Page 40 of The Seven Year Slip

“Iwan?” I called, and fear mounted in my chest. Because it was the kind of silence that I remembered from just after Analea died. The kind of soulless, unlivable silence that made me want to runaway as quickly as I could. The kind of silence that sat with me as I unpacked my boxes. As I put her things away in the closet. I took another step into the apartment. Then another. “...Iwan?” My voice was softer now. Mostly eaten by my own panic.

This was the kind of silence that was so loud it screamed.

When I rounded into the kitchen, the lights were out and the kitchen was clean, my box of dinnerware from my old apartment set beside the sink, open and halfway unpacked. There were coffee cups still on the drying rack, having never made it to their spots in the cabinets, the napkins in the peacock holder empty. In the living room, everything was orange-yellow with evening light—like a still life portrait, framing the space where a robin’s-egg blue chair no longer sat, its impressions still in the oriental rug.

No. No, no, no—

I took a step back, then another, hoping that maybe the apartment would realize its mistake and quickly correct it. But it didn’t. And then suddenly, I was running out the door.

I slammed it closed.

My hands were shaking as I unlocked it again and stepped inside.

Dark and silent—and present.

I closed it, and opened it again—andagain.

On the fifth try, I just stood in the open doorway, and looked into the empty apartment where golden evening light streamed down into an apartment that was no longer lived in, and I knew that was it.

This—whatever this had been—was over.

No more conversations over cardboard pizzas or dancing to a dead woman’s violin song in the kitchen or kisses that tasted like lemon pies or—or—

The neighbor across the hall peeked out of her apartment. Shewas an older woman with thick black hair and glasses. She gave me a worried look. “Clementine, is everything okay?”

No, no, it wasn’t, but she wouldn’t understand. So I reeled myself in. Cobbled myself back together. I’d taught myself how to do it over the last few months, and I was very good at it. A mason excelling in the art of walled-off emotions. “Fine, thank you, Miss Avery,” I replied, surprised at how even my voice was. “Just coming home.”

She nodded, and ambled back inside.

I pressed my back against the door to B4 and breathed in, deep, and then breathed out again. My knees felt weak, my chest tight, as I sank down to the carpeted floor. I tried to tell myself that I knew this was going to happen, tucking all of thewhat-ifs in my head into a small box—all of the impossible weekends I’d made up, learning about the birthmark on his clavicle and the scars on his fingers that kissed one too many knives.

“It was a perfect weekend,” I whispered, keeping my doubt at bay. “Any longer and it would turn out bad. You’d find out that he listened to Nickelback or—or worse.”

One weekend was enough.

One memory was plenty.

Itwas.

A wave of grief rose in my chest. I wasn’t just going to accept that. I took out my phone and opened my browser, and there on the ancient, carpeted floor of the Monroe, I tried to find Iwan, where he was, where hecouldbe. I searched every keyword I could think of—Culinary Institute of America+dishwasher+line cook,North Carolina,lemon pies,Iwan...

I scoured every link, every strange Facebook page, and I came up with...

Nothing.

It was as if he were a ghost, and I could only think that the worst had happened. That he was gone. That maybe, in fact, hewasa ghost now, a memory on the far side of some graveyard. And even if he wasn’t, even if he was still alive, I was more certain than ever that I’d never see him again.

My aunt had warned me. Rule number one, always take your shoes off by the door. Rule number two, never fall in love.

I bit the inside of my cheek and concentrated on it, and told myself if I cried, then that would be it—I would know what love felt like, and this would be it. And I tried—I wanted to cry. I waited for the stinging in my eyes to turn into salty tears, but it never did. Because I didn’t cry over someone I barely knew. That would be silly, and Clementine West was not that.

She did not fall in love.

And she wouldn’t start now.

I sucked in a deep breath, steeled my bones, and forced myself back to my feet. It would be okay. It’d be fine. Keep moving forward, keep my eyes straight ahead. I formulated a plan. Made a mental to-do list. Nothing stayed—that was something I should have expected, something I should have remembered.

I wasfine.

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