Page 13 of Trusting You

5

Carter

I run out of Locke’s apartment, and I don’t know what to do.

The hotel I’ve booked is in Times Square because never having visited New York before, it felt like the safest, most understandable area. I’d had no concept of where Locke lived. Turns out, he wasn’t even on the island of Manhattan.

A long cab ride later, and I was plopped in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a fairly low-key place with few high rises and a lot of little dogs on leashes and independent cafes.

Now that the confrontation with Locke is over, my lungs, which had been air balloons floating me through the fear, stress, and anxiety throughout this entire trip, have shriveled with a tangible pfffffffff as soon as Locke shut his door on my back.

I choose the closest cafe because I need coffee. A red eye. A black eye with more espresso shots than coffee.

I step in, enjoying the tin ceiling with cute patterns resembling royal crests and the small maroon lounges arranged among regular tables and chairs. A local artist adorns the wall, this one with a penchant for portraits of women in various cultures. I settle into the atmosphere, using the external, creative environment as a sieve against my inner turmoil and worry—a constant emotion that hasn’t waned despite the weeks separating me from Paige’s death.

My fingers itch to call the foster family, but I order my coffee instead. A nervous habit is to tuck my hair behind my ears, and I do it constantly as I wait, the waves falling into my face because I keep lowering my head to stare at the floor.

I don’t have the family’s number. I’m not privy to that kind of information.

I haven’t seen Lily in weeks.

After watching Lily grow from a poppyseed to a nine-month-old, I’m aware that two weeks is an eternity of missed time. She could be talking right now, said her first words. She could have learned to walk because she hadn’t done that yet when I had to say good-bye. She hadn’t cried when I left because she wasn’t aware I was leaving for good. I helped raise her with Paige, from the birthing room to the moment CPS showed up at our shared apartment and told me they had to take her.

Always a people person, Lily loved being held, by anyone. She had a smile for everyone, even those who didn’t smile back. She smiled for me.

Oh, God. Oh god, oh god, oh god. Lily, I miss you.

My heart hurts. My eyes burn, and I put pressure on them, refusing to cry in a strange city in a comforting cafe, alone and drained.

“Black eye for Carla!”

I peer through my fingers. Seems independent cafes also get names wrong.

“Thank you,” I say, and go about pouring in cream and some sugar. I flash back to Lily grabbing for sugar packets in restaurants, and both Paige and I laughing in exasperation as we push all potential choking hazards to the other side of the table.

I take a seat, coffee steaming and too hot to sip for the moment, so I call my roommate instead.

“Hey,” Sophie says as she picks up.

A few weeks after Paige died, I realized I couldn’t afford a two-bedroom apartment alone and advertised for a new roommate. To prepare, I’d had to box up the remainder of Paige’s stuff. The first time I stepped into her room, I’d doubled over in the doorway, the smell of her hitting me before anything else. Lavender continued to scent the air, despite the last few weeks of her in that bed becoming sicker and sicker, moving around less and less.

“So, I talked to him,” I say to Sophie now.

“Wow.” I picture Sophie getting comfortable on our shared plaid couch Paige and I had pilfered from an elderly lady’s garage sale. “How’d it go?”

“As expected, I think. He’s shocked, kind of appalled. Doesn’t want her.” My voice cracks at the end.

“Don’t come to that conclusion just yet,” Sophie says, so calm and controlled. I’d advertised for a new roommate, but it turned out I didn’t have to because my co-worker, Sophie Addison, small in stature and blunt in nature, had a lease running up and was looking to move. We met for coffee, and we clicked, despite my noticeable, newly-minted, anti-social tendencies. She loudly accepted, and it was obvious she was perfect. So great, in fact, that I’d confessed everything to her within two days of her moving in.

And she’d taken it all with the same carefree tone she was using now. I joke she should be a bomb diffuser instead of a data analyst. Not much gets to her.

“I know that. I do,” I reply. “But part of me was hoping he’d jump right in, save Lily, and I’d get to see her one more time.”

“Give him the space he needs. You just told a manwhore he’s a baby daddy. It’s a lot to process.”

“Yeah.” I use my free hand to wipe under my eyes and sniff. “It’s why I’m calling. He asked me to stay on a few days.”

“That’s great. It means he’s thinking it through.”

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