I approach him, crossing into the living room, then crouch down and throw him the ball.
He just stares at it, unmoving.
I try again with the same result.
Nothing.
Totally unimpressed.
The ball rolls right up to his wet nose, but Walden ignores it, his only reaction being a long, heavy sigh. Annoyance, maybe. He probably thinks I’m a fucking idiot, tossing him this pathetic toy like it’s supposed to be exciting or something.
My dog looks at the red ball like I look at life.
My chest hums with resignation, and I abandon the ball and straighten my stance. I debate whether I want to finish the custom dining table I have partially assembled under the carport while there’s still daylight, considering it’s due to be delivered to a client in less than a week, but I’m honestly not feeling it right now. I kind of just want to go to bed.
It’s my favorite part of the day.
As I make up my mind and choose the latter, I can’t help but glance over at my open laptop before I disappear down the hallway. I have a new e-mail notification, and I already know who it’s from.
Magnolia.
The wilting widow who I found myself responding to one night when sleep wouldn’t come, my demons were aggressive, and an anonymous outlet sounded strangely appealing.
After years and years of unsuccessful therapy, a slew of doctors who considered me a lost cause, and no one, literally no one aside from Bree to care whether or not I took my next breath, this nameless, faceless stranger called to me somehow.
While I couldn’t relate to her grief, I could relate to her loneliness, so I finally wrote her back. And I actually slept that night.
I pause my steps, hesitating between the edge of the living room and the hallway, palm massaging the nape of my neck.
Fuck it.
A moment later, I’m seated in my computer chair, opening up the e-mail, my eyes scanning over the stranger’s words.
from:
Magnolia <[email protected]>
to:
date:
Apr 18, 2021, 2:33 PM
subject:
Serendipity
Zephyr,
Do you believe in perfect timing? Fate? Aligned stars, serendipity, meant-to-be?
I didn’t think I’d ever hear from you, and here you are.
Right at the perfect time.
So, now I have to wonder. I have to consider the possibility that maybe we are not alone in this. Maybe there’s something else out there calling the shots, like some kind of mystical mediator.
Silly, right?
Probably.
But it gave me a real smile, and that’s something I haven’t done in a while.
Thank you.
— Magnolia
Sighing, I send my reply.
from:
Zephyr <[email protected]>
to:
date:
Apr 18, 2021, 6:45 PM
subject:
Re: Serendipity
Magnolia,
I hate to burst your bubble, but there’s no such thing as perfect timing.
Perfection is an illusion, as is time.
Manmade. A synthetic coping mechanism.
I don’t like to bet on fate or circumstance. I bet on experience. Reality. Things that are tangible and proven.
That’s probably why I’m forever wilting.
You say I wrote you back at the perfect time, but maybe you were just searching for something to cling to in that moment—a reason to make a comeback.
That’s not fate or aligning stars. That’s all you.
Give yourself some credit.
Zephyr
I click “send,” then shut down my computer and head to bed.
—SIX—
I fiddle with the bandage encasing my wrist, picking at the sticky adhesive. It’s been two weeks since my brush with rock-bottom, and while the wound has been healing appropriately, the evidence of my crime is still glaring.
A grisly, jagged branding of my pain. My ghosts are now corporeal, carved into my flesh, visible to the naked eye. I can’t hide them anymore.
And I don’t have to hide them here, in this white room, with faces that are unfamiliar, yet so kindred. Fellow companions in pain. My eyes float around the circle, making up stories for each troubled soul. Loss, break-ups, mental ailments, death. Their sagas are written all over their faces, scribbled into their fine lines and shadows. Glowing in their hollow eyes.
The eyes are always the mecca for grief.
Except… it’s different with him—the dark stranger with hidden tales I can’t seem to read. He’s illegible. He doesn’t wear his pain like the others, and that fascinates me somehow. I want to learn how he did it, where he studied, what tools he used to perfect such a thing.
Parker. I think that was his name.
I can’t help but glance over at him, surprised to see him in the same seat, one chair over, after his dramatic exit the week before. He clearly finds no healing between these four walls, so what keeps him coming back?
Raindrops cling to inky hair, one going rogue and gliding down the side of his neck—a testament to the storm raging outside the tall window, rainfall pelting the roof above our heads. I zone in on that lone droplet as it makes a languid journey to his shirt collar, collapsing into nothing, like it never even existed.
Poof.
While I’m spaced out, envious of a raindrop, the mysterious man looks up, feeling my attention pinned on him. Jade eyes assess me in a slow pull from my scuffed ballet flats to my curious stare, almost violent in their scrutiny.
If he’s undressing me, it’s not my clothes he’s peeling off. It’s everything else.
A hard lump clinches my throat, and I jerk away until my gaze is focused on the sterile wall across from me. A safer canvas. A reprieve.
But I still sense his perusal prickling my skin, making me feel itchy and unnerved. He’s digging and digging, hollowing me out, pulling all my buried pieces to the surface. He’s a human excavator.
Biting into my lower lip, I can’t help but glance over at him again, an invisible force drawing our eyes back together. He’s still staring. Still poking around my burial grounds.
Still digging.
He doesn’t blink or smile. His eyes are beryl and brimstone, unwavering, his jaw shadowed in stubble, cheekbones high, eyebrows dark like his hair. Like his clothes.
Like his stare.
Part of me wants to storm over to him and demand he back off, quit exhuming me. I feel vulnerable and exposed, laid out, shaking and bare. The nerve. The nerve of this man—this intruder. And yet, I can’t seem to do anything but stare right back at him.
Our hold is eclipsed when a voice startles me, causing me to blink and cower against the plastic seatback, a feeble attempt to hide. A tension releases inside me, and I think that means he finally tore his eyes away.