Page 35 of Where We Belong

“What did you imagine? A live-in baboon?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

He chuckles. “Washer’s right there.”

I walk toward the kitchen, noticing once again how tidy the place is. But the more I look, the more I see it’s not just clean; it’s empty. The living room only holds a gray two-seater and a television stand. Same thing for the kitchen, which only has the bare minimum. All the basic furniture is there, but there’s barely anything personalized about the place. It almost looks as if it hasn’t been lived in. There’s even a couple cardboard boxes stacked next to the kitchen table.

“Did you just move in?” I ask.

“If by ‘just,’ you mean ‘more than a year ago,’ then yeah, I did.”

I hum, then continue exploring the kitchen space. The only items that don’t seem like they were already here when he moved in are the few trinkets spread across the windowsill above the sink. Some sort of wooden mask. A tiny music box. A clay sculpture. Russian dolls.

“What’s all of this?” I ask, dragging a finger over the dolls.

“Just things I picked up while traveling.”

He must’ve traveled a lot, then.

Finally, I make my way toward the door he pointed at earlier, and sure enough, inside are a washer and dryer.

I drop my basket to the floor, then look over my shoulder to find him standing in the middle of the space, watching me.

“You don’t have to stay here, you know,” I say.

“Why? Afraid I’ll see your panties?”

I roll my eyes. “I meant you probably have work to do.”

“Actually, I’m a quite free man this morning,” he says as he walks to the four-top dining table and lets his body drape over one of the chairs. He scrunches his nose. “Disappointed you won’t be able to look through my stuff while I’m away?”

“Very. I was looking forward to finding a collection of weird shit you keep. Miniature Winnie the Poohs? Nudie mags, maybe?”

He laughs as I start unloading my basket into the washer, the majority of the load just leggings and tank tops. And then, my hands land on my competition leotard, and for a fraction of a moment, I freeze.

Apparently, that’s enough for Finn to pick up on it.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“I have eyes, Lexie. What’s wrong?”

I huff, then answer, “Just a bad luck leotard.” Lifting it back in front of me, I add, “Maybe I could leave it here, actually.”

If only that competition had only been due to bad juju. I know well enough the leotard has nothing to do with it, and by the way Finn’s face turns serious, he does too.

“What happened?” he asks.

“My first competition happened.” I put it aside, to be hand-washed at some point. Can’t waste a perfectly good one, no matter how many bad memories it may bring. I might just wait a week or six before getting to washing it.

“I gather it wasn’t good?”

“You gathered right.” I close the door, then pour detergent into the appropriate compartment. It’s been days, and I still haven’t processed the competition. I don’t know how to move on. The feeling of falling from the beam still haunts me at night. The sucker punch of shame I felt at the audience’s gasp lives in my mind rent-free.

But I think what’s made it so much harder to handle has been my loneliness through it. Before, I would’ve had a team behind me, comforting me that this was just a hurdle in the road. But this time was different. I had no one to talk to, utterly alone, and it was proof that maybe I deserved to be.

Maybe it’s all that loneliness that gets me to tell Finn, “Came in sixth overall. Got bronze for vault and silver for floor.” I don’t bother mentioning the fourth spot on bars and the horrible beam ranking.

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