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I stand on the porch, trembling as he reverses out of my driveway then peels off into the night.
48
HARRY
My alarm wakes me up at 7:00. I roll over in bed and Nadia’s not there. Instead I find myself cuddling with the half-eaten box of Chinese take out sitting on the pillow beside me.
Gross.
After spending the night tossing and turning, pacing the hallways, pulling my hair out, trying my darnedest to be angry with my wife, I have no idea when I eventually fell asleep. I’m tired as shit and I just want to hide out from the world. But today is Mom’s moving day. I promised her I’d help and I may be torn up over the tragic state of my life but I want to honor my commitment. I want to be there for my mother. I refuse to flake on her.
I lift my head off the pillow and peel a lo mein noodle off my cheek. Yuck.
Okay, I need a minute to actively get my shit together before I reemerge into the world. Because I’m disgusting right now.
I stumble out of bed and peek down at my driveway. Nadia’s car is gone which means she somehow snuck over here and drove off without me even realizing it. Fuck.
I head into the bathroom and nearly trip over a pillow that has somehow found itself on the wet, tiled floor.
My house is a mess.
My life is a mess.
I take a quick shower and throw on some sweats I find on the floor in the hallway. I’m going to need to do a load of laundry at some point. And I should probably call my cleaning service for an emergency visit or else I’ll be calling pest control to have this place fumigated before next week.
I jog down the stairs from my bedroom, sending Mom a text as I go.
ME: Haven’t forgotten that you need my help today
ME: I’ll be at your place within the hour
I dig around in my fridge, hopping around a random sweater that’s sitting in the middle of my kitchen floor for some reason. At the counter, I toss a bunch of shit in the blender to make my workout mix. My tired brain starts wandering to places it shouldn’t. Like to Nadia.
Wondering what she’s doing. How she’s doing. If she’s okay.
I hate trying to hate her. I’m getting really tired of trying to convince myself that I don’t miss her. That I don’t need her.
That I don’t fucking love her. That’s a lie I just can’t swallow.
And the truth is, the way things transpired wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t trying to hurt me. None of this was deliberate on her part. It’s all just a big, steaming shit sandwich slapped together by fate.
Why am I even torturing myself with these ideas? I’m getting traded to the other side of the country. And we both know that she’d never leave her precious job to be with me. In all fairness, I wouldn’t expect her to, either.
In any case, I don’t want to sort through these feelings right now. I’d rather just ignore them.
So I focus on the blender. Lose myself in the blender. Become one with the blender.
I jump out of my skin when something soft and bouncy whacks me in the back of the skull.
“You fucking shithead. You’re alive.”
At the sound of Davis’s voice, I spin around and spill half of my breakfast all over the counter. “What the fuck, asshole? Are you on a mission to kill me?” I grab a towel and try to sponge up the goopy smoothie now dripping onto my floor, only adding to the messy disaster that is my life. “How did you get into my house anyway?”
My brother strolls into my kitchen all dressed in his cop uniform and holding a Wildberry coffee cup in one hand. “Spare key.” In his other hand, he waves the dull chunk of metal in my face.
“That’s for emergencies.” I snatch it away from him.
“Nobody in the family has seen or heard from you since you stormed out of the bar three nights ago. That qualifies as an emergency. Consider this a wellness check.” He snatches the key right back from me.
