Page 82 of Nonverbal

Wishing you the best,

Paige

P.S.—When I get more money, I’ll send it to you to pay for carpet damage and all the food I ate. Thank you for letting me stay in your home.

P.P.S—Please tell Amber I’m sorry for leaving before she gets back. I still want to be BFFs. I hope she can forgive me in time.

P.P.P.S—I’m sorry I scratched one of your DVDs. Saturday Night Beaver. It happened the first week I moved in. I dropped it behind the cabinet and it got a huge scratch on it and wouldn’t play, so I hid it and didn’t tell you. I’m sorry. I’ll pay for that, too.

I carefully re-fold the letter and set it on the porch beside me. I love her even more after reading that. Even in a breakup, she’s concerned with others.

I don’t have the strength to sit upright, so I fall back onto the old splintery wood and close my eyes. Frank watches me from his window. Good. Maybe I need someone watching me right now.

Paige’s breakup letter is basically ‘it’s not you, it’s me’. I know she believes that. She believes there are all these barriers that make it impossible for us to be together, including who she is. It leaves me hollow because I’m helpless to change her mind. I’ve tried. I can’t convince her we’re perfect for each other, that we can work through our problems and differences, if she refuses to let me.

I can respect her decision to leave. I can stop fighting her about paying me back. And I can let her go if that’s what she wants.

But something in the letter bothers the hell out of me. One line: I just have to go back. Meaning, she went back to her mom and stepdad. That I won’t accept.

I curl my hands into fists. I said I’d protect her and keep her safe and in no way is she safe around her stepdad. I won’t sit here and do nothing while that man hurts her. We can go our separate ways and she can find someone else to love while I wallow with a broken heart for years, but not until I know her asshole stepdad is locked up and she has a restraining order.

Not until I know she’s safe.

My first thought is to call the cops, but maybe I don’t want them involved until after I’ve found that man and pummeled him a few dozen times. I want to call Amber, but she’ll be home in two days. She should focus on finishing her program. I’ll have to do my own research until then. Try to figure out where Paige went. How I can help.

I drag myself inside to the empty, suffocating interior of a place that no longer feels like home, and I locate Paige’s phone on the floor. Thankfully, it’s not broken. I head to my bedroom to grab my laptop. My head is still reeling, but I’m determined not to sit around twiddling my thumbs. I shove Paige’s phone in my pocket where it will stay until I can give it back.

It’s all I have left of her.

Chapter Twenty-One

Paige

I’VE SPENT THE PAST THREE hours sitting in my room with the door locked, scrolling through porn sites and creating a list of movies I’d like to watch. My spreadsheet has eighteen columns, so I can categorize each movie in very specific ways to find what I want, depending on my mood. If there’s any choking, even with dicks, I don’t include it. And no one can get smacked, men or women.

So far, I have thirty movies. But doing research on an outdated, old phone is tedious. My fingers and arms ache. The phone Amber gave me was so much faster.

I need a break, so I move to the pile of Marvel posters in the corner. I need to decide which ones to keep. After living at Brody’s so long in a mostly bare room filled with exercise equipment, I had a panic attack from all the posters smothering the walls in my actual bedroom, the one I grew up in. I love superheroes, but I really went overboard.

To relieve the visual overwhelm, I tore them all down and only put a few of Wolverine, Magneto, and Doctor Strange back up. And General Okoye, Storm, and Dark Phoenix. I need strong women on my wall, too.

At least my posters were still here. Most everything else was sold. There’s only a TV, a bed, and a dresser left, along with some clothes, a few torn comics, and three broken figurines. But it’s only stuff, right? Things. I can collect digital comics, then I’ll always have them with me anytime I want to read.

No harm done.

It’s fine.

Things.

It’s fine.

When I sit on the floor to flip through posters, I pause too long, staring up at an image of Wolverine looking as sexy as ever. Hugh is wearing a white tank. Brody dresses like that. Black instead of white tanks. Tight jeans. A thick, sexy belt. Brody crosses his arms a lot, too.

I open and close my hands. Black tank.

Tank. Tank. Tank. Tank. T-ank.

So what? Lots of men wear tanks. It’s a common clothing item that Brody doesn’t own the trademark for. He looks better in them than any other man alive, but plenty of guys have the same style.

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