Page 141 of When Fate Breaks
“I’m just saying,” Remy continues, “I don’t think it’s so bad for people to outgrow each other. You know?”
I swallow. “Yeah,” I say. “I think that maybe I do.”
At that, Remy gives me a tight smile and hops out of the truck. I follow slowly behind him, glancing at my cell phone as we walk through the front door.
Six hours.
Six hours until I take Blake to the airport for his flight. Why does it seem like so much time yet also so little? There’s still so much to be said between us but also nothing more to be said at all.
I mean, really, what is theretosay? What couldhesay? What couldIsay? No words will change what’s happened or where we’ve found ourselves now. No words will make it okay. No words will turn back the clock and calendar and find us where we could have been so many years earlier. No, that’s not how life works. Life simply justhappens. People change.Fate breaks–
My feet skid to a stop in the hallway and I freeze momentarily before I backpedal the three steps it takes to stand in front of the half open doorway. I had an eerie feeling when I walked past it. Something about the room just felt off. Wrong.
Empty.
The door creaks as I push it all the way open, stepping inside of the room that is now even cleaner than it was two and a half weeks ago, as if no life had ever occupied it. The bed is made and perfectly smooth, not a wrinkle to be found. There is not one Dr. Pepper can littering any of the surfaces or a single baseball cap or flannel thrown haphazardly across any furniture. There is no open suitcase sitting on the closet floor.
There is no Blake.
Panic twists in my chest as I spin around the room, as if expecting him to magically appear from behind a curtain or under the bed. I exit the room, nearly jogging as I head for the bathroom he’s been using. When I reach it, once again, the door is open and the entire room is spotless. There’s not a trace left behind. I try to gather my thoughts as I race down the hallway and towards the door leading to the greenhouse. Maybe I missed something. Maybe he just already packed this morning and set his things aside somewhere that I haven’t seen yet. He isn’t gone.
He can’t be gone.
I push open the door to the greenhouse and the air is completely ripped from my lungs. For two reasons, I instantly feel my knees begin to wobble; the first being that Blake isn’t here, the second being that the greenhouse has been fully furnished and looks like something that I couldn’t have even come up with in my wildest and most whimsical dreams.
I look up at the ceiling, mouth agape, as I step inside and try to take it all in. The sun shines through the glass panels on the ceiling, illuminating the hanging pots evenly spaced along the upper half of the walls, different types of greenery spilling over the sides of each and dangling down. Strands of ivy fill in all of the leftover available space, swooping down from the ceiling and hanging between each of the pots.
My eyes follow the leaves down to the handmade potting tables that line every wall and create a row down the middle of the space. The stain of the wood matches the original wood making up the walls of the greenhouse and the aging of the actual house perfectly, as if they were plucked straight out of time from a century ago. Every plant or flower I could imagine is planted within the variously shaped and sized pots on the tables, bringing so much color and life to the room that it makes my eyes burn with awe. My gaze travels lastly to the tile flooring, perfectly placed and polished and putting the former cobblestone flooring to shame.
I clutch at my chest as I walk down the aisle between the rows of tables, appreciating each and every plant that I know Blake hand picked out. I reach the end of the room and spin around, hoping he’ll just be standing in the doorway waiting to talk my ear off about each and every one of these plants he hand picked out.
He’s not.
I know I haven’t searched every square inch of the house yet, but I know he’s gone. I can feel it in the air. This house that has always felt too big suddenly feels bigger than ever before. It’s quiet.Sovery quiet. I don't know when or how he managed to leave, especially considering what he’s done in the greenhouse this morning, but he did it.
Blake’s gone.
I pace back and forth within the greenhouse, my hands raising to rest on top of my head as my chest constricts. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt this feeling before. There’s only one other time that comes close, but that time, I was the one that walked away. The one that left him.
I realize that at some point I stopped pacing, my hand reaching out to grip one of the tables. It’s only when I slowly look up that I realize it was the very table I was sitting on last night. I pull my hand away as if I’ve been burned, the sensation within my chest honestly not feeling far from it.
I rub my hands down my face, trying to think. As my fingers press into my eyelids, the image of Blake swirls behind them. Every aspect of him. From his backwards baseball cap to his crooked grin to the image of Lake Placid inked into the surface of his forearm.
You’re etched into my fucking soul. You may as well stay etched into my skin.
I shake my head, pushing away the memory of last night. He’s home. Or at least he’ll be there soon. It’s where he belongs. Just like I belong here. Things are simpler this way.
I pull my hands from my face. The moment I let my eyes open, my heart drops, something catching my attention right in front of me. I lean forward, pushing apart two of the large pots full of greenery in front of me to reveal the much smaller one tucked and hidden in the corner behind them. This pot is so different from the rest, gray and simple with tufts of white sticking out of the top.
Baby’s breath.
I start to reach for the pot but stop myself, looking away to blink the burning from my eyes. When I turn back to it, however, the gesture that I simply thought was sweet and thoughtful turns to hopeless and devastating as the small object nestled within the flower buds comes into view.
My heart feels like it’s in my throat as I reach out two very shaky hands, working carefully to remove it from the flowers unscathed. I brush away the final white petals as I free it, staring down at the Polaroid of me and Blake.
I can’t do this with you anymore, Evangeline.
Whatever it is. Or isn’t. I can’t do it anymore.
