Page 79 of Come Back To Me

I shove the door and it hits her in the chest. She’s pushed back a few inches and then she flings the door open, her mouth puckered and angry.

I laugh. I meant to antagonize her and it works because she takes a step toward me.

“I may not deserve him, but he chose me. I always knew what you were up to,” I say. “All of your questions and underhanded insults. You think you have him? You silly little girl. I feel sorry for you because you’ve never had him. You don’t even know what it’s like to have him.”

Her faces flushes and then she slaps me. My head snaps back, my cheek on fire. I don’t retaliate because I’ve made her hurt. It’s what I wanted and it will last longer than the sting of her hand.

“Goodbye, Petra. Pack your shit and get the fuck out of my husband’s house.”

And then I walk away. The wind has picked up and my dress blows around my ankles. I lift my arms above my head as I walk and let the Seattle wind lick my skin. It’s cold and I am alive. Finally, I am alive.

I know she’s afraid. I can feel her fear on my back. She only had him because I didn’t. I walk until she can’t see me and then I double over and cry so hard my stomach hurts.

I left him. The person who is so afraid of being left. I hurt him the way others had hurt me. What did that make me? I didn’t know what he’d say or do when he saw me, if I were David I’d never take me back. Never. I broke his trust.

I don’t call an Uber. I walk, and I know what I have to do. I don’t know where he is. But, he made it so I could find him. He gave me an IOU.

There is a hardware store on 4th Avenue. I stop to peer into the window, giving myself a minute to decide if this is what I really want to do. The next twenty minutes go by quickly. I press the call button on the wall and one of the guys who works there comes over to open a case for me. I make my selection without speaking. If I speak I will cry, and if I cry I will not stop crying. So it goes, so it goes.

It wasn’t even gradual, the change in me. It came suddenly, clarity…maturity.Grow up, Yara,I told myself. And so I did. I put away the childish things and I grew up.

I follow him to the register and he asks me if there’s anything else I need. I shake my head and pull the dollars from my wallet, green and crisp. They’re foreign to me again, all the male faces. I’ve been gone a long time.

When I leave I carry my bag up streets so steep my thighs burn, past men and women who hold cardboard signs asking for help, past Westlake Center, and across the 405. I feel the mist as the clouds open and rain gently rests on my head. It’s a soft caress, a reminder of where I am, and for that reason I don’t call a car. I need to think, burn off all this emotion. He did big things, and I’ve done big things, but surely this is the biggest thing, changing.

I flew across the world to show David that I’m not over him. That I’d never be. I had to snuff out my pride and fears to do that. And what he did with this grand act makes no difference anymore. This was for me first, then for him, then for us. I deserve love. Maybe not from this man who I’d abandoned and hurt so deeply, but from someone. It’s a matter of being ready to accept love.

I follow the directions to Capitol Hill. A white brick building with three pink letters above its door: IOU. People stand outside waiting to be called on, some of them huddled underneath umbrellas, some of them not. They look hungry. I walk right past them and step into the restaurant, shivering from the change in temperature. The smell of garlic and butter floats past me as a server walks by holding a plate over her head to avoid collision. The restaurant is much the same as the one in London—same structure, same booths, same dress code for the servers and bartenders. The only difference is the Seattle skyline painted on the main wall of the dining room. I head straight to the bar, shaking my can of spray paint as I walk. The roll of the ball syncs with my steps, an unlikely instrument that plays along with Nirvana’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night.” There is the wall:Come back to me. Come back. Come.Kurt sings—My girl, my girl, don’t liiie to me…

I pull off the cap and toss it on the ground. Shaking, shaking. The roll of the ball inside of the can. My heart beats steady and fast.

I tag the wall, underneath the neon sign. There’s enough room for my message.

I’m back. Find me.

The talk in the bar slows, dims. Over the music I hear someone say—“Oh my God, what is she doing?”

I walk over to the bar when I’m done. The bartender is panicked, looking around for a manager. I set my can of spray paint on the counter.

“Are you hiring?” I ask. I grin at him as he stares openmouthed from me to the wall. “Guess that’s a no, then?”

No one tries to stop me and I walk out singing, “In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine. I would shiver the whole night through…”

It only takes me the length of one song to deliver my message.

DAVID

“David…?”

I shake my head, squeeze my eyes closed, and then hold them open. I had been dreaming when the phone woke me. I rub my eyes and look at the clock: 10:00 p.m. I must have passed out watchingCalifornication. I mute the TV.

“Yeah,” I say.

“David, sorry to bother you, but there was an incident tonight at the restaurant...”

The voice…I know his voice. What was his name? Dan…Mark…Greg! That’s right, Greg, the manager of the Seattle IOU. I reach for the nearest glass and take a sip, expecting it to be water. Vodka. I flinch, but keep drinking. Half the bottle is gone, no wonder I passed out.

“What’s up,” I say. The fuck with the bright lights in this place? I stumble over to the light switch and turn them off.

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