Page 100 of Bad at Love

It doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. In a way, it feels like a relief. They’re no longer dangling me by a string, watching me fight to hold on and laughing. Now, I’m free. Yet, at the same time, I’m sad and confused. Why can’t they just accept me for who I am? That question may never have an answer, and instead of putting energy into it, I should put energy into moving on.

“Yes, I know. Organize first. Don’t throw anything away until you have looked at it. One room at a time. Trust me, Storm, cleaning is my thing. I’ve got this.”

He laughs, giving me another kiss. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you,” I say, holding up my gloved hands. “This feels good.”

“You’re a strange man,” he calls out when I move into the first room of the house—the living room. Guess it’s as good a place to start as any.

If we get this room clear, it’ll give us plenty of space to store things. I don’t know what he plans on doing with everything in this house, but he said he was selling it. Meaning, everything has to go. The best way to get through all of this stuff is to make piles—keep and discard. In order for that, we need space. This is a big room that will give us plenty of space, so making room here makes sense. It’s also the front of the house, which will make moving things out easier later on.

The room is full of boxes stacked on top of one another and some trash—mostly newspapers and magazines. I have no idea what’s in the boxes.

After taking in the room and looking for a safe place to start, I move to the right side and pull down a box stacked high on top of others. The one on the bottom is squished, this stack looking likeit may fall over if we stomp our feet too hard. If it fell, it would cause other stacks to fall and cause a serious problem since there are so many of them.

I set the box down, open it up, and find a ton of magazines. They’re all issues from a few years ago, all with his mother’s name and this address. I move the box to an empty spot by the door and keep going.

Every box on this side of the room is filled with magazines. All types. Home, cars, gardening, gossip… anything you can think of. I’ve gone through at least a hundred boxes, and the other side of the room is more packed than this side. I bet they’re full of the same thing.

“Storm!” I call out, moving toward the hallway that leads to the kitchen. He pops his head around the corner, raising a brow. “One side of the room is done. There are only magazines in the boxes.”

“Really?” He frowns.

“Yeah, I went through every one of them.”

He nods. “Okay, well, that’s all trash, then.”

“I figured as much. Have you thought of getting a dumpster?”

“Probably a good idea. Let me call them now.”

I go back to sorting through boxes, and after two hours, I get through every one of them in this room. Thousands and thousands of magazines. Each box I get through makes me sadder than the last because this woman was not okay, but I am not the right person to have that conversation with Storm. Hoarding is a real problem, and a lot of times it comes from loss. People afraid to get rid of things because they’ve lost so much already. Funny because I feel like Storm is the opposite. He’s afraid to get attached to anything. I don’t know that for sure, but considering what he moved into my house with, I can only assume. Maybe it’s rude of me to diagnose him, but that’s why I won’t say anything to him unless he brings it up. It’s not myplace and I don’t want to upset him further. This isn’t easy on him to begin with.

Once all the boxes are organized in a way that will be easy to get rid of, I stare down at the floor. There are paths worn into the cream carpet, while there are nearly perfect squares that are much cleaner from where the boxes sat. It’s all a very sad thing to see. My heart aches for her, and for what Storm dealt with. Some of these boxes were filled with magazines dated from when he was here. This hoarding isn’t anything new, nothing he wasn’t aware of. He admitted that maybe he was lying to himself about some things, so at least he recognizes that. He doesn’t need to say it out loud to me, I’m pretty sure he knows.

“You okay?”

I look up. “I’m good,” I answer with a smile.

“Dumpster won’t be here for two days.”

“Okay, well… we can organize everything to throw into it.” I run my forearm over my head to rid it of sweat.

“That’s what I figured. I actually hired some guys to toss it all away.”

“You didn’t have to do that. I don’t mind helping.”

He walks up to me, putting his hands on my waist.

“And I appreciate that, but we don’t need to be here throwing things into the dumpster for hours.”

“I don’t mind helping you, Storm,” I reiterate, this time more slowly. “You’re not a burden or anything.”

He huffs out a laugh. “I know that.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah, I do. Trust me, that’s not my issue here.”

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