Winter Jacket: Finding Home (34 page)

We loaded up plates and traveled to the dining room to finish the meal. I had wanted dinner to be perfect and comfortable, but it was clear we both had residual nerves. And even though she was sitting directly across the table from me, it made me miss her even more.

I pushed the food around on my plate with my fork. “How are you liking apartment living again?”

“That’s not really the question you want to ask, is it?”

A small smile curled onto my lips. She saw right through my petty jealousy. Her roommate, Loryssa, was beautiful, age appropriate, and bi-curious.

“No.”

“Then why not ask me what you really want to know?”

“Because I have no right,” I said, stabbing a chunk of watermelon with my fork. “We’re not together. You’re free to do whatever you want with whomever you want.”

“I asked about you and Dean Merlot,” she pointed out.

“You can call her Jessica.”

“I’d rather not.”

I chewed on the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. Hunter’s features were schooled, her emotions nearly checked, except for the burning intensity I couldn’t ignore in her grey-blue eyes.

“Okay,” I let the syllables roll around on my tongue. “Have you had sex with Loryssa?”

I could practically see the words sitting on the table, forming a barrier as seemingly impenetrable as the Berlin Wall. I wanted to tear down the remaining obstacles and everything that was keeping us too polite, too rigid, and too careful with our words.

Her lips pursed. “No. There hasn’t been a repeat performance of that night.”

“Have you slept with anyone else?” The question tumbled out without my permission. I wanted to know with certainty, but I also feared her response. I didn’t think I could handle the idea of someone else touching her.

Instead of answering, she turned the question around on me. “Have you?”

I looked down at my hands. Hunter been the one to break up with me; I shouldn’t have felt guilty about my evening at Nightshade, but I did.  Even though nothing had happened between Jasmine and me, I had gone there for the purpose of having sex. “Almost.”

“Almost?” The word got stuck in her throat and sounded more like a hiccup than a question.

“You’d called and told me you were moving out of my house. I was angry and sad. There was a girl …” I trailed off. She didn’t need to know the extreme details. “But I realized that it would be a mistake. And Sonja, the girl from work, she kissed me the night I decided to come back here.”

I watched her mouth twitch as she chewed on the inside of her lip. “It’s late; I should probably go.”

I reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “Please don’t.”

“I can’t do this right now.”

“I need to know if we have a chance,” I implored. I rubbed the pad of my thumb across her knuckles when she didn’t remove her hand from my hold. “You changed me; for better or for worse, I’m a different person because of you. In the past, if I had had my heart broken, I would have jumped into bed with the closest skirt I could find. But I didn’t. There were opportunities, and yes, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to being tempted, but the important thing is that I didn’t.”

Her eyes dropped to her place setting, and I immediately expected the worst. I let go of her hand, and she set it on her lap. Maybe I’d said too much. Maybe I’d ruined everything with my honesty when dinner had been so nice.

“After we first broke up, I went to Peggy’s a few times,” she started. “I don’t know if word got out that you and I weren’t together anymore or what, but the women at the bar seemed a little more aggressive than usual. I had opportunities, too, but … I never went through with it. I thought that if I did this thing—if I had sex with someone that wasn’t you—I guess it meant that you and I were really over.”

“Anyone I know?” I asked in my most controlled voice. Privately, however, I was ready to construct a list of lesbians I’d have to threaten.

“No. I wouldn’t do that to you.” She finally looked back up at me with that unwavering eye contact that had first drawn me in nearly two years ago. “I never wanted to break up with you, but I think I had to do it to reassure myself that I could survive without you.”

“I get that.” My voice lowered. “I wish it never had to happen, but I get it.”

“My mom thinks I’m a fool.”

“You told her what happened?”

Hunter’s mother and I had gotten off to a rough start, but we’d eventually reconciled. I didn’t envision us ever having comfortable family dinners or celebrating joint holidays, but I’d wanted Hunter to at least have that relationship back.

“I went back to live with my parents for a few weeks after we broke up,” she revealed. “It felt like you’d died. I was surrounded by your things, your scent, sleeping in your bed. They still had my old bedroom waiting for me.” She played with the stem of her wine glass. “It was a lot of ‘I told you so’s’ in the beginning—that I should have known better to date someone in a different place in her life, which I think was just her tactful way of pointing out our age difference.”

I frowned at the half-eaten food on my plate.

“It was short lived though,” she continued. “After she saw how miserable I was, the snide comments stopped. I’ve broken up with people before, but this hit me harder than I expected, probably because I’d never really loved anyone until I met you. I think I loved you from the moment you stood in front of our classroom and wrote your name on the blackboard.” She looked down at the table. “I’ve probably said too much,” she stated quietly.

“No. You’ve said just enough,” I said. “Thank you.”

I didn’t know what else to say. Did this mean she wanted to get back together? I didn’t know how to ask her without sounding obtuse. The ticking of the grandfather clock pounded in my head.

We finished the meal with no additional talk of temptations or how to fix a broken heart. She was quiet and reserved, but at least she remained seated across the table from me. It was a step in the right direction.

When the rest of the food had been eaten or packed in tupperwear and dishes had been hidden away in the dishwasher, we lingered in my front foyer. “Thank you for tonight,” she said as we stood, facing each other. “It was really nice.”

“Thank you for coming over,” I returned.

A small smile curled the corners of her wide, expressive mouth. She touched the side of my face and my eyes fluttered close. “I’m glad you’re back, Elle.”

“Me, too,” I said, eyes still closed.

I felt the light brush of her lips against mine.

I wanted to ask her to spend the night, but I knew that would have been jumping back into things too quickly. And I reminded myself about the cow who gave away her milk for free. This was for the best.

You can do slow
, I told myself.
You can wait.

CHAPTER TWenty-two

I didn’t hear from Hunter in the days after dinner. I kept myself busy with papers to grade and lectures to plan and the mounting anxiety of knowing that my episode of the series was soon to air. The show had been on break since the twelfth episode had aired in mid-December. My episode, the thirteenth of the season, was the mid-February return. 

It was later in the evening when my phone rang with a call from the woman whom I’d thought had been avoiding me. I’d taken Hunter’s picture off of my phone wallpaper and the picture of her face squished against Sylvia’s no longer popped up when she called me. Things were different between us now, and I was enough of a masochist to deem the change necessary as a reminder.

“Hey,” I answered. I had expected to hear from her sooner, and I now tried to keep a neutral tone rather than come across as too eager.

“What are you doing right now?” she questioned.

“Not much. Watching TV, staring at a stack of dirty dishes in the sink.”

I hated the sound I heard next. It was a sob.

“Hunter? Baby, what’s wrong?”

I bit the end of my tongue for having let the endearment slide so reflexively out of my mouth.

“Today wasn’t a good day. Oscar didn’t …” Her words cut off as she stifled another sob.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“At home.”

“Wait there. I’m coming over.” The dishes could wait another few hours. They could wait forever.

Hunter was still in her scrubs when she answered the front door. Her bright blue eyes were swollen and red around the edges.

“Hi,” she greeted.

“Hey.” I grabbed her forearm and pulled her into my embrace. I didn’t know the full story, and I wasn’t sure she’d even want to talk about whatever had happened at work that day, but for now I wanted to just be there for her.

The Hunter the rest of the world saw was polished, refined, and deliberate. She was afraid of making mistakes and letting anyone see her unkempt, physically or emotionally. For all of our differences, in that we were alike. Tears were reserved for only those we trusted. Vulnerability was weakness that few were allowed to witness. But the girl I loved wore sweatpants and messy ponytails. She sang off-key in the shower and could coax snuggles out of the most aloof of cats. I needed to find that girl again, or rather I needed to
be allowed
to see her again. I needed to earn that right.

Her tears were silent for now, but I held her tightly as her body shook. I rubbed my hands across her shoulder blades and down the center of her back. I had never considered myself a natural nurturer. I was awkward around children and the sight of tears typically made me want to run in the opposite direction.

“It’s going to be okay,” I murmured into her sweet smelling hair. “Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.”

My arms felt her rigid body release its tension. She began to speak, but she kept her face buried in the crook of my neck: “The past few days I’ve been taking shifts, watching over a preemie named Oscar.”

Oscar.
Oh no.
The name she’d sobbed on the phone.

“When his parents couldn’t be there, I sat with him, talking and reading and touching his little hand. He was so small,” she noted. “It’s hard to believe anything that small could ever grow into an adult.” Her final words wobbled with watery emotion.

“I’m so sorry, Hunter.”

“I’m not naive,” she mumbled, still refusing to look at me, but allowing herself to be held. “People die every day; you can’t have life without death. And I knew when I chose this specialty that it was one of the hazards of the job.”

I rubbed my palms up and down her shoulders. “But that doesn’t make it any easier,” I soothed.

She finally, gingerly, pulled away. Her mouth tilted up on one side, and she slowly shook her head. “No. It doesn’t.”

“Have you eaten?”

“I haven’t had much of an appetite since I got home.”

“How about Chinese?” I proposed. “And while we wait for the food to get here, why don’t you hop in the shower and wash off the day.”

She nodded, eyes tearing up again. “Okay.”

“Take however long you need. When you get out of the shower, I’ll be here.”

The walls of Hunter’s apartment weren’t so thick that I couldn’t hear her tears in the bathroom. It was something I’d done countless times—crying in the shower until I’d exhausted myself with no sense of if the wetness on my face was from tears or from water.

I stood just on the otherwise of the closed bathroom door and listened to her cry. I wanted to be in there with her, but instead of barging in and throwing unhelpful words at her, I gave her the privacy to simply fall apart. I’d be there for her when she was ready to be put back together.

When Hunter reemerged from the bathroom, scrubbed pink and clean from the shower, the delivery food had just arrived. We set up the spread on her bed and ate noodles and egg-fried rice while watching a mindless comedy on her laptop.

“Thank you for this.”

I smiled at her. “You don’t have to thank me.”

“I know. But my parents taught me to be polite.”

I wasn’t sure when it had happened, but at some point during the movie, Hunter had fallen asleep. Her eyes were closed and her chest rhythmically rose and fell with each deep inhalation.

I didn’t want to move, but I didn’t want to risk falling asleep on her bed with her. It would be too much, too soon.

When I shifted on the mattress, Hunter’s eyes fluttered open.

“Is the movie over?” She stretched her arms above her head and made an adorable noise that made me want to cuddle her closer.

“No, but I should probably be getting home.”

The sleepy, content look on her face crunched into disappointment. “You’re leaving?”

I stood from the bed. “Yeah, I probably should go before it gets worse out there.”

She looked in the direction of her bedroom window. The soft patter of falling rain striking the windows that had first lulled Hunter to sleep had become more aggressive. Heavy rain beat against the storm window, nearly sounding like hail. The sky lit up with a flash of bright light, followed immediately by a deep rumble.