Page 18 of Watching Ames

It felt like a brand, claiming me with his scent, and I hated the small thrill it sent through me. I imagined heading into the coffee shop and running into him there, getting close enough for him to smell his mark on my skin.

I brushed off the fantasy, digging back through the drawer until I found Alex’s apology note, the silver envelope hidden under a metal spoon, and placed it in my purse next to all the rest, the cards no longer stinging like they had before Alex’s apology. And just before I went into the living room to celebrate with Bex, I spritzed myself one last time with the perfume, and it was almost as if Alex was here with us, celebrating the end of this journey like he was the first to celebrate it at the beginning.

* * *

Our celebration extendedinto the early afternoon, Bex treating me to lunch from a food cart down the street. We ate as we walked back to my apartment, stuffing our mouths with dumplings and bao. We were laughing over an explosion in the kiln the other day, resulting in a headless unicorn and a crying child, as we walked up the stairs to the second floor.

It felt good, laughing so hard after the rough week I’d had. Rough months, really, if you took into consideration the fighting and loneliness that had taken place after my fight with Peter. I watched Bex laughing beside me, blonde hair messy around her face and cheeks pink from the wind. It had been a roughyearfor Bex, with her ex-boyfriend and the trial that came after.

We were still laughing when I opened my apartment door, almost running right into Peter’s latest assistant, the one obsessed with neon sticky notes. I could see them clenched in her grip as she hiked her bag further up on her shoulder, looking down her nose at me even though she worked for my boyfriend.

She spoke in clipped tones that matched the short directives in her emails and the passive-aggressive notes she always left around my apartment. I’d barely ever spoken to her in person before, likely because she preferred dealing with me from afar, slapping sticky notes on my walls to get out any excess anger rather than speak to me like a person. I expected her to have brought my mail or something equally trite but instead she told me, “I brought you boxes for the move and labeled everything that will need to be painted so you get your deposit back.”

I felt Bex’s gaze boring into the side of my head as Peter’s assistant finished her exit out the front door, pushing between Bex and me. Knowing what was coming, I entered the apartment, waiting for Bex to follow behind me so I could shut the door to block out the yell I knew was coming my way.

“I can’t believe you.” Her voice wasn’t the yell I expected but rather an even tone that scared me more than a scream. I expected annoyance at the news, a few well-placed barbs about Peter’s and my relationship. Instead, her eyes were accusatory, complete betrayal and disappointment conveyed in the set of her jaw and the narrowing of her eyes. All the happiness that had lit up her face moments before was gone, replaced with the familiar anger she showed everyone but me.

“Whether or not you believe me, this is my life.” I tried to remind her as gently as possible, a pit forming in my stomach as I watched Bex’s face turn further to stone. She had always been good at this, shutting people out, holding grudges, but never toward me. Watching as she shut me out twisted my gut, and worry began to fray my nerves as I wondered if I finally crossed a line she wouldn’t immediately forgive me for.

“It is your life. But you’re fucking destroying it. You’re not yourself anymore, just some stepford version of my sister that lets a man run her over. I don’t understand how or why you feel the need to punish yourself by staying with him. Do you think you can’t do any better? Are you scared to move on? Or has he just degraded you so long and so thoroughly that you can’t even see how you’ve lost yourself?”

Each word was a blow, taking the breath out of me. I couldn’t answer her, not really, without delving deeply into the emotions I couldn’t handle right now or without lying to her face.

I wanted to scream at her and rage, telling her about my fight with Peter and what it was actually about, - rather than the vague details Bex had heard when it first happened - telling her about how I made a friend and losing him had left me lonelier than I’d felt in years. How I never got to fuck up and make bad decisions or mistakes because our parents died and I had to become an adult for the both of us. How I knew I’d lost a part of myself but it felt too hard to get it back.

But I couldn’t, because that would unravel the picture-perfect, responsible life I’d been laying out for myself for the past five years. It would require me to acknowledge all of that and then possibly do something about it. So instead we stood there, chests heaving in anger and words settling in the space between us, until Bex got in the last word.

“I won’t sit here and watch as you allow yourself to drown.” She ended the conversation by heading to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her to emphasize her point.

I didn’t stand in the foyer or follow after Bex; I left the apartment, keys still in hand and my purse still on my shoulder. I drove around downtown, mindlessly looking through the racks at a clothing store, window shopping at a newer florist, looping around the library until I had a few new books in hand.

I returned home a couple of hours later, after I'd cooled down, two coffees in hand. It was a tradition between Bex and me, apologizing with coffees or dinner or snacks so that we could move on and pretend the fight never happened. We’d picked up this habit when we were younger, something that had kept our fights short, never lasting longer than a few hours. I had even bought a pastry, something in my gut telling me a singular coffee might not be enough to mend the divide between us.

“Bex?” I called out as I opened the front door, not getting a response. Even as I got closer to her door, I couldn’t hear any movement, likely because she had fallen asleep after our fight or was working her headphones on. I knocked once, giving her a warning before I reached for the door handle. It was unlocked, and I entered the room to find the bed made, closet bare, and Bex nowhere in sight.

Chapter13

Her

The air feltheavy the next morning, though I was unsure if it was my mood or the thick, rolling clouds slowly covering the sun. I waited on the bench outside the coffee shop, the same one Alex and I had last met at -was it only a few days ago?- reviewing the short, single-word texts exchanged between us when I finally gave in this morning.

Coffee

Now?

Yes

I beat Alex to the coffee shop, likely because I texted him while sitting on this very bench five minutes ago. I hadn’t planned to text him; I just wanted to grab a cup of coffee to get me through my morning classes at the studio after a long night of too-little sleep. But walking past this bench, I remembered the conversation between us days ago, how he promised to be there for me whenever I needed him.

So I had caved, just like I knew I would eventually, and texted him.

I knew my fight with Bex wouldn’t last forever. We were all the other had left, which meant she was stuck with me regardless of whether or not she approved of my romantic partners. But it still hurt, having her abandon me so suddenly after our argument. It rang all too similar to what Peter did after our fight, making the wound that much deeper. I had never told Bex the whole story, so while I rationally knew she didn’t mean to add salt to a barely-healing wound, it didn’t lessen the sting any more.

Nor did it make me feel any less alone. Bex had left me, not picking up my calls or answering my texts after sneaking her things out. I worried about where she was living, knowing she and her girlfriend had broken up and she didn’t have much in the way of savings, but I had no way of knowing if she was okay because she had ignored my attempts at contacting her. Peter would be elated to know that Bex was out of my life for the near future, taking my defense of him as choosing him over my sister, even though Bex never even gave me a choice.

I had no one else to turn to, which was why I waited on the bench for Alex, even when the rain came, the small drops suddenly turning into larger ones, plastering my hair and clothes to my body. I stayed there, even when I started to think to myself that maybe he didn’t respond to my “yes” because he didn’t plan on coming.

Because on the bench, I was waiting for Alex and he was coming to meet me, but once I went into that coffee shop by myself, I was alone again, and I wasn’t sure I could handle that right now. I was saved from the rain by a sudden break in the deluge, and I looked up into Alex’s eyes, not warm and friendly like I expected them to be but instead flinty and angry, as if his control was being held onto by a tether. He held a large black umbrella, big enough to cover us both, but he held it directly over my head so that I was protected while the shoulders of his suit grew darker as they were soaked through with rain.

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