Page 46 of The Spider & the Storm

I'll never be ready.

“Hey!” she exclaimed when she realized I was home. “How was the interview?”

“Good,” I choked out, closing the door behind me. “I got the job.”

“Charlie!” She turned off the vacuum and ran toward me, arms outstretched. “Congratulations!”

She hugged me tightly, and I lowered my chin to touch the top of her head. It hadn’t been that long ago when I could look straight into her eyes, but somehow, in the past seven years since meeting her, I’d grown over a head taller. How did that justhappen? How had I not noticed?

“Thanks,” I said as the hug ended and she took a step back.

“Are you excited?”

Her grin was contagious, and I grinned back.

“Yeah, actually. It’s a pretty cool job, and I like the old guy I’m working for.”

She reached out to touch my elbow. “Good. I’m so happy for you.”

I nudged my head to the side toward the stairs. “Luke awake yet?”

Her happiness and excitement wilted immediately, like a flower denied rain and sunlight. “Nope. He’s out cold. Still breathing though, so I guess that’s something.” She said it with a lighthearted air, but I thought we both questioned if the day would actually come when Luke would go to sleep and simply not wake up. It was a problem neither of us ever talked about much, and maybe it was just that we didn’t know what else to say that hadn’t already been said.

How many times could you mention that someone needed help before you simply stopped mentioning it at all?

“I guess I’ll start cooking,” I said, then held up the bag. “And, hey, I got ice cream for dessert.”

There was that happiness again, lighting up the room. Her eyes twinkled as she asked, “Double fudge brownie?”

“Would I get any other flavor?” I rolled my eyes as I walked past her toward the kitchen. “Come on, Mel. You know me better than that.”

***

Luke did eventually wake up, just before dinner was ready, but he complained that he felt too much like dog shit to even think about eating.

So, he hung out in the bedroom he shared with Melanie while she and I had dinner. And even though it might not have been the first meal we shared in each other’s company, it was the first one to begin with a strange discomfort and almost-complete silence.

She set the table while I brought over the pot of pasta, and we moved around each other in an odd, practiced dance but without a single word spoken. We sat simultaneously across from each other and filled our plates.

We chewed and buttered our bread and drank from our glasses, and the whole time, I wondered,What is she thinking?

Part of me worried that she was already planning her escape from this house. That my thought of forewarning earlier hadn't been a premonition of the future, but the present.

Don't freak out. Not yet.

It would help if she fucking said something.

Then, as if she were gifted with the ability to read minds, she said, “I don't know what to do with him anymore, Charlie.”

The sound of her voice was so abrupt and unexpected at that point that I nearly jumped out of my seat as my eyes bounced from my plate to meet her gaze.

“Yeah, I know. I don’t either.”

Melanie pulled in a shaky breath as her bottom lip began to tremble. “I just …” She clamped down on that lip to stop it from quivering, even as her eyes flooded with tears. And then she justgave up altogether, allowing them to fall freely as she continued to speak. “I just miss him so much, you know?”

I did know, and I nodded. “Yeah.”

“And that’s crazy, right? Missing someone who is literallyright there, right in front of you … but it doesn’tfeellike him. Sometimes, it does. Sometimes, I talk to him, and I’m like,Oh, there he is. There’s Luke.” She gasped with a sob as she wiped her face with the backs of her hands. “And all I can do is hope that’s the time he doesn’t go away again, but he always does. And, God, Charlie …” She dropped her head into her hands. “I’m just so tired. I’msofucking tired. I’m tired of missing him. I’m tired of hoping he’ll want to talk to me. I’m tired of begging him for any kind of acknowledgment. I’m tired of lying in bed, wishing he’d fuckingtouch methe way he used to or that sex won’t feel like a goddamn chore.”

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