t fall asleep. She was drunk. “Didn’t you tell me she had quit drinking?” I ask Dad.
He nods from the recliner across from me. “She had for a couple of years. Recently, she fell back into the bottle pretty hard. We helped her out when we could and her boys checked on her, but you can’t make someone quit.”
“They have to want it,” Luke agrees.
“Those poor boys,” Mia says, sipping her wine. “They’ve had a hard way to go. Now they lost their mama.”
Alden confessed to me long ago, during one of the nights we lay curled up in my bed, that his mom drank all the time. I asked him if he thought it was her job as a bartender that led to it, the easy nightly access. Either way, he had told me, it was his dad’s fault. He’d left her, broke her heart, and put her in the position to have to bartend.
I didn’t argue with him. He needed someone to blame and hate then, and his father wasn’t exactly undeserving of it.
“Did anyone live with her? The house is dark and only her sedan is in the driveway,” I point out.
“No,” Mia replies. “Oliver moved into Greenlawn Apartments.” She taps her lip with her fingertip. “Oh, about six months ago, I’d say.”
“And Alden?”
Dad speaks up. “He lives in an apartment above his bike shop. I used to worry that boy would end up in prison or worse, but he seems to have outgrown the wild child phase. Looks like he’s doing well for himself.”
He made his dream come true. I’m happy to hear it. The wine combined with the little sleep I got last night starts to catch up with me, and I excuse myself to go to bed early.
My old room hasn’t changed, but Mom has put fresh sheets on my bed and left the window open a crack to air it out. It feels surreal to be back here. Did I just leave my boyfriend and the city I’ve lived in for the last five years?
That reminds me, I need to call and quit my job. It was a part-time gig cleaning hotel rooms, nothing glamorous, but it made ends meet and let me save a little when I didn’t get enough freelance work.
Photography is my love but making money in it can be hard. My childhood thoughts of traveling to photograph models was farfetched. Mostly, I’ve taken family shots, senior photos, and sold a few shots for marketing.
Despite my exhaustion, my mind won’t shut off and let me sleep. Now that I’m alone in the dark, anxiety seeps in. It’s probably to be expected since I uprooted my whole life on a whim.
I don’t regret it. Sometimes, I have trouble coping with change, and staying in Florida would’ve been a comfortable decision, but not the right one. It was never the plan.
After tossing and turning for hours, I’m starting to doze when I hear it. The soft squeak of the window sliding up. All I can see is his outline as he closes the window, and I flip on the bedside lamp.
My heart squeezes in my chest. Alden has changed in the two years since I last saw him. At twenty-four, his face has lost the last scraps of boyhood softness. Maybe it’s the scruff. His hair is longer than I’ve ever seen it. But his eyes. Those dark eyes that stare into mine are full of despair.
A knot in my throat makes it difficult to speak, and I swallow hard. He stands in his own silent struggle until I pull the covers back and utter, “Get in.”
He tosses off his jacket and jeans, then climbs under the blanket. The years apart fall away when he puts his arm around me.
I lay facing him, my head on his shoulder. “I tried to call you. And texted.”
