Now
“You let the pizza boy in, but you’re going to make me sleep on the porch again?” Teller asks me. The delivery person, Chris—we know each other on a first name basis at this point—walks past him to his car with a ten-dollar tip in his sweaty palm. “I had to brush my teeth with hose water. Our flight takes off at seven in the morning. I’m going to smell like dirt.”
I wait patiently in the doorway, blinking slowly until his rant is over. “There are plenty of hotels in town. And you’re the only one catching a plane out of here, prick.”
Leaning on his forearms against the railing, Teller closes his lips around his cigarette and inhales. The tip of the Marlboro burns red, and toxic white smoke billows above him, fading into the murky darkness of the night. He’s bathed in the moonlight the same way he’s bathed in disappointment: from the ground up.
“Are you really not going to come back with me?” he asks. Traces of smoke kiss his lips with each word. “I came here to bring you home.”
Home.
A place to truly call my own isn’t something I’ve had since my dad died and we left St. Helena. The apartment in Venice I shared with my brother for a while before Nic moved in was impersonal and seedy. The spot in Hollywood was better lit, and the plumbing worked, but it wasn’t mine. It belonged to Em and Nicolette. I intruded on their domestic bliss. Living with Teller felt like the real deal, but the joke was on me.
That doesn’t stop me from being homesick.
“Here,” I say, holding the pizza boxes out. “The top one is for you.”
Green eyes the color of nostalgia turn on me as he considers my offer—green eyes I’ve memorized over the years. Green eyes I’ve tried to outrun for the last three weeks, unsuccessfully.
Trapping eyes. Relentless eyes. Crashing green eyes.
“Get the fuck out of here, Ella.” Teller grabs his jacket, sliding his arms through it before he grabs his suitcase and walks away. He spits in the grass, taking the moonlight with him as he disappears down the sidewalk.
I hear Teller’s footsteps on the porch a few hours later. Worry ransacking my insides forfeits at the feet of relief, triumphant by his nearness and paralyzing my will. If I can hear him, then he hears me crossing the room from the kitchen. Agitation’s waiting in front of the door when I swing it open and say, “Why are you torturing me?”
The right side of his mouth pulls up, hinting a smile. It’s the first thing I notice before registering his change of clothes … and smell. “I can ask you the same thing.”
“I thought you left,” I say.
“And I thought I told you I wouldn’t leave.” Teller rolls his suitcase back to its spot beside the door. “Do you think I can have a pillow? I don’t know if you’ve ever slept on this porch, but it’s really uncomfortable.”
“Where did you go?” I ask. He smells like cheap soap and spearmint mouthwash.
He smells like comfort.
“Funny story.” He chuckles, opening his luggage and pulling out his blanket. “My fiancée won’t let me in her house, so I had to walk to town and rent a fucking hotel room to shower.”
“Teller, I’m not your—”
“If you don’t have a pillow, I’ll just roll up my jacket and sleep on that,” he interrupts me, stepping out of his shoes. “It’s what I did last night.”
“If you rented a room, why didn’t you stay there?” The conflict between my head and heart splits me down the middle, amplifying the self-torturing riot and lack of balance spinning my thoughts back and forth between acceptance and utter devastation like some messed up merry-go-round.
I can invite him in and end the sleeplessness and tension, but how different can we possibly be from the people we were three weeks ago? Or I can force him to leave, sentencing myself to what feels like will be a lifetime of remorse.
“Because you’re here,” he answers.
There’s no truce between right and wrong tonight, so instead of standing in the doorway and arguing until the sun comes up, I give him a pillow from my bed and say goodnight.
“Ella?” Heartache reels through my bones and I turn away before he sees what the sound of my name on his lips does to me. In a whisper, he repeats the words I’ve asked him countless times before, “Tell me what this is.”
Covering my mouth with my hands to keep from crying out, I squeeze my eyes shut, spilling tears from my sad-soaked lashes. “I don’t know,” I whisper.
“I’ll tell you what it isn’t, baby.” His voice is so close I feel his breath on the back of my neck. “This isn’t over.”
Rest that’s eluded me for nearly a month returns with a sweet vengeance, burying me in a deep, dreamless sleep. It passes like the blink of an eye. When the phone wakes me up the next morning, I’m in the same position I passed out in. I sit up with a groan, stretching stiff muscles and blowing my hair out of my face. There’s only one other person who calls as insistently as Teller.
“I’m coming. I’m coming,” I mumble. Stumbling from my father’s old room to the kitchen with my eyes half-closed and my body half-awake, I consider ripping the phone from the wall. “Hello, Maby.”
“Hey, girl,” she answers. “I tried your cell, but it went straight to voicemail.”
“So, you thought calling over and over was a good idea?” Swishing yesterday’s coffee around in the stained pot, I deem it acceptable. I pour it into yesterday’s cup and pop it into the microwave.
“I knew you’d answer sooner or later,” she replies.
“How are you doing, Maby?” I ask, sipping lukewarm stale caffeine. It dawns on me, and not for the first time that I should stop drinking shitty coffee.
“Oh, you know, just trying to deal with my best friend moving away,” she starts in a singsong tone. “And my brother spiraling out of control because of it, and clinical depression. Typical stuff. As nice as it may be, Ella, we can’t all run from our problems.”
Exhaling a heavy breath, I stretch the telephone cord to the back porch and sit in a chair beside the sliding glass door. My heart expands at the sight of the rag Teller set back on the table. He pulled the weeds around the house and raked them into a neat pile, crossing a task off my never-ending to-do list.
Teller’s an innovative apologizer. He has a killer smile and charm so spellbinding it leaves me with selective memory. He’s easy to forgive, which is why I put distance between us. I don’t know what would have happened had he followed me here right away; I don’t know why he waited three weeks to knock on my front door, giving me time to myself for the first time since we met. It’s a blessing and curse.
“I wondered why I hadn’t heard from you last week,” I say, sipping the sludge in my mug. “I was going to call Husher today.”
“There were a few bad days,” she admits. Maby’s dismissive of the sadness that leaves her useless for weeks at a time. “But I’m feeling better, so you don’t need to worry about me, babe. I heard Teller made a trip up north this weekend.”
I snicker at her casual attitude. “He trespassed on private property. But, yeah, he was here.”
“How did it go?” she asks.
“As expected,” I offer.
“Then you worked it out, and you’re coming home?”
“Okay, then it didn’t go as expected.” I’m no doormat, but when Teller Reddy inserted himself into my world, he tunneled through my veins and siphoned directly from my life source like a bloodsucker. I survived by returning the favor, sinking my teeth into him until I hit bone. We lost sight of where I started and he ended, and the soul-sucking, heart-sucking cycle started. History has me forgiving him, but history needs to work harder than that this time.
“I don’t know if it’s wise for me to say this, Ella, because at this point, I don’t know if it’s wise for you and my brother to work it out. You’re a nightmare together. You’re exhausting. But let’s end the spectacle and stop pretending that you and Teller aren’t soulmates, okay?”
“Maby—”
“Shut up and let me finish,” she says. “May he rest in peace, but you never loved Joe, and that poor boy knew it.”
“Yes, I—”
“Gabriella, will you please shut the fuck up until I’ve finished?” She sighs, and I pour bad coffee onto the grass. “If anyone knew you and Joe were all wrong for each other, it was him. He didn’t belong in California. That New Yorker belonged on the East Coast. He would have eventually admitted it or to the relationship with Kristi, and it would have given you the out you were looking for.”
“He was going to ask me to marry him, Maby,” I remind her with the sun in my eyes.
“You would have said no, and he would have wanted you to,” she says. It’s the truth.
“Can you get to the point? I have a million other things I can be doing.”
“Teller is far from perfect, and he has a lot of shaping up to do, but you’re a runner, Ella. You’re always looking for a reason to leave, and you’re using this shit with Joe and Kristi as an excuse to run away from what you feel. Which is probably fear. My brother is one scary motherfucker. He’s exceptionally frightening since you left.”
I laugh out loud and walk back into the house, dropping my empty coffee mug into the sink. “Teller is the last person I’m afraid of.”
“You’re afraid of commitment,” she says, sending a pang of guilt through my chest. “And you’re afraid of being abandoned. Teller’s a lot of things, but he isn’t a quitter. He’ll never leave you. Unless you, like, call the cops. Well…”
“He literally spent the weekend before in jail, and I still woke up to him sleeping in front of my door.”
She’s thoughtful for a second before saying, “He’s had better moments. But my point is, you’re not innocent. Leaving the way you did wasn’t right. You both deserve more than an ending like that. At least talk to him, and if you decide it’s better to move forward apart, then at least you’ll have closure.”
“Thanks for the sound advice, Maby, but it’s not one single thing that got us here. Teller and I have never gotten it right, and I don’t think we ever will. Finding out about Joe and Kristi was just the last nail in the coffin.”
“Ouch.” Maby laughs. “That was in poor taste, girl.”
“I didn’t mean that. You know, because they’re in coffins. It’s a metaphor.” Smacking my forehead, I walk over to the receiver, ready to end this conversation. “Ignore that. Ignore me. I sent Teller away, and it’s not like he can come up here every weekend. He has a life to live, and I have a house to sell. Eventually, we’ll move on, and everyone will see it’s better this way.”
The words taste like poison on my tongue.
The thought feels like Armageddon in my heart.
“He’s my brother, but you and I will be friends for a lifetime regardless of what happens between you and Teller. I only want what is best for you both,” she says in a cautious tone as if she’s yet to drop the ball on me. “It just feels like we’ve been here before, and I don’t want this to blow up when we can handle it cordially. It’s not only you and Tell who hurt when things get bad.”
She’s not wrong. It takes a village to rebuild the destruction Teller and I leave in our wake after an argument—mentally and physically. Another reason we need four hundred miles to keep us apart.
“I’ll be in St. Helena for the foreseeable future, Maby. There’s nothing to worry about,” I say.
“About that,” she replies in a voice too high-pitched to be casual. “There’s another reason why I called this morning. I have something to tell you.”
“Okay,” I say, mistrusting her motives. “What is it?”
“Are you sitting down?” she asks. Her anticipation is contagious from the lower end of the state. “Wait. Maybe you should stand up. Or sit down. Or stand up. Whatever’s best.”
I snicker, leaning against the fridge in case her big reveal knocks me on my ass. “I’m not catching on, but I’m pretty sure you’re about to give me an anxiety attack.”
Maby’s nothing if not dramatic, but I’m nothing if not paranoid. Despite the conversation we just had about working it out with Teller, my mind goes to him and how things can go wrong. Did his plane crash? Did he tell her he doesn’t want to have anything to do with me? Did he knock somebody up? Did he leave the country?
I’ve spent too much time alone.
I’m losing my damn mind.
“Husher asked me to marry him!” she exclaims. The sound of her clapping her hands together beats through the phone, muted when we start to cry and scream.
I’m happy for her, but I’m thrilled Teller isn’t having a baby with some random person even more.
“That’s great, Maby.” Tears fall from my eyes, but I’d be lying if I blamed them totally on my joy for Maby and Husher. Not even a month ago, I had a diamond ring on my finger. The only thing that remains from that promise of forever and always is a fading tan line. “I’m happy for you.”
“There’s more,” she says.
“Are you pregnant?” I ask before she has a chance to tell me more. The thought of being a mother isn’t something I’ve considered, but it’s one more thing I tossed away when I threw Teller’s ring and left.
“What?” She scoffs. “Are you joking? Do I look like someone who ever wants a child?”
“You would be an amazing mom.” I cry harder.
“And pass down my crazy? I don’t think so,” she says. I can see her roll her eyes as if she is standing in front of me. “Husher and I are dog people.”
Teller and I were fish people.
Cleaning my face on the hem of my shirt, I shake my hair from my face and fill my lungs with a much-needed breath. Now isn’t the time to show Maby how broken I am—not when she’s tipping the scale in the opposite direction.
I make the decision now to stop drinking two-day old coffee and to start being a better person. Life is too short.
“Those are going to be some lucky pups,” I say, forcing cheer into my voice for her sake.
“Yeah, cats are too independent,” she says. “How often do you see a cat who likes to cuddle when it’s not on their terms? And why are they always knocking things off the counter? Dogs, on the other hand, are called man’s best friend for a reason.”
For the next twenty minutes, Maby tells me the story about the animal shelter Husher took her to the day before, hoping to find a dog to be her emotional companion. It didn’t turn out quite like he imagined and resulted in Maby vowing to rescue every animal in Los Angeles County. She apparently cried the entire drive home, and she’s already looking for homes outside of the city with land to keep her promise.
“It baffles my mind that people spend thousands of dollars on a dog when there are so many in shelters who need homes. And let’s be honest, Ella. I’m a privileged asshole for not considering this before,” she says with a bite in her tone. “We never had animals growing up. That’s probably why Teller’s a dick. Which is another reason why I don’t want kids. If anyone knows how badly our parents messed us up, it’s you. I don’t need that kind of pressure in my life. I don’t need to be responsible for another human being.”
Listening to the newly engaged ramble lessens the heaviness in my chest. By the time she’s given me a rundown on every dog who stole her heart and how she’s going to donate a percentage of sales from her boutique to find them a forever home, killer smiles and blinding charm fade to white noise. For a moment, everything feels normal.
“Speaking of the boutique,” Maby says. “I was supposed to be there an hour ago. I’ll talk to you again soon.”
“Okay.” Once she ends the connection between us, reality will crash down on me again. I want to savor it for as long as I can. “Tell Husher I said congratulations and let me know if you need help planning.”
What I mean is, let me know when you go cake tasting. I can’t imagine it being anytime soon, but if there’s anything I’m good for, it’s deciding what cake flavor is best.
“Funny you should say that,” Maby replies, slowing from a ramble to enunciating every syllable. “Remember how I said there was more?”
“Yes,” I answer with caution.
“We’re getting married in four weeks.”
I slide down the refrigerator to my bottom. “What?”
She groans and says, “I know. Everyone thinks we’re rushing into it, but we’ve been together since we were kids. We already know everything there is to find out about each other, so there’s no need for a long engagement. I love him, Ella. He loves me, too, and time is running out for those dogs at the shelter.”
We laugh tearfully, sharing knowing breaths and accepting sighs.
“I’m only sort of joking about the dogs. But this is what I want. I want to marry Husher in a month, and I want you there. Can you and Teller put your differences aside long enough to make it happen without incident?”
“Maby, I’d never miss your wedding,” I promise. “And I’d never do anything to ruin it. You have my word.”
We end the call with plans to talk again in the next day or two. I ride the wave her good news left me sailing on, starting with a fresh pot of coffee. Pouring it into a clean cup from the cupboard, I take my time adding cream and sugar, stirring it until the black liquid turns milky and is too sweet to drink. My heart pounds with every step I take toward the front door, hoping and then unhoping Teller’s still here.
When I step onto the porch, I’m not surprised he’s gone, but I am let down.
Leaning against the railing where ash from Teller’s cigarette still lingers from the night before, I once again vow not to drink two-day old coffee anymore, but I revise my pledge to include never consuming this cream and sugar crap either.
I see the note stuck to the door when I turn around to go back inside. Ripping it from the aged oak, I smile as I read his certain words:
This isn’t goodbye, Smella.