Five years had passed, time slowly erasing their faces — their voices — from my memory. I could look at photographs, like the one that sat on my piano, but I couldn’t close my eyes and just see them or hear them, anymore.
My chest ached with the realization that they might be leaving me, for good this time. Forever.
Rojo nuzzled me, licking my chin before curling herself into me more. Tears pooled in my eyes but they stayed there, no blinks to set them free as I swallowed past the tightness in my throat.
“Sorry your new owner is such a mess,” I spoke softly to Rojo, running my hand over the smooth fur on her head.
She laid her head on my chest again, letting out an exaggerated breath through her nose. I imagined if she had a voice, she’d tell me to stop being such a baby and get up and do something with my day. But, even if she could tell me that, I’d just have to add her to the list of people I’d let down in my life.
There was nothing getting me off that couch.
It wasn’t quite dusk yet, but the heavy storm made it feel like it was midnight, the sky black and ominous outside my window. The only light was the low flicker of the two candles I’d lit on the coffee table, and I tried to find comfort in their warm glow as I closed my eyes again.
I just wanted to see them, to hear Mallory’s obnoxious laugh that I used to make fun of her for, to feel my parents’ arms wrap around me in a hug the way they did when I was nine years old. It had only been five years, and already I felt them slipping away. Life had gone on without them, moving at the same steady pace it always had, and somehow, that offended me. It wasn’t fair that the world kept spinning like that, when everything in my world had been taken.
A knock at the door caught me off guard, my eyes snapping open as Rojo scrambled off me in a fit of barks. Her nails skittered across the hardwood floor as she ran to the door, and I groaned, throwing the blanket off me and peeling myself out of the permanent home I’d made in the cushions that day.
As I suspected, there was a perfect indention of my body left behind.
“Alright, alright,” I said to Rojo as I made my way to the door. She continued barking, not at all fazed by my acknowledgement that I, too, knew there was someone at the door.
Who was there was another story altogether.
I’d cancelled my lesson with Sarah, explaining that I was feeling under the weather and didn’t want her to get sick, too. No one else was expected, and with it basically tornado-ing outside, every normal human being should have been inside.
Rojo was still barking when I opened the door, and on the other side of the screen door was the absolute last person I wanted to see.
Charlie stood on my porch, shielded by the overhang as she wrangled an oversized umbrella back to its folded state. The rain poured heavily behind her, a flash of lightning illuminating her silhouette like it wanted to brand it into my memory forever.
“Charlie?” I asked, swinging the screen door open and ushering her inside. Rojo was still barking, hopping around at my feet first before she moved to Charlie and circled back again. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Rain dripped off her floral print jacket and onto my floor, and she stood at the entryway with an almost apologetic smile, umbrella in one hand and her car keys in the other.
“I’m sorry,” she said, almost too softly to be heard over the rain and Rojo’s barking.
I closed the door behind her, helping her out of her wet coat and hanging it on the rack by the door along with her umbrella.
“I should have called,” she said again, her voice more clear now that the door was closed, the storm muted outside. Rojo licked at the water on the floor before nudging Charlie’s hand. She smiled, not even needing to bend over to reach Rojo’s head with her small hand. “Who is this?”
Confusion still whirred inside me like the wind outside as I stared at her in my house. I hadn’t seen her since school let out, and I hadn’t planned to.
“Um, this is Rojo,” I finally answered, shoving a hand back through my hair.
“You got a dog?” Charlie asked, smiling at me as she peeked up from where she was petting Rojo.
I nodded. “Had her a little over a week now.”
Rojo licked at Charlie’s hand before prancing back over to the couch. She neglected the bed I’d bought for her completely, hopping back up on the middle cushion and looking at me like she expected me to resume the position I was in before Charlie showed up.
“She’s so cute,” Charlie said, crossing her arms over her chest. We both watched Rojo for a long moment, Charlie smiling and me frowning before I turned to her again.
“Charlie, what are you doing here?”
Her smile fell, eyes softening as she looked up at me. “I just wanted to see you.”
“Does your husband know you’re here?” I asked flatly, not bothering with niceties. I wasn’t in the mood to pretend.
Charlie narrowed her eyes then. “Of course he knows I’m here.” She sighed, eyes falling to the floor before she lifted them to mine again. “I just… I know what today is, and… I don’t know, I just wanted to check on you.”
Her words might as well have been a fist around my ribcage, crushing the bones into my lungs with the weight of them. I didn’t know what hurt worse — the reminder of what day it was, or the fact that she remembered, that she still cared about me enough to give a shit.
But not enough to be with me, I reminded myself.
“Thanks,” I finally said, sniffing. “But I’m fine.”
Charlie nodded, surveying my living room with a look that said she didn’t believe my lie for even a second. There was an ashtray on the coffee table, evidence that I’d been smoking like a chimney inside all day, and with only a couple of candles lighting the entire house, it felt as dark and dreary inside those walls as it did inside my heart.
“You know you can still talk to me, Reese,” Charlie whispered after a moment, her eyes on the low flickering flame of one of the candles. “I know things didn’t… well, I know that we—”
“Charlie, please,” I interrupted her, holding up one hand as my eyes squeezed shut against the possibility of what she was about to say. I shook my head, swallowing to steady my voice before I spoke again. “Don’t.”
I didn’t want to open my eyes again, to see her standing there and giving me the same look of pity she’d given me since the moment she told me she was staying with Cameron. But I didn’t have a choice.
Another knock at my door forced my hand.
Rojo jumped off the couch again, skittering into action just like she had before as I let out a frustrated growl. “Jesus fucking Christ, what now?”
I crossed behind Charlie, not bothering to apologize for my language before I ripped the front door open.
Sarah stood there just as Charlie had, except she had no umbrella, and no rain jacket. She was soaked from head to toe, a grocery bag slung over one shoulder and her oversized t-shirt hanging off the other, sticking to her skin as her eyes widened, brows tugging inward the more she searched my face. “Reese? Are you okay?”
The girl was soaked and standing in the rain, and she asked if I was okay.
I clenched my jaw, swinging the screen door open and ushering her inside before I shut it again. Rojo stopped barking once she saw it was Sarah, but she greeted her with a vigorously wagging tail as she licked at her soaked jeans. Sarah smiled at her, bending to scratch behind her ears with water still dripping off every inch of her.