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No shoes.
No… nothing.
Just the fear and shame and crushing grief as I ran down the street, shoulders ramming into other people as I passed, not seeing them, blinded by the tears.
I don’t know if he followed me.
If he did, he gave up quickly as I ducked down one street, then the next, seeking the subway.
It was both an ugly and a beautiful thing, the way the city minded its own business. So that a woman having a complete breakdown on the subway went all but unnoticed.
I didn’t even try to pull myself together, just let myself shatter into a million little fragments as the subway carried me away from the man I had, without meaning to, against all logic and reason, had given my whole heart to.
That wasn’t bad enough, though.
Because the walk from the subway to my old apartment had me realizing other things. Smaller, in comparison, but significant.
Like the peony necklace sitting on the bathroom counter. Like the figurine on my dresser. Tokens of Emilio’s affection, gone forever, never to be seen again.
And, of course, Billy and Joel.
With their sweet little meowing and the purrs that shook their whole bodies. With their big, curious eyes, and their super snuggly fur.
I didn’t make it inside my building, just dropped down on the front step, letting more of the pain bleed out all over the place.
“Christ, Avery, it’s just an eviction notice,” a voice said, making me look up through the tears, finding the landlord looking at me with wide eyes.
Great.
Just wonderful.
On top of everything else, I was getting evicted.
Peachy.
Just fucking peachy.
My life, the complete and utter disaster.
What else was new?
I wouldn’t have even blinked at an eviction before. That was nothing new.
But I felt more cracks forming in my foundations, crumbling me from the inside out.
Because, for a short, beautiful while, I’d gotten a break from all of this. The uncertainty. The constant struggle. The crushing weight of all the responsibility falling on my often incapable shoulders.
“You still got twenty-five days,” he added, shuffling his feet, uncomfortably with my reaction.
“Okay,” I agreed, getting up, turning, and walking away, going into the building, up the elevator, and to my apartment.
Familiar, yet foreign.
The air was stagnant from being closed up and vacant for so long, but I didn’t so much as crack a window as I walked through the living room, down the hall, then into my bedroom, falling into the bed, and getting completely swallowed up by the misery.
I couldn’t tell you how long I stayed there. I think I cried myself to sleep at one point, only to wake up and begin all over again.
Grieving the loss of a man I loved.
The future I had started to envision, despite the odds.
And, yes, the feelings of betrayal and hurt and confusion I had caused him. This man who had been nothing but good to me. Great to me.
“The fuck did you expect, kid?” a voice said, coming from the direction of my doorway.
Through my swollen eyelids and the seemingly never-ending tears, I could make out Renzo. Handsome and unaffected as ever.
“You can’t fuck the mark and expect to get married and have two-point-five kids and two cats with him.”
I knew this was just how he was. Straight-talking, no nonsense, borderline unfeeling. That was just how Renzo Lombardi was. How all of them were.
But the image he painted only made the cracks spread wider, made more grief pour out.
I curled tighter into myself, the sobs louder, almost uncontrollable then.
“Christ,” Renzo said, pushing off the doorframe, and making his way over toward me.
The bed depressed, and a hand landed on my head. Not really rubbing or anything like that, just a solid presence.
“You’ve had a fucked life, huh?” he asked. “Ain’t helping when I show you shit you want but can’t have, is it?” he added, seeming to talk mostly to himself. “Shoulda known you weren’t cut out for it. But you were all I had.”
I probably should have been offended by that. But I could only acknowledge it as the truth. I wasn’t cut out for it. And I was all he had. That was what it came down to.
Family over everything.
And that blood didn’t run through my veins.
That was something I’d been acutely aware of all of my life.
“Hey, you gotta stop this,” Renzo said. And not, surprisingly, in that bossy-ass tone he usually used, a voice that said I was being stupid or inconveniencing him or something like that. If anything, it had a hint of concern in it.
From Renzo Lombardi?
That seemed… unlikely.
“Can’t keep going on like this,” he added. “Head and heart can only take so much before something cracks. And I won’t be visiting you if you have to take a slipper-sock vacation,” he added. “Even if it is my fault.”
Renzo Lombardi accepting blame?
That seemed even more unlikely.
