Page 18 of Salvation

I’m here because I just had to see her. Just once. I had asked Elise for her address, with the front of wanting to send her a letter. The truth is, I only ever planned on this. I now walk down the street her apartment is supposedly on, squeezing past the large crowds and ignoring the occasional man or woman trying to get me to stop and buy some useless knick knack. I abruptly halt when I see a mop of blonde curls walk into the open doors of a lavish restaurant. My heart skips, and mypause causes someone to barrel into me from behind, spitting out a string of curses that would turn even my mother beet-red. I mumble an apology but don’t let my eyes leave her. I know it’s her. I could spot her a mile away, an ocean away. I start moving again, now much more eager to catch up to her before she disappears. I reach the end of the building, where the windows to the restaurant begin.

I lose her as she moves through the building but catch her again through the shiny, tall glass as a man, both tall and lanky, dressed in a fitted suit that no doubt costs more than my house, stands to greet her. She smiles as he leans in to kiss her.

The excitement I felt, the adrenaline of getting to see her, just speaking to her at least once, is easily replaced with a sharp sting as she embraces another man.

She looks…happy. Not just happy, but euphoric. The city around me slows, reality slipping into a blur. I take one more look at her, allowing myself to selfishly soak her in from just a few hundred feet away while she’s oblivious. Her long, blonde hair frames her soft, heart-shaped face. Her radiant honey-brown eyes and infectious smile. She’s as beautiful as I remember. Yet somehow, nothing like the girl I knew.

At that moment, I turned back onto the busy street. I let her go. Let her fingers that have so delicately wrapped around my heart disappear. I let go of the idea that she’s ever coming back. I don’t even peer over my shoulder as I get right back on the very bus that brought me here.

***

I blink as I take another sip of my beer, irritated at the never-ending reminder of how my visit to New York City went just a little over a year ago. I knew the old woman who lived next door well enough and was devastated to hear of her passing. She wasa nice lady, kept to herself, and had one hell of a sense of humor. We sometimes had coffee on my front porch, or I’d help her with something around the house when she asked. And I always did, even if I had to show up late to the bar to do so. I think I saw myself in her. My future self, that is. Old and alone. Nobody to share a home with. No one to call home. Content with the life she lived.

And now, Blake is living there.

Blake.

The one person I want to keep as far away from as possible. Having her back in town was hard enough to grasp. But having her a few hundred feet awayeverysingle day?

If I had known what she was doing when I ran into her the other day, I would have done everything in my power to talk her out of it. I mean, the woman said she didn’t know if she was staying, yet she still went off and bought a house? It’s too much. Too complicated. I want to be pissed but I’m also so curious. The idea of being so close to her when I can’t even decide how to feel about her being here makes my skin crawl.

Does she not remember what it was like when she left? I had lost my father the year prior, and yes, I pulled myself away and struggled just as any teenage boy would. When she first left, I blamed myself. I thought maybe I had been a bad friend, and given her the impression I no longer wanted anything to do with her. But over the years, I’ve learned there is no one else to blame buther. Did she hurt the way I hurt when I woke up and heard she was gone? No explanation. No idea where she had taken off too. Nobody in our lives seemed to bat an eye after a few days. Everyone just moved on. She couldn’t have been hurting, not really, if she could leave so easily. Does she truly not understand what it means? Where that plot of land is? What it meant tous?

Or is it all some sick ploy to get under my skin?

The questions have been never-ending since I’ve heard the news. I want nothing more than to stomp back to her mother’s and demand answers, but I know I won’t get them. She doesn’t owe me anything, and I don’t owe her anything. Seeing her at Elise’s, emptying her guts over a toilet only made it worse. Because the entire time, all I wanted to do was fall to my knees and make it stop.

I shouldn’t care if she’s sick. Shouldn’t care what the hell is happening to her, yet a part of me does. A part of me may always care. I hate it. I hate it because shedoesn’tcare.

Like I said.Fucking complicated.

Chapter 17

Blake

Warm sunlight streams through the small break in my curtains, and I groan as I roll onto my stomach and stuff my face farther into my pillow. The sound of birds chirping and sheer silence outside of my bedroom is what causes me to lift my head high enough to peek at the old alarm clock centered on my nightstand.

5:55 AM.

As tempting as it is to rest my eyes just a few moments longer, I know I won’t leave this bed if I don’t get up now, and the last thing I need to do is piss off a pregnant woman by being late to work on my first day. I stumble as I catch sight of myself in my floor-length mirror. Something bright and orange stuck to…myforehead?I reach up and snag the piece of paper off my skin, flipping it around to see my mother’s familiar scrawl.

When you decide to join the living, there’s coffee

I scoff but can’t deny the small tug that lifts the corner of my lips. I don’t bother getting dressed yet, seeing as I have a little over an hour before I need to head to work.

The cold wooden steps bite and my bare feet make me wish I had grabbed a pair of slippers or fuzzy socks before making the trek downstairs. The noise of pans clanking, my mother’s hum, and the smell of biscuits fills my chest with warm nostalgia. Nostalgia that feels just as painful as comfortable if I let myself dwell on just how long ago something like this was so ordinary in my life. The last step creaks, as it always has in this house once I hit the bottom of the stairs. “Morning, Mama.”

“Mornin’ Baby. How’d you sleep?” She cranes her neck to peer over her shoulder just as she finishes setting aside a wet, black pan onto the drying rack. I was lucky to favor my mother’s features over my father’s. Even with her messy curls thrown carelessly into a bun, bare face, and her ridiculously fluffy robe, my mom is beyond beautiful. It still stuns me that she never remarried. I know from her old high school war stories that there was more than one man envious of the attention my father won from her.

“Fine.” I raise an eyebrow as I flip the note in her direction. She barely glances at her handiwork as she lets a small smile grace the corners of her lips. For as long as I can remember, my mom would leave notes like these for me to find first thing in the morning. Mainly on days when she knows I could use a little pick me up, or after nights I spent out late wandering the woods with Wesley. Something I know she’s always pretended to be oblivious to. After a day like yesterday, I’m less than surprised to wake up to one smack-dab on my forehead.

My eyes roam over the dining room and kitchen, snagging on the heaping plate of biscuits and gravy. It’s been so long since I’ve sat at this table, and possibly even longer since I’ve had any of my mom’s cooking. My mouth waters at the sheer idea of ahome-cooked meal. Neither Viv nor I could cook very well, so take-out was always our safest option. And any meals I spent with Marshall consisted of plates only large enough to feed a bird; more often than not, I’d have to stuff my face with junk food when I got back to my apartment. Alas, while burgers, pizza, or Chinese food are top-tier food groups for Vivienne and me, something about my mother’s cooking will always take the cake.

With reluctant movements, I pass the food on the dining table and head to grab a mug from one of the cabinets. My fingers graze a familiar green handle, shocked to see it front and center. It’s nothing special. A bulky, unsightly thing, truly. But it’s a mug I made when I was little, and the little chip that still adorns the edge of it is what makes it my favorite. Even the most fragile and cracked things hold beauty. I spare a side glance to my mom, frowning when I go to reach for the black handle of the coffee pot, only to find it completely and utterlydry.“I thought you said there was coffee?”

She shoots me a look before leaning over and jabbing a button on top of the machine, brewing more rich, black liquid into the old coffee pot. “I thought you worked at a coffee shop?”

“Not my fault you’re a java junkie.” I outright cringe when I realize the wordjunkieprobably was the last thing my mother should hear. I go to murmur an apology at the bad joke, but she silences me with a wave of her hand. “If we can’t joke about it, then it wouldn’t be in the past.”

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