Heart in a Box

by Ally Sky

  "Is that what you wanted to know?" he asks indifferently.

  "Just curious, not that it's any of my business," I shrug.

  Excellent, keep that cool and you'll be fine.

  "And you?" He gives me a question of his own.

  "Boyfriend?" I snort. "Who has time?"

  "I'm sure you could find the time," he replies defiantly.

  "I suffer from a slight trust issue when it comes to men." I hit one under his belt. Well, so much for keeping cool.

  Our waitress comes up behind me and asks what we'll drink. I order tea and Colin asks for a short espresso. She disappears as she came and leaves us to continue the battle.

  "So, what's the story with the gym?" I take another look at his arms.

  "It started as something that helped me release stress and gradually became serious."

  "Very serious."

  "Yes, very serious," He nods.

  "And the clothes?" I insist on understanding where the dramatic change has come from.

  "You came to talk about my wardrobe?" He shifts, looking restless.

  "What happened to the jeans and t-shirts you always liked?"

  "I still like 'em," It seems that he doesn't like the topic of conversation. "This is what I wear to work."

  "I didn't know I fall into the 'work' category," I mutter.

  "I didn't have time to change. I'll throw something comfortable on when I get home." "Are you not comfortable in that?" I interrupt his sentence unintentionally.

  "I'm comfortable with these clothes, and I'm also comfortable with the sweatpants I wear to the gym, and I'm fine with jeans and a t-shirt too. I don't understand why we're discussing this."

  "I'm just trying to figure out who you are," I reply without getting confused.

  "Do you think my clothes will give you the answer?" his tone is borderline mocking.

  "At least one thing hasn't changed," I reply. "You still like to laugh at me."

  "I apologize if I offended you." His words, and the tone in which they are spoken, don't convince me. He doesn't care if I'm hurt or not.

  "Is that the only thing you'll apologize for?" I drop the bomb without preparation and my body tenses.

  "What am I supposed to apologize for?" His penetrating gaze turns my guts.

  "Are you serious?" I open my eyes wide.

  "What apology are you waiting for?" He doesn't fold, his indifference taking me out of my mind.

  "You left me on our wedding day, you were not there when I had our child or when she celebrated her birthdays, or every time she was ill and I had to be absent from work, because you're a coward, irresponsible and selfish. You can choose what to apologize for, the list is long."

  "Will it make you feel better about yourself?" His answer leaves me stunned.

  "You're really not going to ask for my forgiveness?"

  "Will it make you feel better?" He repeats his question, "Will it change the situation?"

  "No." I shake my head without taking my eyes off him, "I'll still hate you every minute I'm awake."

  "Exactly what I thought," he replies directly.

  "Why did you come back?" I give up trying to look for something else to talk about. We should get to the core of it or we'll sit here all night.

  "You know why." He leans back and runs a hand through his hair.

  "Why now?" I make it difficult.

  "The time was right," he answers vaguely.

  "The time was right?" I snort.

  "Elizabeth," he loses patience, "you asked a question and got an answer, the time was right. We can sit here till midnight or talk about our daughter, who I want to meet."

  "She doesn't know who you are."

  "I want to change that."

  "It's not that simple."

  "I didn't say it was." His phone, on the table, rings. Colin picks it up, glances at the screen and hurries to silence it, something in his face tenses. Something in his eyes turns somber and makes me shudder.

  "You can answer," I motion my head at the phone vibrating between us.

  "No," he answers in a cold, distant tone. "I'm here to talk about Vivian."

  "I can't invite you to the house and tell her Daddy's back, not without preparation." I sniff nervously. "Not to mention the fact that my father wants to kill you."

  "Your father never loved me," his tone is full of resentment. "I've never been good enough for you."

  "You know something," my voice shakes with pain, "I was the only one that mattered, and I thought you were the best thing that ever happened to me. How could you do that to me?"

  "It's complicated," he answers with another response that explains nothing.

  "You are not serious," I laugh at him. "Complicated, Colin? Do you really think I'm an idiot? Your evading instead of answering the tough questions."

  "I can't give you better answers!" he bursts out, and for a moment his blanket of indifference unravels and gives me a glimpse into his eyes, burning in frustration. That look I know, it hasn't changed.

  "Where did you go? Where did you disappear to as if the earth swallowed you?"

  "To Afghanistan," he mutters quietly. The words that come out of his mouth freeze my blood, and my face pales.

  "You went where?" I whisper in shock. "What did you do in—”

  "I enlisted." His gaze doesn't waver from me, as if waiting for my reaction. But it doesn’t come. I sit opposite him in shock.

  "Please say something," he whispers after the seconds pass silently over us.

  "You enlisted," I manage to answer.

  "Yes, I didn't have anywhere to sleep or anything to eat, I barely had money. It looked like a good solution."

  "So you enlisted." I repeat the words again. He was a soldier, in Afghanistan. The pressure in my chest increases. Our waitress returns with our drinks, placing them on the table. I don't touch my tea and Colin doesn't touch his coffee.

  "Elizabeth," he doesn't take his eyes off me.

  "I don't know what to say." I swallow to overcome the lump in my throat. "I don't know what to think, I feel like I don't know anything about you."

  "You know all that matters. I'm here, and we have a daughter, and I love her."

  "You don't know anything about love," I raise my hand in front of him, "people who love don't disappear to Afghanistan."

  "Elizabeth . . ."

  "I can't do this." I push my chair, which grinds loudly. "I can't."

  "We didn't talk about Vivian," he tries to stop me.

  "You can't cram five years into one conversation."

  "How long do you need?"

  "As long as it will take." I grab my bag, and leave the cafe. My footsteps pound the concrete and I fill my lungs with air as soon as I reach the corner of the street. Breathe. Slowly. You know what to do. Breathe.

  My eyes are running and I struggle to remember where I parked the car. I stumble over the street, my thoughts running through my head. Afghanistan. I can barely imagine it, Colin in uniform, dusty, lying on a field bed in a desert tent. What happened to him there?

  I manage to calm my pulse only slightly, reach my Toyota, open the door with trembling hands and step into it, clutching the steering wheel. He was so desperate that he thought the only solution was to go to war? How could I not see it? Blind. Just as I didn't see that he didn't love me.

  The tears run down my cheeks, I drop my head to the wheel and let them come. He didn't say a word. Not when he got down on one knee that afternoon in the park, blushing like he never blushed before and said I was his everything. Not when I lay beside him in bed and I raised the pregnancy test in front of him, and in response he covered my face with kisses. Not when he pulled me into his chest on the morning of our wedding day, in our little bedroom, and whispered in my ear the last words I would hear from him for five years. If only I could make you as happy as you do me.

  I hate him, the shattered dream, the lies and everything he took from me. I weep for the life that was stolen from me and the man I trusted, who enli
sted and didn't look back. I've never loved anyone like I loved him, and I've never hated anyone more.

  My phone rings at nine thirty in the evening, lying on the sofa in front of the TV. I picked Vivian up from my mother's house late, after taking the time to relax and suppress the signs of crying from my face. I didn't say a word about the meeting with Colin. My mother thought I had to stay at work late. Well, that's what I told her.

  "Colin," I reply anxiously, what else will he tell me? Where else has he spent the last five years?

  "I'm sorry I dropped it on you like that."

  "It's not important." I stare at the ceiling.

  "It's very important, I was not going to hurt you."

  "You didn't hurt me . . ."

  "We both know it's not true," he interrupts me, before I go on.

  "How many years did you serve?"

  In the last few hours I tried not to think about it, about him in the desert. How terrible was that? How dangerous and lonely?

  "Three, and after that I lived in LA, first with a friend from the army and then alone."

  "Have you dated anyone?" The dumb question still preoccupies me, as if that's what is important.

  "No one serious," he answers evenly. "I always knew that the moment would come when I would leave everything and come back here, and I didn't want to leave anyone behind."

  "Except me," I say in frustration.

  "I was afraid you'd met someone," he confesses, and my heart misses a beat.

  "Why?" He's the one who left, so what does he care who I go out with?

  "Because I'm selfish. I didn't want Vivian to have another father." He moans, "God, I'm a shit person.”

  "You're not," I reply out of habit. That's how it was when we were young.

  You're not stupid, Colin.

  You are not impervious.

  I love you . . .

  Damn those memories!

  "Where do you live?" I continue to investigate.

  "I have a house, not far from Richmond Park." I don't want to think of Richmond Park, where he proposed to me.

  "Great area." I wish I could afford to live there. The area is quiet and well maintained, and the playgrounds are wonderful. But all the neighborhoods there are terribly expensive, at least by my miserable standards.

  "I like the location. Did you know they cleared the lake of the swans?"

  "I had no idea," I reply quietly. "I'm don’t really go there."

  "Dormont Park is closer to you."

  "Listen . . ." I panic at once. He knows I didn't move and knows the address and the house.

  "I'm not going to show up uninvited."

  "That's not what I meant," I lie.

  "It is, and I can understand."

  "Sorry," I hasten to apologize.

  "You've changed," he mutters quietly.

  I keep silent and try not to think how much I have changed. I went up two sizes in my clothes and got some scars, the ones you see and the ones that you don't. You should have married one of your cheerleaders, Colin.

  "Elizabeth?" he asks quietly in a confused voice.

  "You didn't really think I'd stay twenty-one forever, did you?" I mutter through my own screen of pain.

  "You scare easily."

  "Ever since she was born," I confess. I don't know if it's the fatigue of the day I've been through or the last few weeks, but tonight I don't have the strength to fight anymore. I don't have the strength to lie and pretend.

  "Because you were alone?" He continues on the same line.

  "I don't know, it could be. I might have become scared, even if you were here."

  "Maybe," he mumbles again.

  "She's not like me, you know?"

  "No?"

  "She's fearless."

  "She's four and a half."

  "It bothered me for a long time that I inherited these anxieties."

  "No one judges you."

  "You're so wrong." I take a deep breath. "Everyone judges me, my motherhood, my choices, my decisions." Sometimes it seems to me that the whole world stands by and gives me a score. Why didn't I go back to my parents' house? Why did I choose to live alone? Why did he leave me?

  "No one has the right to judge your motherhood," he whispers.

  "It was not supposed to be this way." I struggle with the suffocation in my throat.

  "I know. Elizabeth, please let me see her," he asks again. "I don't want to go to court, I just want to know my daughter."

  "You can come tomorrow at five. Stay for dinner." In a moment of weakness and fatigue I surrender to him, to the guy who broke my heart and fled to the desert. "I'll tell Viv you're a friend of mine, that's all I can offer right now."

  "Thank you." His answer comes immediately.

  "I'll see you tomorrow, at five." I close my eyes.

  "I'll be there," he promises, and I pray that he won't disappoint me again or disappear.

  Chapter 9

  The sweaty boy standing panting on our doorstep makes my breath disappear. An apologetic smile is smeared on his face, as if he's embarrassed.

  "Colin," I manage to stammer.

  "Sorry, practice went on and on. You said your time is valuable, and I didn't want to be late." He wipes the sweat off his forehead. I think he ran all the way from school.

  All this just to be on time?

  "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have turned up like this, I can go . . ." He doesn't even complete the sentence before I interrupt him sharply.

  "No." My cheeks redden, "Come in, it's fine." It's not really fine. His smell is the last thing I need right now. Really, how am I supposed to concentrate?

  "Are you sure?" he frowns.

  "Yes. My parents aren't home, do you want to shower?"

  My question makes his eyebrow rise mischievously, which makes me force my legs together. A pleasant feeling spreads between my thighs, and I swallow thinking that at this rate, not only my panties will get wet. How embarrassing would that be?

  "I didn't mean that . . ." I falter, suspecting that this is exactly what he wants to happen. "Not you and I together . . . just . . . you know . . . if you want . . ." What I want is to stop acting like someone whose brain is fried!

  "Sure?" he asks arrogantly as he walks past me and rubs his shoulder with mine. If he forgets his shirt in my room, I'll smell it all night. Don't think about that now!

  "School work, Colin, that's why you're here, don't get ideas into your head." I manage to raise some confidence.

  "You're the one who offered." He laughs, pulls his shirt over his head and throws it at me. I catch it awkwardly.

  "I didn't . . ." I'm not going to survive this evening.

  "Relax," he sneaks a glance at me, "I'm don’t mess with virgins."

  My heart falls, and I think even Colin heard the crash.

  "And I don’t . . . mess with . . ." The words refuse to come.

  "With?" He teases me, again. It's become an obscene habit.

  "With male whores." My hand leaps to my mouth before I say anything else.

  He freezes, then turns slowly with a look that scares me for a moment.

  "Is that what I am?" he asks in a low, low voice.

  "I'm sorry," I say through the barrier made by my fingers.

  "Don't be sorry." He winks. "That's exactly what I am, and you don't get any. Now where's the shower?"

  He turns his back again, and with arrogant steps, goes up the stairs to the second floor.

  I can't believe I said that, and I can't believe he's the guy I'm in love with.

  The sign on the furniture store door is gone.

  My heart drops, as I take in the meaning behind it's disappearance.

  I'm going to be unemployed.

  Henry is leaning against the counter, his eyes betraying his worry. He doesn't like changes and we are both facing a rather large one.

  "We're history." I toss the bag at his side and take out the shopping list I've started to do. I have no intention of letting Colin come into my house and think my cab
inets and refrigerator are empty. Not that they are empty, not at all, but I don't want to take the risk.

  "Cooking?" Henry glances at the ever-growing list.

  "I'm hosting," I concede.

  "A battalion of the army?" he mumbles, but his remark shrinks my chest. Not a battalion, just one soldier. It's going to kill me. Thank God for the twenty-five thousand dollars that went into my account.

  "I'm making dinner and not sure what to cook." So I'm going to buy everything I can think of.

  "You invited him, didn't you?" Henry exposes me quite easily.

  "Yes." I feel the lump forming in my throat. "Who else can I invite over?"

  "Anyone would be lucky if you were to host them," he tries to cheer me up. "You're smart and beautiful."

  "You forgot single-mom living in a two-room bungalow," I grumble. So I'm smart, wow, like it did me any good. I'm not pretty, and I have an ugly scar on my stomach that would probably scare any guy who sees it, let alone my other complicated issues.

  "Elizabeth, Henry." Mr. Blunt's voice surprises us both. Where did he sneak up from?

  "Mr. Blunt," I answer with concern.

  "I wanted to let you know that the new owner will be moving in in the next few weeks."

  Great. Just what I needed today, when my ex is coming to dinner.

  "We'll have to pack the furniture, I hope I can count on you."

  He stares at me disapprovingly. I've been missing a lot of work this month, and I know that if I miss anymore, Mr. Blunt won't accept it with understanding.

  "You can count on us," I answer firmly.

  "Happy to hear, you can start on Monday. Whatever you need is in the storage."

  I am not eager to hear that we are about to spend the next week wrapping all the pictures, mirrors and scribbles that fill the place.

  "Everything will be ready for when the trucks arrive." I don't think Mr. Blunt will be taking the furniture in his car.

  "I'll let you know as soon as I know." He glances around his beloved store, which is about to close, turns his back on us and walks away to the office.

  "Do you still think Danielle Cole is the girl you want to be with?" I grumble to Henry, who seems desperate about the situation.