Page 28 of Your Chorus
“I can’t!” I threw my hands up in the air, and she jumped at the volume of my voice. “You’re right, okay? I can’t leave you. You’re fucking right, Nadia. You win. I’m not leaving you, but I am not going to stop seeing her, and I am not going to deal with this right now. I’m going to bed.”
I was the farthest thing from tired. Everything in me had sparked back to life, but I couldn’t keep fanning the flames. I had to shut down. I always have to shut myself down.
I refuse to become my father.
Nadia stayed out in the living room, and I laid myself down on the bed fully dressed. I stayed there until eventually the blood pounding in my head got sluggish and I finally fell asleep.
I didn’t know the sound of our shouting had reached Roxanne as she walked up my street. I didn’t know that she came back and stood next to our window, listening to the whole thing. It wasn’t until that night that I found out she went home, packed a suitcase, and got on a bus to Quebec City a few hours later.
I showed up at Monroe’s door in the evening, planning to take them both out for dinner since Nadia was working, and the look on Monroe’s face was enough to make me ask what was wrong before I even took a step inside.
“I was going to call you. She made me promise not to call you until she was on the bus. She...She left, Cole. She wouldn’t tell me what happened. I tried to stop her, but...she’s gone.”
I couldn’t feel Monroe’s hand when she reached out to grip my shoulder.
Roxanne was gone. Just like everyone else, Roxanne was gone.
