Page 42 of Tell Me When It's Over

The thought makes me frown, and I’m glad he can’t see me. His eyes are on my face though, I can feel the burn of his gaze even in the darkness. “I had to sell them,” I admit quietly. There were a few signed copies that I’d found at secondhand stores that got me the most money when I sold them to other thrift shops. Money for a meal or two, sometimes three. “Most of them barely got me what I paid for them, not that I blamed anybody. I think the owners only gave me as much as they did for some of them out of pity.”

This time there is a pause. I don’t even hear him breathing, and I glance in his direction as he slowly lays back down. “You sold all of your books?”

I hum out a confirmation.

“What did Katherine have to sell?”

For a while, I say nothing. She sold various pieces of jewelry, an item of clothing or two that “didn’t fit her style anymore”, at least according to her. But that was it. I tried convincing her to sell the car because that would help us out more than selling anything else. We’d gotten into another fight over the suggestion, leaving me frustrated and her even angrier. She’d stormed out and I didn’t see her for almost two days. “Her life,” is what I eventually tell him.

If she would have just sold the car…

It’s suddenly impossible to breathe, and it’s getting harder to hold back the tears that want to fall, but I do it.

One night.

I let myself cry for one whole night.

I didn’t want to do it anymore—to hold onto somebody who couldn’t do the same, no matter what I did for her.

“Christ, Lenny,” he whispers. Then I feel a hand snake over and find mine in the sheets, our fingers threading like the day they did at Dominick’s.

“It got me through,” is all I can offer him. I miss my collection, as aged and torn and beaten as they were. Most of the covers had little scratches or bends, some of the pages were ripped, and a few even had little things written in them. Thoughts, doodles, random things. But it gave them character and I liked it.

For the longest time, neither of us says anything. We lay there, both now on our backs. I stare at the ceiling and count his breaths. Inhale. Exhale. Again, and again. Eventually, we sync. We always have.

“I wish…” His voice cuts the silence, making me turn my head as his fingers tighten around mine. “I wish things were different,” is what he says, and I don’t ask him how different.

I don’t ask him why.

Mostly because it wouldn’t make a difference either way. Wishes are a thing of fairy tales. Fables that do nothing but waste people’s breath. I learned that after casting my own far too many times to count.

But also because…I’m afraid of what he’d do differently. Right now, I wouldn’t want to change a single thing.

Not his hand in mine.

Not his warmth blanketing my body.

Not his scent caressing me to sleep.

He might say something else, but I’m not sure. I fall asleep, and it’s blissfully dreamless.

I’m two and a half hours into my shift at Delmar’s when I hear a commotion in the lounge. When I peek my head around the corner from where I’m restocking, my eyes grow wide at the two men with cameras being pushed toward

the door by the assistant manager Mel.

“We just want to talk to her,” the biggest one says, looking around the room. I quickly back away when his eyes trail in this direction.

I hear Mel tell them how little she cares while the door opens, the bell signaling her eagerness to get them out. Quinn pops up beside me a few moments later looking sheepish. “I think you should work back here for the rest of the day.”

Paling, I give her a tiny nod. She’s been looking at me all morning in a way that makes me squirm but hasn’t said what’s clearly on her mind. I’m surprised she and Harmony haven’t prodded more about Garrick’s arrival or how he obviously knows me, since Harmony seemed a little too enthralled when we all walked out together that day. We don’t always work the same shifts, though, so she hasn’t hounded me with questions about it.

“And Mel wants to talk to you,” she adds.

Closing my eyes, I silently thank whoever is willing to listen for making this happen on a day Mr. Warren isn’t here. That doesn’t mean Mel won’t fire me the second I walk into the office, but I can hope.

I set the box of coffee cups aside and head into the back where Mel is waiting for me in her office. Surprisingly, she has a warm smile on her face when she tells me to sit down in the chair across from her.

“This isn’t my first rodeo with paparazzi,” she begins lightly, folding her hands atop the desk. “It’s no surprise they come in here and pester a few of the customers if they see them roaming, but it’s rare they come heckle employees.”

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