“I didn’t lie to you,” Steph said through gritted teeth.
Her face was red; Erika realized then she was trying not to cry, and still Erika was so wrung out, herself.
“Lying by omission is still lying,” Erika said.
“Maybe you’re right,” Steph said, and stood up. Her voice was hollow. “I just fucked up like I always do. Sorry about wasting your time, Erika. I hope you find someone who’ll be the perfect extroverted successful anxiety-free wife you wish you had.”
Erika opened her mouth to say she’d had an extroverted successful anxiety-free wife and it hadn’t worked out—but Steph walked out of her house and out of her life without another word. The door swung shut behind her. Erika stared at it for long minutes, but Steph didn’t come back.
Erika didn’t go after her.
Chapter Thirteen
Stephanie was already crying when she stepped out the door.
She walked back to her house with her face down and tried not to look at anyone in the street. They probably thought Erika finally came to her senses and broke up with stupid, weird Stephanie, which was exactly what had just happened, and she couldn’t stop crying.
Her chest felt like it’d caved in. When she opened the door of her house Don and Ve shot up from the couch, curious about how it had all gone down, and Steph barely managed to close the door before she crumpled to the floor. She pressed her face against her knees and cried big gulping sobs she couldn’t control, and didn’t even feel it when Don came forward to sit beside her and put his arms around her.
She really was a screw up, useless, idiot piece of shit. A part of her knew that wasn’t true, she was just a normal person who’d made mistakes, but right then and there she cried and thought only that she had to fuck it up, didn’t she? Of course—Steph always did everything wrong and Erika’s family had been right after all. They had been right, and Erika listened to them, and now they weren’t together anymore and Steph felt like Erika had lodged a stake into her heart.
Again Steph saw her future crumbling, slipping past her fingers. She’d been so shy, so afraid, so scared of being reckless and of ruining everything—she kept Erika to herself like she was a bird that’d fly away if Steph opened her hands to show her to the world.
In the end it was that that ruined everything, after all. Erika wouldn’t help her name the cats, or help her buy a new couch, or help her work the garden. Erika wouldn’t spend three days at a time here anymore. Steph wouldn’t make herself at home at the café, at the restaurant. They wouldn’t grow together, they wouldn’t do anything anymore—
What was Stephanie going to do?
Don curled himself protectively around her and stayed beside her until she calmed down.
“Steph,” he said, voice low and sad, “what happened?”
She didn’t uncurl, stayed in a ball as she was, until Ve brought her tea and more or less herded her to the couch—and even then Steph brought her legs up to her chest and kept her arms to herself.
Stephanie missed Pedro like a wound, right then, but mostly she ached for her big sister.
Her big sister, Suzannah, who’d always comforted Steph after this kind of thing. Ever since moving here, Steph hadn’t had one single conversation with her sister that hadn’t ended either in a fight or in stilted, awkward silence, and right now that was the worst thing in the world.
Steph wanted her sister. She wanted her mom. She wanted her dad. They were all so far away, and it was all her fault.
“Steph?” Don asked, hesitant, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“Erika broke up with me,” Steph told him, voice hollow. She took a sip of the tea Veronica had given her. Chamomile. She didn’t even know she’d had that tea. “She broke up with me, because I’m not serious about her, and I’m not even sure if I’m staying here in this fucking town after all, even after everything.”
“What?” Don said.
“Wait, what?” Ve said. “What do you mean, you’re not sure if you’re staying here?”
Steph laughed without humor.
“I think,” she told them without looking away from the mug in her hands, “I fucked up again. She’s right. Maybe she’s right. Why didn’t I tell anyone, Don? Why haven’t I bought some goddamn furniture? Why was I so close to accepting Alfred’s offer of a promotion, even if it meant going back home? I could still call back, you know. I’m pretty sure he’d accept me.”
“Steph, you didn’t fuck up,” Don argued, shaking his head.
“Whatever. Erika left me either way,” she said, a sob rising up in her throat. She hid her face in her knees. “She’s right. I wish I were home. I want to be home. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“Oh, Steph,” Ve said, an arm curled around her. With Ve in one side and Don on the other, it was almost all right—but Steph wanted her sister, she wanted to fall asleep in her parent’s bed, she wanted to go down to McKinsey’s corner store to buy herself some ice cream and stuff her face with it while she and Suz watched old black-and-white horror movies.
She didn’t want to be in this empty house, Pedro’s ghost looking over her shoulder.
“I want to be home,” Steph whispered.
“Well, let’s go,” Don said.
There was a full five seconds of silence.
“What?” Steph croaked out.
Don backed off, flustered, when she lifted her red eyes to stare at him.
“Um, Steph, I just mean, what’s stopping us from going back, really?”
“You can’t go back,” Ve argued, baffled. “You and Erika need to calm down and have another conversation. Running away back home isn’t the thing to do right now. Seriously, Donald?”
Go home, she thought. What was stopping Steph from pulling a bunch of clothes into a bag and going back home, right now? Her friends hadn’t even unpacked yet. It’d be so simple. Steph could see her sister. She could see her mom, and her dad, and sleep in her bed tomorrow.
She stared at Don, who stared back.
“Yeah,” she said.
***
Because she was a coward, she made Ve go out to buy a cat carrier, then made Don drop off the cats at Jay’s front porch, a hastily written note taped to the top of it.
Hey Jay, it’s Steph
Sorry for dropping the cats with you again, I’m going home for some time
I’ll talk to you later
Thank you for everything
Steph shoved clothes into a backpack while Ve and Don argued in the next room, her hands trembling and her skin flushed. She felt strange, feverish, like her very body was protesting what was obviously a terrible choice; Ve was sensible, Ve was right, Ve was the viper because she always punched holes into whatever plans Steph and Don came up with. Steph should stay, cool down, try to talk to Erika again. They were adults—they could find common grounds, they could compromise, they could learn from their mistakes.
But the cats were with Jay, the car was filled with gas, and Steph was filled with a soul-deep desire to be home.
And so they went.
***
The more hours passed during the trip, the worst Steph felt. She sat curled on the backseat while Don and Ve sat in the front, stubbornly not talking to each other after their fight. Steph stared at the road outside with a blank mind and took a lot of naps, chest physically hurting from how wounded she felt—and still her phone stayed silent, no new texts from Erika. No apologies, not tentative hellos. Paradoxically, it made Steph feel better about her ridiculous decision to leave.
Maybe Erika wouldn’t even miss her.
… but maybe she would.
The trip went on uneventfully. It was only when they arrived, exhausted and hungry, at the door of Steph’s parents’ building, that Steph realized she hadn’t warned anyone she was coming. They’d be happy to see her, she knew, even if they’d whisper to themselves about how they always knew this kind of thing would happen and of course Steph had been stupid and should never have left home—
<
br /> She’s been very happy in that small town, though.
She rang the doorbell while her friends whispered to each other behind her, and when her mother answered the door it was with wide eyes, an open mouth, and in pajamas.
“Steph?” she said.
“Hi, mama,” Steph croaked out. “Do you mind if I stay here a while?”
Her mother looked behind her and traded a look with one of her friends. She looked back at Steph with a sigh. She ushered them all in.
“Baby girl, what happened?” she asked softly, putting an arm around her shoulders. She smelled like oranges, like soft bedclothes, and it brought new tears to Steph’s eyes.
Steph rubbed a hand over her face. “Mom, can I just sleep some before we talk? I’m just tired.”
“You’ve got to eat something.”
“I’ll eat a good breakfast,” Steph told her, eyes on the floor. “Is my room okay?”
Her mother gave her a look, but let her go. “It’s like it’s always been. You can go ahead and get some sleep. Okay? We’ll talk in the morning about why you’re arriving home at five in the morning like this.”
“Yeah, okay,” Steph said, shuffled into her old room, and threw herself into bed.
***
Steph didn’t sleep.
She laid in bed without having changed into pajamas, shoes kicked off her feet and now sprawled over her carpet, and had a lot of time to think about her life. She felt calmer here at home, with her favorite blanket and her dad a room away, with a promise of her big sister tomorrow. She clutched her phone to her chest. There were no new messages from Erika.
Maybe Erika was thinking the same. No new messages from Stephanie.
Stephanie sighed, turning around on her back to stare at the ceiling. Here, at home, Pedro felt so close to her—for her it was like his ghost was pounding against her brain, screaming at her about all the mistakes she’d made. But Pedro had been kind. Everyone makes mistakes, he told Steph every time she screwed up. Now we gotta go and fix them. It’s that simple, Steph.
Could she fix them? She couldn’t even remember properly how her fight with Erika had gone. What had Steph said? She only remembered the knowledge, deep in her soul, that it would all go wrong.
But now she was in bed at home like she’d craved and instead of missing mom she was missing Erika. Erika and the two cats she’d shoved off to Jay and her own bed and the garden that had been the only thing she’d touched in the entire house and Jay’s gruff voice, his accented words.
She seems happy with you, Jay had told her the first day they’d met, talking about Erika.
Steph raised her hands to her face and let the tears fall. She really had no goddamn idea what to do with her life.
***
She left before seven a.m. struck, on her tiptoes around the apartment until she left. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, which was stupid, because everyone was why she’d wanted to come here in the first place—
But there was someone she wanted to see first, in the end.
Pedro’s grave was in a cemetery where instead of big headstones the dead only had little plaques on the ground. It made for a cemetery that looked like a garden, or a park. Peaceful. No one would be afraid of setting foot here.
She set the vase of sunflowers she’d bought on the way in front of his little plaque. They were his favorites and quite fragile, but at least in a vase they’d last a bit longer.
“Hey, pal,” she said. “It’s been some time.”
Pedro didn’t say anything, but right here and now it wasn’t so bad. Despite everything, what was left of him in the world was right there in front of her. She sat down before the plaque and brushed dry leaves away.
Somehow, she felt calm, but she’d always been calm and well with Pedro.
“I think,” she told him, “that if you were here, you’d have kicked me in the head about a hundred times these last few months. But honestly, Pedro, you’re not here and you were about 80% of my mental health, so I’m blaming it all on you.” She reached forward, splayed her hand wide over the plaque. It wasn’t black, but it was dark. It made her skin look pasty white in contrast. “I made some mistakes I wish I hadn’t made, and it’s been very hard, dealing with them without you here. Sometimes I imagine what you’d do and it helps, but not really.”
There was no one else in the cemetery. The breeze touched the trees around, making them dance.
“I met a woman,” she told her best friend. “It feels like a betrayal of you, but I think I want her to live in our house with me. Maybe not now. But I’ve been thinking of the future and miss her, and I think I want her there. In my future. Except I think I fucked up. I think we fought about the wrong things, or maybe we were fighting about different things. She had a wife, Pedro, who left her, and I think she was afraid of me leaving, and I gave her every indication that I would, even when I didn’t want to.
“It’s so hard being in the world without you,” she said, tears sliding down her face. “There’s no one to translate everything to me anymore. Maybe when she snapped at me to leave it was because she didn’t want to be hurt again, instead of because she thought I was a fuck-up who’d never stay anyway. Maybe we should have talked more about our issues.”
He didn’t answer. Steph traced his name with a finger. Pedro V. Martin, beloved son, beloved friend.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “I’ve been saying that so much, Pedro, and the universe doesn’t answer, and I keep on fucking up because I’ve no idea what I should be doing—but that’s not how it works, is it? I have to figure it out by myself. I’ve gotta stop begging you for answers.”
She tried to imagine what he’d say.
Stephanie, go talk to your girlfriend like a functioning adult, he’d tell her, or maybe he’d say: What on Earth were you thinking, that she wouldn’t mind at all that no one in your life knows about her? Or maybe: It doesn’t matter that you ran to your daddy like a baby. Technology is here. Call her, you idiot.
Steph’s cellphone was in her back pocket.
“You always were the smarter of the two of us,” Steph said, the corner of her lips tugging up. “Even when I figure things out, it’s when I’m right next to you.”
Chapter Fourteen
Erika nursed a black bitter coffee and felt like shit. The phone beside her was silent, as it’d been ever since Steph left. Steph was anxious and shy, and she probably needed some time and space. That was fine. That was all right. Erika probably needed some time and space, even if she was having to physically restrain herself from walking up the street to knock on Steph’s door and tell her—
Erika didn’t know what she’d tell her. She sighed, knocking her forehead against the table.
She didn’t want to think of their fight, but her brain went around in circles thinking about it. Erika had been so stupid. She shouldn’t have said things that she’d said, even if Steph had been wrong to lie to her, to omit their relationship from everyone—
They had probably broken up. Had they? The way Steph left had felt very final.
Erika looked at her cellphone. No new messages. She took a sip of her extremely bitter coffee and looked around. At least the café was bustling with activity in these morning hours; at least the café and the restaurant were doing good. She was successful Erika after all.
If only that also meant she could keep the people, she loved from leaving her.
Erika was wondering if it really would be too bad to at least go and send Steph a message when she caught sight of Jay making his way toward her. He was less walking than marching, with a cat-carrier in his hands even though animals weren’t allowed inside the café.
Oh, god, Erika thought with trepidation, what on Earth had Steph told Jay for him to make that angry, wounded face?
He stopped by her table and set the cat carrier on top of it, then a plastic bag filled with cat things on top of the carrier.
“Good morning. Here are your girlfriend’s cats,” he
said, angry. “I don’t know what happened with you and her, but you’re not putting me in the middle of it. At least like this you have an excuse to talk to her when she comes back. The one who climbs is Meatball and the calm one is Spaghetti.”
Once she comes back, Erika thought.
She looked up at Jay, face blank.
“What do you mean, once she comes back?” she asked him.
“I don’t know what happened,” he told her, crossing his arms. He looked annoyed—but hurt too. “They showed up on my porch and a note. Stephanie left, and did not say anything, and Erika you go and fix it, because by God my wife does not want more cats and if your damn family drove that sweet girl out of town I am going to do something I will regret. Okay? Okay. I will go buy a coffee and it will be on the house.”
“Okay,” Erika said faintly, eyes on the cats in front of her.
They were huddled in the back of the carrier, snuggled together. Meatball and Spaghetti. Jay and his wife had named them, like Steph had thought, and Steph had left them in Jay’s front porch with a note and if Erika had gone to her house to knock on her door this morning she’d have been left standing there like a tool because…
Steph left.
Stephanie left, and did not say anything, Jay said.
Erika’s phone lay silent and still next to her lukewarm coffee. The cats were crawling forward slowly to sniff at the bars and the outside world. Erika’s throat closed up and a ball the size of a fist had lodged itself there and her lungs constricted, and she grabbed the cats and her phone and the plastic bag and walked casually out because she was the owner of the café and wasn’t to be seen crying around like an idiot.
Why don’t you just leave already? Erika had spat at Stephanie, and Stephanie had listened to her.
Erika rushed to her house and locked the door behind her. It was too big, full of things Erika disliked or didn’t want and for once it was empty of any family member but Luke, who came forward to sniff at the cats.
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