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Gunner had gotten caught up in that shit, had been picked up by his bosses just for slinging their garbage. Did they really try to get him help, or did they threaten him once he was clean?
How can I look at Maxim and not see the carnage that family leaves in their wake?
The pain of losing Gunner. The fear of holding onto Maxim. It all just balloons in my chest until it finally pops.
“For fuck’s sake!” I scream, the energy blowing up from inside me. “No! I don’t want to stay here. I don’t need your help. I just need to get my things and go home!”
His eyebrow arches in that familiar way that any other time would have my stomach in nervous knots. I wait for his threat, or him to tell me to lower my voice.
“Is that what you really want? To go home?” His voice is raw, low, unfamiliar. Void of arrogance, his eyes bore into me. “You’d rather be alone?”
“I think it’s for the best.” I don’t recognize my own voice.
His jaw tightens and his nostrils flare when he sucks in a deep breath.
“All right.” He moves his hand and steps away from the bed. “I’ll be in the living room when you’re ready, I’ll take you home.”
“I can call a cab,” I offer, softening my tone.
He looks at me; the dark stubbornness of the first night I met him is back.
“No. I’ll drive you home.”
I stare at him a beat, too exhausted to push him, or too frightened that he won’t push back, I give in.
“Fine.”
For a pulse, I think he’s going to argue, to tell me he hates that fucking word and to put the damn suitcase away.
“Fine,” he says back and pulls the door open.
A breath later, I’m alone in the room with an empty suitcase, an aching heart, and a hollowed soul.
Mandy
“It was sweet of him, though,”Natalie says as she hands me back the receipt I received in the mail. The funeral director refunded the entire amount I’d put on my credit card for Gunner’s burial. It’s the second refund I received today. The cemetery emailed me a similar notice.
“I didn’t need him to pay for anything.” I fold the receipt up and shove it back in the envelope.
“It’s not like he can’t afford it.” Chad walks past me in his boxers and opens the fridge. I’ve been back in the apartment for a week now, enough time for him to remember I live here and to put on pants.
“It’s not about the money,” I argue.
“Mandy, can you really afford going into debt nearly ten thousand dollars?” Natalie tosses a pair of jeans from the laundry basket where she’s folding clothes to Chad.
Everything combined maxed out all three of my credit cards, but I could have paid them off. “I do have a decent job, you know. I would have paid off the debt.”
“Yeah, in like fifteen years,” Chad mumbles. He zips up then goes back to searching the fridge. “We need food.”
“I’ll go to the store this afternoon,” I offer. Natalie and Chad are going to his parents’ house for dinner. Since they live up north, they’ll be gone most of the afternoon and night. Having something to do besides go over everything I could have done differently in the last three years is probably better for my mental health.
“Excellent. I’ll give you some cash.” Chad heads off to the bedroom.
“So, is he living here now?” I grab a pair of socks from the pile on the table and roll them for Natalie.
She sighs. “I think so. You don’t hate it, do you?” It’s her apartment, at least as far as the lease is concerned.
“Of course not. But I get to have at least one Friday night alone in the apartment, okay? I want to come home after work and soak in the tub without having to worry about him barging in or hearing his video games in surround sound.”
