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All my sewing stuff from Timothy’s place is here, the plastic tubs lined next to the bed, the workstation set up below a window with a view to the backyard. My machines are still in their cases, but everything looks organized.
I open a tub at random and pull out a pair of teal period panties waiting to be embroidered, and my heart tears in half. Maybe my entire being tears in half.
It’s over, then.
He’s not going to try to get me back.
I expected…I don’t know. It’s unfair, but I expected him to fight for us, to realize that I’m what he really wants, and throw himself at my feet, begging me to reconsider.
I love him so damn much and yeah, I walked out, but deep down I wasn’t ready for this to be over. How can he let it be over when he spent five years waiting for me?
Tears fall down my face as I close the door and sink to the floor to cry. He must have realized I’m not worth it. He’s made his choice, and it’s not me. It’s the adrenaline. I should’ve kept my stupid heart to myself. Buried my feelings for him. At least then we’d still be friends.
I can’t cry all day, but I give myself some time to let it out before I push back to my feet and return to my room to shower. When I return to my new sewing room, I’m empty and numb.
My movements are automatic as I set up my sewing machines. My serger is on the left, my coverstitch machine on the right. I’ll set the embroidery machine up later, but right now I need something that will force me to focus. I grab the next bundle of unfinished panties and sit down to work.
My grandmother used to sew while we waited for my parents to come home. I was too young to remember, but she told me how we’d wait, trying not to watch the clock, and the memory of her sad eyes bubbles up now. The steady rhythm of her machine filled the space where she held her breath, waiting for them. I absorbed her dread like a sponge. I still feel it.
Years passed, and I was the one promising her I’d be back. From my first summer job, from a date, from a night with my friends. She’d be up sewing until I came home. One night, when I stayed out too late, she told me if she could smash every mountain, every cliff face, to bits with a hammer to stop my parents from climbing, she would in a heartbeat. I never stayed out too late again.
I get it. If I could smash all the shit Timothy loves…
That would make me an awful person. He loves it and he deserves to have it and I need to accept Timothy isn’t for me.
I miss him anyway.
Everything about him. His smile, his laugh, the way he touches me, his cocky attitude. I miss his quiet moments when he just holds me and sighs happily. The way he challenges me and pushes me outside my comfort zones. I miss him as a friend, as the person I turn to first, as the one who is always there for me.
I want to run back to him, but I don’t see a way through this for us and I don’t want to be there when…when…
When he miscalculates.
I couldn’t live with the guilt of knowing I wasn’t enough for him to stop. I wasn’t enough for my parents and they left me an orphan. If they had loved me more. If Timothy loved me more.
It’s hopeless. Sooner rather than later I’m going to have to figure out how to live with this massive gap in my life. I’ll have to move on. Make decisions about Wild Things and my future.
That day is not today. Today, all I can do is sew.
Chapter thirty-two
Timothy
ThenexttimeIwake, it sounds like someone is pounding on my door with a jackhammer. They don’t go away, so I stumble upstairs and open the door. Bright morning sunshine assaults my eyes and I move to block it with my forearm, but Danny shoves a duffle bag into my hands, followed by a My Little Pony backpack and a brown paper bag from a French patisserie.
“The fuck?” I ask, blinking.
“Language,” he hisses, clapping his hands on the shoulders of his mini-me. His five-year-old daughter beams at me with the most adorable smile. Freya is exactly like her dad, but has the good sense to dote on me.
“Sorry, kiddo,” I say, arranging my load so I can get a fist bump. Then she’s off like a shot to explore my house. “Stay out of the bedroom at the top of the stairs!” I holler after her. I doubt Danny would appreciate Freya wielding a dildo sword. Or holding it to her forehead pretending to be a unicorn.
Danny pushes past me. “Heard you had a room,” he says simply. “Thought we might take a mini-vacation to Uncle Timbo’s house to swim in his pool and eat all his food.”
Great. I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Is my mother paying you?”
He turns a grim look at me. “Remember when Linnea and I were going through the divorce and she was in Sweden on business and I broke my leg? You came over every day to play with Freya and walk the dogs. You made sure Freya had something other than Spaghetti-O’s or frozen waffles for dinner. But even if you hadn’t done any of that, we’re here to look after you now. Would’ve been after the accident, if we were needed.”
I don’t know what to say to that or how to feel about it. Gratitude, embarrassment, and a whole lot of self-pity.
