I slip a fresh coffee pod into the machine and turn it on as I remember how he’d hold my belly and plant a kiss there, just below my belly button, telling me what a wonderful mother I would be one day to his son.
With my throat tight I admit one thing: we were fools. I knew this would never last. I knew it back then. Just like I know it now.
I bite the inside of my cheek and take in a heavy breath, slipping the ceramic mug with Rise and Shine scrolled on the side under the spigot to the coffee machine.
My bare feet pad on the tiled kitchen floor as I open the fridge and search for the creamer, ignoring the old dreams and memories being dredged up. I stare longer than I should at the empty spot on the shelf. I can’t even remember to get creamer. My teeth grind back and forth and the throbbing comes back with a vengeance to my temples.
I slam the fridge door shut as the coffee maker sputters to life. It’s quite something when you’ve fallen so hard that a mundane task like going to the grocery store is enough to push you over the edge. Maybe I’ve truly gone crazy.
The creak of the front door opening is the last thing I need right now. The door closes softly, as if Evan didn’t want to wake me. I wipe under my eyes and push my hair out of my face as I lean against the wall with my arms crossed, waiting for him to make his way in here.
I can’t explain why I feel guilty. It’s all I feel, like everything I’ve done is wrong and I’m the one to blame. Is this normal? I feel like this is what I deserve. Like somehow I’ve orchestrated all of this just so I could feel lonely and miserable. Maybe I had it too good and I decided I needed to go right back to the mental space where I used to feel like I was drowning.
“Morning.” I hear Evan’s voice and the sound of a plastic bag crinkling before I see him.
My lips part to tell him good morning, but then I catch sight of him.
He looks tired, his scruff a little too grown out, his dark hair a little too long and a bit of darkness under his eyes. For the first time I’ve laid eyes on him, he looks older, more mature but still as handsome as ever.
It all brings me to an abrupt halt. His jaw tenses as he rests the bag on the counter and then looks over his shoulder at me. “Did you sleep well?” he asks, barely looking at me before turning his attention to the corner cabinet and grabbing a mug for himself.
“No,” I say, forcing out the word. “Evan …” I try to keep talking but my heart slams at the same time that Evan shuts the cabinet and turns around to face me. He leaves the stark white mug on the granite countertop where it clinks in protest, and I stare at it, rather than at him.
I have to spend time away from him. That’s what I need. To get used to being alone again and stopping this back and forth.
“I need you to leave,” I tell Evan evenly and then peek up at him. It hurts to say the words after last night. I should have said them before, but I was so tired and felt so alone. It was selfish to need him then. I used him in a way, but I won’t do it again. I won’t keep pretending.
He shakes his head, not once or twice but continuously as if he’s in disbelief. Like I didn’t actually tell him that. He had to know it was going to come to this.
“Last night—”
“Was a mistake,” I say, cutting him off forcefully and my voice cracks. My chest feels tight and it’s harder to breathe, but I stand my ground.
“We’re different people, Evan.” I try to say more but my words are stuck in my throat, threatening to choke me.
“We’ve always been different, Kat. Always,” Evan says and his words come out hard. I can already hear him convincing me. I can already see myself falling right back into his arms because that’s where I feel so safe and so loved. But he can’t hold me forever.
“I can’t do this, Evan,” I tell him honestly, feeling my heart break as I voice the words. It’s a slow break, one meant to be torturous.
“Do what?” he asks me cautiously and it pisses me off. The plastic bag rustles as he reaches behind him, brushing against it and bracing himself against the counter.
“This. I can’t.” I look him in the eyes even as mine water. I let the tears fall as my blood turns to ice, yet my skin heats.
Evan takes a step toward me, my name falling from his lips as his arms open and spread wide.
“If you won’t tell me the truth about what happened, you need to get out.”
With his eyes still widening, he shakes his head, an apology from his subconscious before he has the chance to say the words himself.
“Get out!” I yell at him, feeling the weakness threatening to consume me. Threatening to bring me right back to him. “I don’t want this. I don’t want you here.”
“It’s going to be all right,” he says, attempting to calm me, that placating tone in his voice making me even angrier.
“Well, it’s not now, and you need to get the fuck out,” I say and seethe. I fold my arms across my chest as I look him in the eyes and tell him again. “I need space, and that means you’re leaving.” This townhouse is in both our names, I’m more than aware of that and he could easily bring that up. He has a right to be here and part of me wishes he would fight me on that, but he doesn’t. He stares at the ground for a moment, his broad shoulders rising slowly with each heavy breath. My body shakes as he snatches his keys off the counter and leaves, slamming the door behind him.
I try to convince myself as I move to the counter, bracing my hot palms on the cold granite and focusing on breathing. This is the worst it’s ever been between us. I know it’s the end of us. I can feel it deep down in my bones. Shattering my core.
Out of the need to move, to do something and just go through the motions, I reach for the bag on the counter.
It’s a mistake. Inside is a bottle of coffee creamer.
It’s so stupid that something like this could shred me. That it can make me fall to the floor. That it can make me feel like I’ve made the worst decision of my life.
That it makes me feel like I’m alone. And that it’s my fault for pushing Evan away.
Evan
It happened so slowly,
So slowly I couldn’t see.
She ruined me, damned me,
And brought me to my knees.
I can’t deny there was only one,
Only her for me.
One true love is a lie,
But with her, it has to be.
It’s odd how love was there right from the start and I didn’t even know it. Hindsight is twenty-twenty; I’ve made enough mistakes to know that. It doesn’t explain how I couldn’t see how obvious it was, right from the first night. Everything I did and said was different, everything I wanted changed.
My old bedroom in my father’s house reminds me of all the times I spent here, but more than anything it reminds me of the last time I was in here. When I was crying like a bitch on my bed, burying my head into the pillow and refusing to accept that my mother was dying.
The red plaid flannel sheets are tucked in tight. It feels like this room’s been frozen in time since I was here last. Kat fixed the sheets the same way when she made the bed the next morning. She held me all night. She let me cry and didn’t tell me to stop or tell me to do anything at all. She just loved me. Freely and for no good reason.