Page 144 of Fall Into Me

“Love you, kid.” My dad hugged me tight, the way he always hugged me, and with a promise to see me tomorrow for his coffee, they sent me off, waving at me from the porch.

The whole drive home, I was calm and settled. I turned the radio off, rolled the windows down, and let the blistering cool air outside wrap around me. Waking me up.

Finally, it felt like I was aware of the days I was living, not just shocked at how many of them were passing by without me realizing it.

I pulled into the gravel drive, unable to stop the pleased little hum from coloring the air around me. The tires crunching creating the well-loved soundtrack of every arrival home. It was then, when I looked around, that my smile slowly melted from my face.

Fane’s truck wasn’t parked where it should’ve been.

Jerry’s wagging tail thumped a steady rhythm, the sound carrying from inside the house. He was still waiting, just beyond the threshold of the door, for someone to walk through it. The realization rooted me to the spot, frozen next to Delilah’s car, a knot twisting deep in my gut.

He hadn’t come back.

41

Calista

After

I stood outside the house for what seemed like a preposterous amount of time. The thumps of Jerry’s tail were a metronome that pulled me into a state of hypnosis.

The moment it slowed down, I snapped out of my stare. The cold had started to bite at my skin, seeping into my thin sweater, and I tried to convince myself that the lights would be on as soon as the door swung open. Even though I could see no one was home from the darkness of the windows.

My hand hovered over the keypad, frozen as flashes of the gun pressed to my forehead and the knife at my neck replayed in quick succession. Jerry’s tail picked up again, faster now that he’d heard me walk up the stairs, and those faint threads of panic started to dissolve under the steady comfort of his excitement.

The house wasn’t quiet. It was filled with Jerry’s loud huffing snorts of excitement, his nails clip-clapping on the floorboards, and his tail hitting the wall. But it was empty.

I stayed calm the first time I checked every room.

Maybe he’d parked somewhere else and had already gone to bed.

Maybe he was in the backyard with the pillow spread, waiting for me to join him, all the wishes he’d seen crossing the night sky collected and ready for me to use.

By the time I’d circled back to the living room, Jerry on my heels with his tail still wagging, panic had started to wind its fingers around my heart.

I walked back into the bedroom, my eyes drawn to the corner where his empty duffel bag had sat for months. The same one he’d packed up to take to Artington, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember if he’d brought it back in.

Did he even bring it inside?

The kitchen was clean, spotless, like no one had been there. Like no one had lived in it the way we had for the last week.

“Fane?” I called out, this edge of panic to my voice that I didn’t recognize when all that met me was silence.

My mind felt like it was floating in a fish tank by the time I made it back to the living room on what had to be my fourth—or maybe fifth?—–search of this small, shit box house. One that he’d single-handedly turned into a home just by being in it, breathing in it, laughing in it.

My heart sank right into the soles of my feet at the fact that he’d told me he loved me, over and over, and I’d been too fucking scared to say it back.

Even when he’d shown up. Even when he came back. Even when he voiced that question into the dark of our room, his arms wrapped around me, like he thought having the love that was meant to be his withheld was what he deserved.

And I’d let him believe it.

My feet were already moving before my brain could compute. I slipped Jerry’s collar over his head, and we were already jogging to Delilah’s car when the front door slammed behind me, jolting me back into my body. Back from where my mind had been loitering in the memories the house behind me held.

This is what he’d felt.

I was certain of it. This had to be a fraction of what he’d felt when I crept out of our apartment, refusing to look at his sleeping, crumpled form on the couch, and left. When he woke up to find me gone.

I’d been a coward then.

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