Dahlia

I hadn’t left my house in three days. Between being completely consumed in finding another job for myself and trying to pack up my house, I had possessed no desires to leave. I was crushed in the combined loss of Chet and my job, a job I had started to enjoy more and more. On the morning of the fourth day, I got up, dragged myself to the kitchen and finally called my mother back.

“Hello?”

“Mom?” I clutched my coffee mug in my hand, dreading what she would say.

“Where have you been?”

“It’s been a crazy two weeks.” I let out a humorless laugh.

There was a pause, and then a sigh. “So what happened?” That knowing sound in her voice almost brought a smile to my face. It was so reassuring; the fact that mom was always mom.

“I uhm… I quit my job.”

I stood there in the silent reality of those words, waiting for her reaction. I hadn’t said them out loud until that moment and could barely face it myself. A lump lodged itself in my throat, my eyes watering.

“So…” She sounded worried. God, she sounded so worried. I hated that. “So, what are you gonna do, then?”

I shrugged even though she couldn’t see me. “I don’t know.”

“You’re not coming home?”

My eyes widened. “Oh. No yeah I think I am. I think I have to now.”

She let out another sigh. But she almost sounded relieved. I grimaced. Sometimes I felt like my mother wasn’t thinking about what was best for me, but what was best for herself. I felt like she gave me advice according to what would have me closest to home, and herself: what would result in less loneliness for her. “That’s great.”

My eyes stung. There was nothing great about this. I just wanted some support. “Yeah, I uh… I gotta go.” I said a hasty goodbye and hung up the phone.

My mother was absolutely overjoyed at this opportunity to baby me again.

It was going to be hell.

But with no job and no way to support myself for the foreseeable future, there was nothing more for me to do. And moreover, the last thing I wanted was to stay in the house with all of its memories of Chet. I continued drinking my coffee and floated through the house, my eyes landing on the boxes, some of them half-packed from my haphazard efforts to try to get things started, others half-unpacked, because I hadn’t actually been in that house long enough to get to everything.

Once I had drained my cup twice, I changed out of my pajamas and into a pair of jeans and t-shirt. I drew my hair up into a ponytail and started tackling the boxes. Even though I loved this team, and loved- … No, I wouldn’t think of him. Not now.

My heart sunk anyway. My eyes watered.

I still couldn’t believe this was happening.

I sunk down on my knees, my stomach lurching with that familiar pain. It wasn’t fair that I had tried so hard, that I had cared so much. It wasn’t fair that after all the good I tried to do, I ended up here. I wiped my hands over my face and stood up, floating back to my kitchen.

I gazed out onto my small back porch, thinking. That was another chapter of my life closed, over with, done. My eyes landed on my phone, laying on the counter, the screen black. It wasn’t that there hadn’t been calls and texts because there had been, plenty. I had ignored them because I knew what he was going to say and there was no point. I had made my decision, and as long as all of the factors didn’t change, neither would I. What point was there in beating around the bush, hurting each other more and more?

It wasn’t until well into the afternoon, that I was finally able to focus on something. I dragged an undeveloped, Home Depot box to my kitchen and formed it, the sound of the tape gun slicing through the dense silence. With that done, I laid out all the glasses in my cabinets, wrapping them and placing them inside the boxes. I continued doing this, almost obsessively, until my mind wandered again. I wondered what kind of jobs there might be for me in the future. I sat down to my counter and flipped open my laptop. Even though my first love had always been surgery, even though I had always been disappointed in the way things had gone without it, I couldn’t deny this new love of sports medicine. I wondered what other teams were hiring. And what’s more, I wanted to erase this experience, completely. I wanted to move on from this failure. Clearly, there had never been a place for me here.

After idling searching the internet for an hour, I shut my laptop and had lunch.

As I started up again, working through my kitchen cabinets, pulling all of my glass cups to be wrapped and shoved into the boxes I had spent all morning setting up, I heard a knock on my door. My brow furrowed in confusion as I made my way through my front hallway. I hadn’t ordered anything. But when I opened it, my heart stopped at the sight of Chet standing on the other side of the threshold.

My first thought was that I had missed him. God I had missed him so much.

My second thought was that I hadn’t brushed my hair yet that day.

And my third was, “What are you doing here?”

He smiled at me, a sad, desperate gesture that made his eyes twinkle.

I wanted nothing more than to embrace him.

“Can I come in?”

I didn’t move at first. Could he? In that moment, I was so terrified of another terrible conversation, afraid of more words that would break my heart. I had to protect myself so that I could get out of there, so that I could move on.

“Please?”

But there he was, standing right in front of me, begging me to let him in. How could I refuse him. I bit my lip, stepping aside. “Yeah.”

He stood in my front hallway, his hands in his pockets, glancing around.

“I don’t have anything to offer you.” I said, my arms crossed. What was the point of this?

“I’ve come to offer you your job back.”

My heart sunk. Why was he so hell-bent on making this as hard on me as possible? “If I wanted it, I would have asked for it.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry I disappointed you.”

I sunk into my couch, placing my fingers on my temple. “That what you should apologize for. Is that what you’re gonna tell Collin? That it’s just too bad he’s paralyzed?”

He sat down in the grandfather chair across from me. “That’s not what I meant at all.”

“Do you even know? What do you stand for?”

He set his jaw, folding his hands and leaning towards me. “I stand for you and us and this.” He said.

My brow furrowed. He was wearing me down. I knew that I loved him, but that was just it. It wasn’t just about that. I had to know that he understood me. I had to know that we wanted the same things. I had to be sure that he was a good person. “But that’s not enough. Who are you? Do you even know?”

“I know that things need to change with the company. And I’m not afraid of that anymore.” He stood up and walked towards me, leaning over me.

I gazed up at him, my eyes watering. I wanted to believe him.

“I thought about what you said and I don’t want things to be the way they always have been. I can’t go back to that.”

“But what does that even mean?”

“I won’t live my life on auto-pilot anymore.”

My heart fluttered in my chest.

“Not now, not after you. I want something better.”

I sighed. My knees went weak as he took me in his arms. “Are you saying what I think you are?”

He kissed me. “You were right, about the players, about me, about everything. I should have trusted you.”

I was breathless. “How is this possible? How are you here?”

I had been so dead set on leaving, so sure about getting as far away as possible. Now, the only thing I was sure about was him.

“It won’t be that easy,” I said. “I need real changes. And Russ… Russ is dangerous.”

He was kneeling before me, his arms wrapped around my waist, gazing up at me. “I know.” He chuckled. “God I know.”

He kissed me again. “I love you.”

My eyes teared up with happiness held him as tightly as I could. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“For what?”

“For being everything I could ever want.”

I kissed him, the touch like medicine, filling me up, making me feel more alive than I ever had.

“I love you too.”