Page 2 of Silver Fox
I’d gotten real sick over Christmas, and the three of us were isolating together, turning the holidays into a full-on coronacation. It hit me like a freight train, but Brett and Sara were irritatingly unaffected, meaning the two of them were stuck in this apartment together caring for me and snarling at each other. For over a week.
And then by the time I was better, they seemed to have worked out their differences.
Brett’s talking, begging for a second chance, and Sara’s sniveling has gotten louder, but I’m not listening to either of them. I’m staring straight into the middle distance, feeling Axi purr in my arms and his cold, wet nose against my collarbone.
When I finally make eye contact with Brett, he lights up like the Christmas tree they probably fucked next to. “I need some time,” I say, my voice faint.
His nods are desperate, but I can see the frustration in his eyes.
“Just give me a couple of days here by myself. I can’t…” I swallow, “I can’t look at either of you right now.”
Brett’s stupid curls jingle again. “I’ll go stay with one of the boys and you, you let me know when you want to talk. I’m not going anywhere, alright?”
He takes my blink as acceptance, and they finally leave me alone. Sara seems to have gathered what little shit she brought with her whilst Brett was begging. She tries to catch my eye at the door, but I’m staring resolutely ahead, focusing on nothing except the cat in my arms.
Brett, on the other hand, is in our bedroom. I can hear the drawers opening as he presumably gathers what he needs for a couple of nights away. Axi leaves my arms to settle on his cat tree, nuzzling into his favorite furry cushion.
A few minutes later, he comes back out into the living room—now fully dressed in one of his wrestling championship hoodies—and stares at me with remorseful eyes. “Text me. Call me.” He moves to come closer but thinks better of it, and for that I’m grateful.
I don’t want his face near mine. I know where it’s been.
When he finally closes the door, I move quickly, dashing to throw the deadbolt before he has a chance to change his mind. As soon as the metalclanksinto place, my emotions run free, and my face twists into a mess of emotion and betrayal.
I clap my hand over my mouth, staggering towards the bedroom. The bed appears to have remained untouched since I left it earlier, thank god.
The bed swallows me whole as I land in it, my shoulders shaking with the force of my sobs. Bryaxis lands on my squidgy hip a moment later, slinking into his favorite little spoon position between my arms and curling those dark toe beans. “I know,” I sniff. “I just need to get it out, then we can sort our shit out.”
When my tears run dry, I pull my suitcase out from under the bed.
After shoving a random assortment of clothes, make-up, and toiletries into the suitcase, I glance at my bookshelf. It’s packed full of special editions—from stalker romances to meet cutes to brother’s best friend galore, I have them all.
And right now, I have to leave them behind. I pick out a couple of my favorites and stash them in my suitcase, wrapping them each in a thick layer of clothes to protect those edges.
My final scan of the bedroom has an aching finality about it. I’d need to come back at some point to collect the rest of my belongings, but it was an empty feeling, losing my home in a single night.
Because I was the one who had moved in with Brett. He was the head tenant—and the landlord was his uncle.
I was out on my sizeable ass.
Axi’s stuff takes longer to pack than mine does. His food. His treats. His toys. I can’t fit his favorite bed in the suitcase, but then a genius idea strikes me.
Brett has some of his old stuff in a vacuum-packed bag, so I dutifully turf that out into a pile on the bed, feeling like a Strong, Independent Woman as I neatly put Bryaxis’s vacuum packed bed into the suitcase.
My final walk through the apartment is tinged with sadness. This apartment was where we brought Axi home. All his kitten photos are taken here. And now I’m going to leave it all behind. Because I can’t stay here for another second. My sister and Brett have well and truly tainted this place for me.
For some stupid,stupidreason, a line from a poem I studied in high school comes to mind.
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
Or when you fuck your girlfriend’s sister on Valentine’s Day. Same thing, right?
Seven o’clock finds me sitting in a hotel room, listening to the buzzing of Axi’s baby monitor and wondering what I’m going to do with the rest of my night. The first thing I’d done after checking into my hotel room was go to buy Bryaxis the cat tree of his dreams with the money I’ve saved for Brett’s birthday next month… before I realized I didn’t have a goddamn address to send it to.
Depressingly, the next thing on my list had been some emails from work. Kenneth, my boss, had sent me home early at the last minute—unaware of the sliding doors style consequencesthatdecision would have on my life. Then the bastard had the gall to call and ask me to log into his computer remotely to sort out some invoices hecouldn’t be fucked to deal withwas too busy to upload himself.
If ever there was a job to take betrayal off my mind, logistics wasnotone of them. The company designed and manufactured mobility equipment, but I was the personal assistant to the logistics director… andgodit was dull.
