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I genuinely believed that to be true. None of them would hurt me. But I also believed that if this shattered my heart, I had been the source of my pain.
“How are you guys doing?” I asked, looking at the sleeping Gabby on the couch, begging him to let me change the subject.
“I’m gonna ask her to move in with me,” he said. I looked at the emotional mountain of a man next to me. “I love her so much, Blake. I don’t want to wait any longer. I want her there when I come home, to our home. I want to marry her, and I need her to know that.”
“She knows that. You know she loves you more than anything, right?”
“Yeah, I know…I’m going to take her to bed. I’ll finish some work in bed, but I’m pretty tired. I’ll walk with you to work in the morning. Night, kid.”
“Night.”
Nathaniel slipped his arms under Gabby, and she slightly stirred. Every time I saw how Nathaniel looked at Gabby, I felt a pang of jealousy and sadness.
That’s what I wanted.
My heart longed for someone who accepted me despite my faults and issues but wanted to help me work through them. I wanted someone who understood me, who listened. Someone who would be willing to choose to love me.
Standing in the darkened kitchen, my greyscale world represented how I felt inside. Empty and alone. My strength and independence since I moved had been a source of pride for the last three years, but the walls I had built to make that happen were crumbling. I felt myself slipping into an emotional mess, and I knew Nathaniel was right. I was getting bold, but I finally felt something again.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I looked around me. My entire life, I focused on accepting beauty in the world despite it being colorless. I convinced myself that I didn’t need color to be happy.
I cherished the sound of the tree leaves rustling in the wind or the crunching of the dead ones in the fall. The smell of freshly baked muffins always made my mouth water. I believed ice cream always tasted better in the sweet air of Scooped at midnight. The taste of my weekly gumbo and tamales brought me a feeling of hominess, and I loved how the bitterness of coffee woke me up before I drowned it in creamer. The feel of my silk pillowcase against my hair or the warmth of the sun, when it snuck past my blinds to warm my face, was comforting. It was all beautiful.
None of that seemed to matter in this moment. For the first time in my life, I craved nothing more than to see the beauty of the colors that I knew surrounded me. Not for what they would have looked like but for what they represented.
Chapter Seventeen
Friday night.
Fifty-days left.
My date with Erik snuck up on me, and before I knew it, I was walking up to his apartment door. The door was dark, with the peephole staring back at me as I stopped myself from knocking. A pang of guilt and regret, outweighed by curiosity, rushed through me.
He didn’t specify how I should dress, but he lived in workout clothes, so I opted for comfort. Finally, I found some courage to knock, and the sound of the hollow wood rivaled my pounding heart.
“Hi, Button,” he opened the door with a wide grin and moved to let me inside. His smile didn’t fool me; his fingers tapped furiously at his side.
The apartment was tiny, barely bigger than a shoebox. The door directly opened to the living room and the glorified corner that could be called a kitchen. The furniture was generic, and there were no decorations.
Erik looked at me expectantly as I turned to see his creation. It was shockingly similar to how I found our living room after work one time after a big fight. Almost identical to what we had spent doing for weeks one summer. I turned to him, his face instantly morphing into a smile at seeing the light in my eyes.
Deja-vu.
I walked towards the couch and touched the blanket draped over the TV. The velvety feeling was oddly familiar and unsettling at the same time. The image in front of me had to be a mirage. I worried that it would dissipate as soon as I touched it. The fabric of the second blanket felt soft between my fingers as I ran my hand over the seam.
He had built a fort. Not only had he built one, but it also looked exactly like the one we had built in middle school. We had spent countless hours trying to make a fort that wouldn’t fall immediately and perfected a foolproof design that lasted for hours. Those forts became a staple in the game room of my mom’s house, often staying up for days. They became my haven. Where I went when things got hard. Erik was the only one who crawled in when I would burrow myself between the pillows.
After a particularly challenging and long trip in my first year of work, we argued when I came home. He was mad that I had been gone for over a week. It was the first time I didn’t apologize for traveling because that trip cemented that I was doing what I loved. It had been five days of meeting with six different potential clients, which all ended in rejection. Yet, I came home increasingly determined to improve and master my job.
When I walked through the door, the apartment looked like a hurricane had battered it for weeks. Four days of beer cans littered the living room coffee table. Plastic and real plates covered the island, along with dirty pots and pans. Last week’s laundry I had started for him before leaving sat on the bedroom floor. I wouldn’t have been as mad had he not started the argument with,“You were gone for a week. What did you expect to come home to? A palace?”.I didn’t expect a palace. I expected the apartment to look like adults were living in it.
I turned around immediately and walked out the door. I slept at my mom’s house that night. The next day, when I came back to talk to him, the apartment was sparkling clean. The smell of lemon and disinfectant greeted me at the door. An immaculate fort sat in the living room as a peace offering. We spent all weekend in it.
“This is adorable,” I said. His tapping slowed.
“I figured you’d like it,” he walked over to the other side and held the makeshift door open for me.
I got on my hands and knees and scooted in. A little pile of snacks was in the middle, accompanied by two bottles of chocolate milk. He scooted in next to me. As we got older and taller, the fort grew with us.
