The letter is tucked in my back pocket. I keep it there all the time. I read it almost daily. I basically have it memorized. If I shut my eyes, I could hear someone reading it. I spend way too much time visualizing Delilah and I don’t know who that is.
“I think you should do something with it.”
“So you could put it on your site or whatever?”
“Not necessarily,” Bel said. “But it could get you exposure. Imagine a weekly spot where you’re writing this story about a letter? Building it up piece by piece. Readers would go wild for that.”
“You think?”
“I know so. And we could see what other attention it could get. Agents? Publishers? Who knows…”
“That’s really nice of you to say,” I said. “I’m just… things have been strange for me, Bel. Seeing Josh was harder than I thought.”
“So, you and him… was that a thing?”
“I’m not going to talk about it,” I said. “Sorry. I’d better get going actually. I have to get ready for work.”
I have no work tonight. I’m not on the schedule until two days from now for a double. You don’t know that, Bel. I don’t know anything about you. You don’t know anything about me. This is all Grace’s fault. Her and her stupid cats.
I reached into my bag and took out some money for the coffee and tip.
“I can get that,” Bel said.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“At least send me the story. What you wrote about Josh.”
“I will.”
“And a bio about yourself. Links to anything you’d like. You wrote the story so you should get credit.”
“Of course. Thanks.”
I left the coffee shop and hurried to my car.
I felt a heaviness in my chest that I didn’t like.
It wasn’t guilt. It wasn’t regret. It wasn’t even anger.
It was just… empty. A heavy emptiness.
And a little bit of picturing Josh lifting me up onto the counter so he could kiss me better.
I wasn’t going to be able to get rid of that image for the rest of my life.
“Oh, honey, you cannot imagine the size of the rats in the basement here!”
I heard Miss Laura’s voice booming.
I rolled my eyes.
She probably had a delivery guy cornered to talk about anything.
“How big were they?” a voice asked.
The voice made my hand freeze on the door handle.
“Damn near the size of dogs! I swear on it. I swear on the graves of my family. They were huge!”
I ripped open the door and couldn’t believe my eyes as I saw Josh leaning against the wall next to my apartment door. Miss Laura, from across the hall had her door open as her animated hands danced through the air.
“Ain’t no trap going to catch them down there,” Miss Laura said. “That’s why I pay for outside storage. It’s a hassle to decorate sometimes, but you have to do what you have to do in life.”
“That’s the truth,” Josh said. Then he looked at me. “There you are, love.”
“Oh, Amelia, hi,” Miss Laura said.
“Hi,” I managed to say.
Miss Laura pranced over to me. “Oh my, is this man devilish or what? He’s making the angel on my shoulder blush.”
I started to blush because Miss Laura had no version of being quiet, which meant Josh heard her.
“Josh, what are you doing here?” I asked.
“A man that good looking shows up to my apartment door, I’m inviting him in,” Miss Laura said.
“Is that an invite?” Josh asked her.
Miss Laura waved her hand at her face. “You cool it there…”
Josh started to laugh.
I was now embarrassed and angry.
I hurried to my door and unlocked it.
“Come on,” I said to Josh through gritted teeth.
“Nice to meet you,” Josh said to Miss Laura.
“You too, honey. And, Amelia? We need to talk later.”
Rushing into my apartment was my safety from Miss Laura.
But it also meant bringing Josh into cat heaven.
“Whoa,” he said when he looked around.
“Oh, crap,” I whispered. “Yeah. My roommate…”
“Is that a framed cat picture?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, not even looking at the wall.
“Was it her cat?”
“No,” I said. “She doesn’t even have a cat. She’s just obsessed with them. Please don’t ask.”
“I have a lot to ask,” Josh said.
He wore messy, paint-stained jeans and a black t-shirt that made him look too hot for his own good. And mine. His arms filled the sleeves of the t-shirt and spilled out for what looked like miles. His facial hair was still unkempt, just like his hair.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I’m here to make things even,” he said.
“Even?”
He reached behind him and handed me folded up papers. “Here’s your story back.”
“You actually read it?”
“Of course I did. You brought me a story to read. Why wouldn’t I read it?”
“I, uh, sort of left in a hurry,” I said as I took the story from him. “I think I owe you an-”
“I’m not worried about it,” Josh said. “We were asking questions and pushing at each other. It happens.”
“It was more than pushing at each other, Josh.”
“I know,” he said with a grin. “But I wanted to keep my end of our deal.”
“Meaning?”
“You gave me a story. So now I’ll give you one.”
My hands instantly began to sweat. Like, that never happened. Staring at Josh was sometimes too much. The reflection in his eyes was of me as a young teenager, looking for him, needing him, feeling things for him that I wasn’t sure what they were. He always warned me to stay away but never told me why. And all that did was make me want to be closer to him even more. Somewhere in my head I thought and hoped he would be brave enough and strong enough to hurt my father if the time came.
And when it did…
“Hey, love, are you okay?” he asked.
I jumped. “Fine.” My eyes moved away from his. “I submitted my story to Bel. The lady who runs that blog.”
“A story about me?”
“About your artwork. About that night. That’s it. She wasn’t exactly happy, but it was something.”
“Are you going to keep writing for her?” Josh asked.
My eyes met his again.
Do you want to hear about the letter I found? About how I’m so obsessed with the letter? And there’s this girl or woman named Delilah that I can’t stop thinking about…
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I said. “I don’t care.”
“What do you mean you don’t care?”
I shook my head. “Nothing, Josh. It’s…”
“It’s what?”
“Nothing,” I said.
I turned and walked away.
I should have known better.
Josh’s hands touched my waist and he spun me around. I stumbled back and bumped into the kitchen table, realizing there was nowhere left for me to go. Now, I could swing my hand, slap Josh across the face and run to my room, but I was frozen.