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“Mhm,” he said as he walked past her to the kitchen. No hug, no kiss.
“Miles,” she said to get his attention, but he seemed a thousand miles away.
He walked into the kitchen, looking at the cabinets, the fridge, the oven, but didn’t touch anything. It was as though he didn’t know where he was, or what was happening.
“Miles, talk to me.”
“We’re done.”
“What?” The word left her mouth before she realized she spoke. With his odd behavior, she had no idea what he was talking about. What was done?
“We’re done,” he repeated. “That’s it. I’m leaving.”
“You’re…” Saundra hugged her arms around herself as she tried to process what he was saying. “You just got home. Where are you going?”
Miles rubbed one of his eyes roughly with the palm of his hand and she realized he was crying but trying to not show it. “Saundra, I’m leaving you. We’re done. I’m just grabbing some stuff and then I’m leaving.”
“No you’re not.” After everything they’d gone through she was surprised by her defiant response, but it was as true to who she was as anything she’d ever said. Before, he had been spiraling down, satisfied to let his life dissolve into nothing. Now, though, something was wrong. He wasn’t breaking up with her because he was unhappy with her. She could see it all over him, from head to toe. This was a full attitude change in the span of hours. Something had happened.
“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” he said and walked past her. “This just isn’t working out.”
“Bull,” she said, following him down the hallway. “I’m not letting you just leave me. Not now. Not after everything we’ve been through for years. Years, Miles.”
“That’s why I’m leaving! It’s been years. It’s obvious this isn’t going to work out. We should just cut our losses and let that be that.”
“That’s not good enough. That’s not nearly good enough.”
Finally he spun around, throwing his arms out. “What do you want from me?”
“Answers.” She cocked one foot to the side and crossed her arms. She could tell he was upset, but she was expecting anger. In the dark twilight coming from the one light on in the kitchen, what she saw on his face wasn’t anger, but frustration.
“It’s not safe,” he said, his voice breaking. “For your own good, you need to stay as far away from me as possible.”
“Miles, talk to me. What happened?”
“I messed up, Saundra. I messed up bad.”
“Tell me what’s wrong. We can fix it. We’ll work through—“
“No!” He shoved past her and strode down the hall. She called after him, but without looking back, he left the apartment and slammed the door behind him. Saundra flinched at the sound and stood in the relative darkness of the hallway, alone.
Saundra sat at her desk, grading papers. She hadn’t heard from Miles in days. Not a call, not a text, nothing. She’d tried to get in touch with him, but he just sent her right to voicemail. Emails, texts, everything all left read yet unanswered.
She tried calling all of their friends, but none of them had heard from him. If any were lying about it, they were damn good liars. She spent a couple nights going to all of the bars she knew he liked to go to. Nothing. No one had even seen him, or anyone like what she described, come in for a while.
In all her life she’d never felt so lost. It was one thing when they were fighting. He was still there. Now, though, she felt the emptiness that he left behind. When a funny commercial came on, her first instinct was to tell him about it. Now she couldn’t. When she thought of food, sleep, work, anything, he came to mind.
Their lives had been so intrinsically entwined for so long, everything she did involved him or thoughts of him in some way. To be without him was to be without half of her life. All she could do was hope he would get in touch with her again, and get on with her life in the meantime.
Moping at home wouldn’t solve anything, even though she could never quite talk herself into exactly why she had to get out of bed every day. She simply did it because running on autopilot was easier than anything else.
When she got home that day, there was a large manila package waiting in their mailbox. It was addressed to Miles, but the return label had some attorney guy on it. Whatever it was, it would concern both of them. She sat down on the couch and hoped for answers as she tore open the package.
Inside was a mountain of paperwork detailing something about a child and back pay for child support. Could this have been the issue? Did he think she would be mad if she found out? The only thing she was upset about was that he felt he couldn’t trust her with this. After everything they’d been through, this was something actually out of his control. If anything, they could refute the claim and demand a DNA test. Four years was a long time to wait to claim someone as a father. They had to have the right to protest it.
Saundra slapped the papers down on the coffee table and sighed thinking that maybe she was seeing a bigger, clearer picture of what was going on.
Miles shouldered his way into the motel room that had become his home for the last few days. The paper grocery bags crumped as he set them on the small cheap table beside the door. On the table beside the bed, his cell phone rang.
