Page 20 of Watching Ames

I grabbed my bag and double checked that I had my phone as I unbuckled my seatbelt. I picked up my coffee, feeling through the cardboard cup that the coffee was cold after my crying and subsequent nap. “Damn. I needed that coffee, too,” I muttered to myself as I put it back in the cupholder.

“Thanks for that,” I told Alex as I finally turned to face him, feeling myself blush as I recalled the fact that I was crying in his lap half an hour ago. Not to mention then falling asleep in his car after he was kind enough to drive me to work.

“Anytime,” he responded, his lips tilting up in the corner as if my breakdowns were cute rather than an inconvenience. I had never acted like such a damsel before in my life, but something about Alex brought it out in me. Maybe because despite acting like a damsel, he never made me feel like one, just holding me as I cried and helping me without restraint.

I made my way out of the car, stepping around the puddles that had formed on the sidewalk after the downpour earlier. I turned back as I reached the front door of the studio, Alex’s car still sitting at the curb, and threw him a quick wave as I headed in the door.

Fifteen minutes into my first class, I was already dragging, my late night tossing and turning combined with the crying and lack of caffeine this morning causing a headache to form just behind my forehead. Luckily, most of our intensives were over until the fall, so classes were a bit more laid back, with more familiar faces and independent work that required occasional assistance rather than step-by-step instruction.

As I slumped into my chair, crossing my fingers no one needed me for the next five minutes, I heard a couple quick knocks on the door to the classroom before June popped her head in.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she said as she crossed the room to me, dropping something onto my desk with a smile, “Just had to make this special delivery.”

It took me a moment to notice the familiar smell wafting from my desk, my usual order from the coffee shop already helping my headache to dissipate without even taking a sip. I didn’t bother asking who it was from, knowing exactly who would bring me coffee just when I needed it most.

June rapped her knuckles on my desk to draw my attention away from the cup, making sure my eyes were on hers when she told me, “I like him.”

She didn’t wait for a response, just gave me a moment for the words to sink in before heading back out the door. When my day was over, I walked out the front of the building, unsurprised to find my car parked in the closest spot to the curb, my keys having been sitting at the front desk when I finished with my classes.

It looked cleaner than I was used to, and the scrape that had marred the driver’s side for years after a stray shopping cart hit it in the grocery store parking lot had disappeared. I rounded the front of the car, looking for the scrape on my front left fender, and was unable to find that either. Still standing dumbfounded outside of my car, I shot Alex a quick text.

Did you get my car buffed?

I told you I’d take care of your car.

I shook my head in exasperation, not even bothering to respond because it would do no good. I guess in Alex’s mind, detailing my car was a natural step in the process of dropping it off. Just like paying for my coffee wasn’t enough; he had to somehow convince the baristas to refuse my money at all times.

Rather than try to argue at his unnecessary (but not unexpected) kindness, I slipped into my car, admiring the new-car smell that mingled with something else familiar but that I couldn’t quite place, glancing around at the freshly cleaned interior as I started my car. I flicked my eyes up to my rearview mirror as I prepared to back out of the parking space, my eyes immediately catching on a huge bouquet buckled into the seat behind me.

It was not a recreation of the original, but they’d definitely been created by the same person. The bouquet was stuffed full with burgundy flowers - roses and peonies and zinnias - along with some pale pinks and spiky sprays of white, bell-shaped flowers that I didn’t have a name for. My eyes strayed to the flowers at every red light and stop sign, gratitude welling in my chest.

I carried the bouquet up the stairs with me into my apartment once I got home, placing the vase in the same spot the old one lived. The kitchen slowly filled with the sweet, floral smell that I’d missed in the time since the old one died.

As always, there was a silver envelope, the small square nestled behind the largest blooms, hidden in the foliage so deeply that I had to use the tips of my fingers to pluck it out.

I’m not leaving.

XO

He still signed his notes with his semi-initials, the origin of which I hadn’t asked about. Mostly because I preferred the X’s and O’s to his name, and was worried if I asked he’d change his sign-off.

The familiar initials gave me the opportunity to view Alex and my admirer as two different people, even if I knew they were one and the same. My admirer sent me gifts and flirty notes and haunted my dreams with the commanding voice I dreamt up for him. Alex comforted me when I cried and refused to let me buy my own coffee and also haunted my dreams, but with his actual voice, which was just as deep and sultry as the one I imagined for him before I knew who he was.

But it wasn’t the initials that brought tears back to my eyes and caused my breath to hitch. It was the short sentence he wrote, a promise I didn’t know I needed him to make. It made me realize that it wasn’t Bex’s anger or her disdain for my boyfriend that bothered me. It was how easily she left - and after our parents dying, and Peter leaving, it hurt more than I expected.

* * *

It didn’t hitme quite how pathetic it was to attend my celebration dinner by myself until I stood outsideMorelalone. I hadn’t invited anyone to come with me, thoroughly regretting the fact that I didn’t send a last-minute plea to June or Alex to come along with me as I tried to gather up the courage to head inside alone.

I supposed my failure to invite someone to take Bex’s place was likely because a small part of me hoped Bex would show up, breathing heavily after running from her car and apologizing for being late. We’d make up after our fight, and she’d help me pack for my impending move. But when I was five minutes late for the reservation, I couldn’t hold onto that hope any longer.

The restaurant was crowded, the launch of Maya’s new menu meaning that every table was occupied. I waited at the hostess stand while she led a couple to their table, fidgeting with my dress as it really hit me that I was going to have to sit through this dinner alone, looking like I’d been stood up - which I guess I had, in a way.

“Name?” The hostess returned to her station and gave me a frenzied smile that I met with an anxious one of my own.

“Ames Fitzgerald.”

“Great. I’ve got you down for two. Are we waiting for the other member of your party?” The door behind me opened halfway through her question, and I cringed at the idea of a stranger hearing my embarrassing explanation. I played the conversation in my head, the hostess’s secondhand embarrassment easy to imagine if I told her, “Actually, no, I’ll be dining alone because I have no friends and my boyfriend is pretending I don’t exist while my sister is in town since they don’t like each other. But funnily enough my sister and I are in a fight right now and she was the one who was supposed to come with me. My only friends are my middle-aged boss and a man who has been sending me gifts and lying about it, so anyways, just me tonight.”

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