“Bad business?” Miss Laura shook her dirty rag at me. “I always tell people, you never know about the restaurant business. It’s so strange. I think we all need to just cook at home. Go back to the way it used to be.”
“Well, if that happens, I’ll be out of a job,” I said with a weak smile.
“You’re a writer, Amelia. Not a waitress.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said.
“Oh, come on now,” she said. “Say, let me tell you a story…”
I groaned in my mind.
Then in my stomach.
It wasn’t a sick groan.
It was probably a hungry groan.
After throwing up at work, I was now hungry.
How perfect.
“I need to get inside,” I said.
“Oh, right. Another meeting?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Your door looks nice.”
“Thank you for saying that,” Miss Laura said. “The trick is to mix-”
“Write it down for me,” I said as I made a move for my door.
The whole another meeting thing slipped my mind until I saw Bel sitting at the dining room table.
She had a balled-up tissue in her hand and dabbed her left eye.
“Oh…” I managed to say.
Grace spun around. “What are you doing home?”
“Early night,” I said. “Sorry. I’ll disappear.”
Bel cleared her throat. “Amelia. It’s so good to see you again.”
“I’m so sorry for interrupting here.”
“Hardly,” Bel said. “I own my emotions. I had a rough day.”
“Join the club,” I said.
I immediately regretted saying that.
“What’s wrong?” Grace asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Let me get out of the way here.”
I hurried to walk by, knowing one of them was going to grab me.
Of course, it was Bel.
“Have you written any more about that letter?” she asked.
I felt Grace’s eyes burning at me too.
“No,” I said. “I found out who wrote it and the ending wasn’t what I thought.”
“You’re a writer though, Amelia. You could make up your own.”
“Not with that,” I said.
“I have other work available,” Bel offered.
“I think it’s worth considering,” Grace said.
“Then I will do that,” I said. “I will consider it.”
“You seem different,” Bel said. “Something about you… I don’t know.”
“I’m just tired and annoyed,” I said. “I don’t want to be bothered.”
Bel let me go. “Hint taken.”
“Why don’t you sit with us?” Grace asked.
“No, thanks,” I said. “I’m fine.”
I walked to my bedroom and sat on the edge of my bed. I bit my lip. I swallowed hard. I felt out of place. Yet, it was the comfort of my room. In my apartment. Cat posters and all.
I had my phone in my hands.
Hey. Listen - I’m sorry about the letter. This is crazy that we don’t talk anymore. I loved you then, Josh. And I love you again now. It’s different though. I’m sorry I asked about her. I just never read anything like that. And what she must have meant to you. You still love her. And that’s okay. I could live with that. But I can’t live without you.
My thumb flirted over the screen. One flick of my thumb and the message would be sent.
I deleted the message and tossed my phone to the bed.
I crashed down and touched my stomach.
“Stupid fish,” I whispered.
I reached for my phone again.
I miss you, Josh. Please tell me you’re okay.
That one I sent without hesitation, even though it made my heart race.
I waited for what felt like hours for Josh to respond.
My eyes slowly shut and I dreamed I was running up a hill. On a sidewalk.
I knew exactly where I was.
The old street and sidewalk where I’d run when I needed to find Josh.
In my dream, I did find Josh.
Except he was walking away from me.
His arm around someone else.
A girl his height. With long, blonde hair. I assumed her hair smelled like strawberry or lavender. Something sweet yet calming. And I never had any of that stuff. We could never afford it. My clothes and hair smelled like cheap soap, dust, smoke, and grease.
Josh never looked back.
The girl slid her hand down and pinched his butt.
The girl was Delilah.
I knew it.
I just knew it.
I gasped in my dream - and in real life - as I woke up.
When I looked at the clock it was almost three in the morning.
I had fallen asleep for almost six hours.
I reached for my phone and saw Josh had replied to my text.
Just after midnight.
Miss you too. Forget about me. Once and for all.
My stomach flipped over and over.
I sat up and coughed.
I looked around the room.
I’d never moved so fast as I raced to the small trash can in the corner of my room.
I got sick all over the ripped-out notebook pages and typed ideas of stories and books.
This was my life.
Puking all over ideas that could have become something.
Yet I couldn’t stop thinking about Josh.
Or that stupid dream.
Or Delilah.
I sort of hated her. But it was more jealousy than anything else.
I’d never have Josh the way she had him.
Chapter 42
Lonely Walks and Lonely Thoughts
NOW
(Josh)
I destroyed the letter.
And I wrote a new one.
I didn’t carry this one with me though. This one was tucked away in a drawer where I promised myself it would never be seen.
So why write the letter?
I really had no idea.
It was a whiskey fueled binge that had me waking up to the cry of a smoke alarm with a kitchen full of smoke from the ashes of the first letter to Delilah. And then I found the new letter in bed next to me, almost like a forbidden one-night stand.
I read the first two lines before it started to speak in my mind.
I shut my eyes with the throb of the hangover and growled when I couldn’t shut my own voice up in my head. That’s when I shoved the letter into a drawer and left my apartment for an entire day.
I partied with Azor.
I went to see Sasha and showed her my new ideas.
Then I stumbled my way to Aaron’s where I slept on the couch in the basement again.
It was everything back to the normal I knew. The normal I had before Amelia came walking back into my life. She knew what she had been walking into. And just like before, all she wanted were answers. She had all these questions, maybe from the mind of a writer, but they were my questions and my answers.
But better yet, what did she want with those answers? To write a story? To write a book? To find a way to let the rest of the world read about my life and who I was? The man behind all the pictures, drawings, and paintings.
As angry as it all made me, there was a part of me that wanted Amelia to know everything. To know the truth she had been waiting to hear for so long. The truth was going to change everything though. That’s why I didn’t want her to have it. Because right now she could go through her life with the story she believed and that was okay.