Page 54 of Come Home to Me

I glance at him and watch as his features soften, the stress between his eyes melting away as he loses his grip on consciousness. Looks like maybe that nap is happening after all. I tiptoe, quiet as I can, and gather a handful of stuff into a pile. Maybe, if his apartment looks more like the way he’s used to when he wakes up, it’ll help him feel more like himself.

“I told you to leave it.”

Frank’s voice startles me and I whirl, then trip over something and fall to the floor, only to find a woman’s high heel shoe staring me in the face.

The dumbest question in all the world falls from my lips. “What’s this?” I ask, even though I know exactly what it is.

“What’s what?” Frank shifts forward so he’s perching on the edge of the couch and drops his head in his hands.

I pinch the shoe between my thumb and forefinger, as if the material might burn me. “This.” I hold it out for him to see as panic spins, hollow and empty, throughout my body.

Frank’s lips part.

His eyes go wide.

He shakes his head.

“It’s not what it looks like.”

“It looks like a woman’s shoe.”

“It is a woman’s shoe.”

“Then it’s exactly what it looks like. Please, Frank. Please explain how this is anything but exactly what it looks like.” I stand. Images of Frank and the owner of this shoe burn through my brain.

His hands in her hair.

Her mouth on his skin.

The two of them, frenzied, knocking the shelf off the wall in their passion.

I drop the thing and put a hand to my heart. “Frank…?”

It feels like my insides are curling up and drying out. Like everything that was right with the world is now shriveling up and dying. My life was blooming after a long, harsh winter. Tender shoots of growth breaking through the cold ground.

And now…this.

A blast of frigid air shocks my system and my hand starts to tremble in front of me.

“Bree came over—”

“Bree?” I brace myself on the wall.

Frank stands and crosses the space between us in just a few long strides. “Sarah…”

“Bree?” I press a hand against my stomach and draw my brows together.

Frank’s gaze pins me in place. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“You keep saying that but then not saying anything to help me understand what it really is.” I cannot, not even for a second, wrap my mind around Frank sleeping with someone else while I was gone. It’s not the kind of man he is.

But Bree?

There’s just no way.

There has to be a logical explanation for her shoe to be in his living room. There has to be. I wait for him to tell me, fighting back panic riding in on wave after wave of nausea.

Frank’s eyes darken. “You know what? Fuck it. You won’t believe me if I tell you the truth. You’ve already decided that I’ve slept with her. Or…” His eyes go wide before he narrows them. “You’re just looking for a reason to leave me. Now that I have nothing to offer you, why would someone like you stay?”

I open my mouth to respond, but the words get caught by the giant lump in my throat. Someone like me? What’s that even mean? I’ve been nothing but good to him. And sure, I’ve shared my past, and yes, I deserve to be judged. Hell, I judge myself. But is it fair of him to judge me off of those stories when I’ve been different with him? Even after my brother warned me that I might not know the real Frank, I’m still here because I’m willing to judge him off the man I know, not the man he used to be.

Frank glares. “That’s it, isn’t it? You, the woman who wouldn’t go to her own brother’s wedding, the woman whose best friend knows the only thing you can count on her to do is let everyone down…God!” He rakes his hands into his hair. “It makes so much sense now. I thought you were falling in love with me. But you were using me, weren’t you? And now that I have nothing to give you, you’re going to create some big drama over something, regardless of the very reasonable explanation I have.”

I hold out my hands in exasperation. “But you’ve never even given me the explanation!” Was I wrong? Is he still drunk? That’s the only thing that makes sense right now. Frank is too rational to behave this way.

He pinches his brow, then runs his hand along the back of his neck. “I can’t fucking deal with this right now. My head is throbbing and I can’t remember the last time I ate anything but a pizza crust.”

“How am I the bad guy here? Please just tell me what’s going on.”

Frank scowls and for the first time since I met him, I feel like I don’t know him. “You know what, Sarah? I need you to go. Now. Please, just leave me alone.”

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