Page 68 of Fight

“Ask for what I owe you. I know fucking you isn’t enough,” I said.

Ioan dropped his hand and glared at me but then covered, hiding his emotions that way he did so well.

“Money. That’s what you’re worried about?”

“Is there something else?” I asked.

My mind willed him to tell me there was. More than anything I wanted him to hold me again, tell me there was nothing to worry about.

He took a step back. “I’m taking Bunica home.”

A split second later, he was gone.

After he’d left, I felt worse than I had before. And it was all my own doing.

I’d let myself get comfortable, had been so needy and weak, so desperate for the life I’d wanted that I let myself believe it was real. But Ioan’s silence said all that needed to be said, reminded me that there were no happy endings for people like me, just like there had been no happy ending for my mother.

I jumped when the front door closed with startling finality.

I’d been foolish.

No more, though.

I reached for my shoes.

Ioan

“Patricia didn’t saygood-bye,” Bunica said once I got into the car after helping her in.

“She’s tired,” I replied absently, hardly able to say the words around the anger in my throat.

She snorted. “That doesn’t seem like Patricia.”

It didn’t, not at all. In fact, except for that first day, I didn’t really remember her ever being tired.

“It’s nothing,” I said.

I didn’t have to look at her to know her skepticism was clear. “I like Patricia. You should keep her around.”

I’d been trying to do just that, and P had thrown it back at my face. Coarsened what I’d thought was growing between us by mentioning money. As if I’d take a dime from her.

Bunica’s soft chuckle brought me out of the brooding mood that had descended. “Have you told her?” she asked.

“Told her what?” I replied testily.

“That you love her.”

I’d parked and now looked at her, frowning.

“I don’t know where this is coming from but—”

She patted my arm. “You haven’t. And that’s okay, but don’t take too long. Patricia is strong, but she’s fragile too. She needs to hear the words, Ioan.”

I helped her out of the car and got her settled inside, but the entire time my mind was racing as I considered what she’d said. Considered even more what had happened with P.

Could she really question how I felt about her? I tried to show her every day, and thought that I did. But I’d never said anything, content to keep things undefined, unspoken if that meant she would stay. I’d been driven by cowardice, but if words were what she needed, I’d give them to her.

I’d give her anything.

When I got back to the house, I called, “P?”

She didn’t answer, which was unusual for her. The kitchen was empty, so I went to our room, the sheets still crumpled from this morning, and found it empty.

Same with both bathrooms.

It hit me then.

The entire house was empty.

Because P was gone.

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