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Dammit, dammit, dammit!
I scrambled through my bag to find my phone and pulled it out. The battery was dead, and I cursed as I ran into the locker to throw it onto the charger I always kept inside. It took a moment to boot up, and when it did, I cursed again into the empty room.
She had called me at least once and texted me a half-dozen times. The last one made me shake my head. I had to fix this.
I guess one night was enough, the text read. Have a great life, Kieran.
A series of angry emojis followed that, and then there was nothing.
I couldn’t believe I’d missed so much from her and yanked my phone off the charger. I could charge it in the car. I had to go.
17
SOFIA
I’m lying in my bed, and the smell of something on the stove catches my attention. It’s got a sweetness to it, but heat. Lots of heat. I can pick out onions and pepper, tomatoes and bacon. It has to be a chili. I don’t know how I know, but I do. I sit up and throw the covers off me. It’s my bed, but not my room. Not my covers. Not my sheets. Yet, for some reason, I am fine with it.
It’s the way it’s supposed to be.
Following the smell, I stumble to a nightstand and open a drawer. There are spatulas and stirring spoons inside, and I choose the one that I use the most. He will like that.
I’m wearing a bathrobe now, even though I don’t remember putting it on, and I slip into my combat boots. I hadn’t worn these since I was an early teenager. They made me feel sexy at a time when I was awkward and tall for my age. I didn’t know I was going to stop right there and stay that height the rest of my life, watching people who called me tall suddenly sprout up over me.
Lacing the boots tight, almost to the point where they hurt, I stand and look at myself in the mirror. A mirror I don’t have, yet there it is in the bedroom I think of as my own. I’m wearing fishnets now. And an apron. It’s a look, that’s for sure, but one that will certainly capture his attention.
A soft humming is coming from the kitchen, and I realize I am now in a mirror image of my old apartment. I laugh at how silly it is that everything is reversed. The bathroom is in the wrong place, I think. It should be on this side of me.
Walking toward the kitchen, still feeling like I should be heading in the direction of the bedrooms, I listen for that humming voice. His voice. It beckons me.
Rounding the corner into the kitchen, I see him, in the blue T-shirt and khakis I met him in, stirring a pot with his massive, toned arms. He’s singing to himself an old Italian tune, one my father used to sing when he cooked when Mama was alive. I’m shocked at how good his accent is.
He reaches for a jar of sugar, and I reach out to stop him. No one puts sugar in chili. That’s insane. I go to speak, but my voice is missing. My mouth flaps open and shut, but no noise comes out. Panic starts to wrap its way around me as I reach for him, but the room gets longer. The space between us deepens. He is so far away now. And still singing.
I try to cry out but am silenced by the sound of a loud drumming.
Thump, thump, thump.
A pause.
Thump, thump, thump.
A sound, something that is almost like singing, breaks the silence between.
Thump, thump, thump.
I’m trying to find it, but it seems to be everywhere and nowhere at once. I turn away from Kieran and his faraway voice and search the cushions of the couch, thinking it might be my phone.
Thump, thump, thump.
It’s driving me insane. I have to find what it was.
Suddenly, Kieran is in front of me. He is handing me a coffee, one of my breakfast brews. He’s shirtless now, looking like he just came out of bed. He smiles softly at me and brushes an errant hair from my face. I feel it escape my lips where it had settled.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “It’s just me.”
Thump, thump, thump.
I woke up to the sound of the drumbeat, crossing between the lands of dream and awake. It was real, and it was loud, and it was coming from somewhere in the house. I sat up and looked around my room. My real room. No mirror, no drawer full of kitchen utensils. Just my same old boring bedroom with the furniture I had since I lived with my ex.
Thump, thump, thump.
It was the door. I realized that now.
