Now
I’m not as young as I used to be.
The aches and pains in my neck and back from sleeping on Ella’s porch for two nights make my increasing age very apparent. Four or five years ago, I’d crash out on the cement outside her apartment and wake up ready to chase her around until she forgave me.
I haven’t been able to turn my head since I left St. Helena three days ago.
“Did your arms stop working, too?” Maby scoops dirty clothes from the floor as she passes. “And since when do you smoke in the house, Tell?”
My sister tosses my mess into the laundry room and then opens the sliding glass door to let in fresh air. Sunlight cuts through the parted glass, intruding on my misery and shining a light on my negligence. Maby examines the kitchen, tossing empty takeout boxes into the trash, dirty plates into the sink, and continues to search the refrigerator for sustenance.
She gags.
“Oh, my God, Teller.” Maby holds the gallon of spoiled milk out in front of her, hiding her nose in the crook of her elbow. “Have you even bothered to clean out the fridge since Ella left?”
“Why would I do that?” I drop what’s left of my cigarette into a soda can on the coffee table in front of me. The cherry sizzles in sticky syrup. A trail of smoke swirls from the opening in the lid, disappearing before it merges with the haze hanging above. “If I don’t eat at the hospital, then I go through a drive-thru on the way home. Fuck that refrigerator.”
Maby drops rotten dairy into the garbage and drags the trash can to the fridge, where she proceeds to dry heave and shriek, discarding month-old leftover containers and liquefied fruits and vegetables.
“Doesn’t Mom come over to help you clean?” she asks.
Sticking another smoke between my teeth, I toss the empty pack across the room and stand, stretching my stiff joints and tense muscles. This place is a fucking mess, but so is my life. With my reason for existing out of reach, there’s no point in keeping up with pointless creature comforts, like tidiness and nutrition. I live off fast food and nicotine, hoping it kills me before misery does.
“Obviously she hasn’t been by for a while.” I light my last cigarette as I stride through the kitchen to the backyard.
Green eyes the same color as mine follow me as I walk out, casting the same disappointment everyone I care about shares with me during these dark days. She calls out, “That’s probably because you’re a grown-ass man. What the hell, Teller? When’s the last time you’ve washed a load of laundry?”
The right side of my mouth curves into an imposturous smile. “It’s easier to buy new socks and underwear than to wash the ones I have.”
Maby’s jaw drops long enough to taste the decay secreting from the fridge. She coughs and turns toward the sink as she chokes, cupping her hands under the stream of water and bringing it to her lips. “Burn this place down. It’s the only way.”
I exhale my slow suicide overhead and laugh. “It’s not that serious, Maby. Look out here. The gardener and the pool guy still make it by every week.”
“That’s great.” She joins me outside, inhaling a lungful of clean air as she says, “At least your neighbors won’t suspect you’re one bag of trash away from being on the next episode of Hoarders.”
“The fish tank’s clean.” I drop the smile when it begins to hurt my face.
Maby rolls her eyes, taking a seat under the pergola. The large beams pitch parallel shadows across her body, leaving half of her face washed in sunlight and the other in the shade. “I’d tell Ella to petition for custody if it wasn’t.”
That’s the second time she’s mentioned my demise since showing up unannounced, wrecking my four-week pity party with her concern and sisterly affection. Why can’t she let me rot like the oranges in the refrigerator? Did I fuck with the apples? No, I let them die with dignity. Show me the same respect.
Maby thinks it’s a good idea if I talk about my feelings and be open about what I’m going through, but what the fuck does she know about having your heart torn from your chest with a drop of a ring and a swing of a bat? Husher hasn’t left her side since the day they met, and now she’s promised forever to the poor bastard. My sister owns no wisdom that can save me.
I’m fucked.
I’m half a soul without Ella. Half a man.
Half.
I’m just half.
“Look,” I say, kicking a pebble into the grass, “it was nice seeing you, but I have to be at the hospital in an hour, so you need to go.”
Leaning back in her chair, Maby lifts her feet up and makes herself comfortable. “I think I’ll stay here with you for a while.”
I flick my smoke into the pool and shake my head. “Not happening.”
“Did you seriously just do that?” She scoffs. “Pull yourself together, man. Do you not realize how lucky you are to live in a house like this and own a pool like that? You’ve always been an ungrateful jerk, but for fuck’s sake, wake the hell up.”
If Ella wasn’t an eight-hour drive away, I might not feel so empty. But she is, and I do. This isn’t like the other times we’ve argued and taken breaks for a few days. She boarded an airplane and left me with no indication of ever coming back. We’re not kids anymore. I can’t drop my entire life to kick down her door and beg until she forgives me. Letting the food go bad and the laundry pile up is one thing, but I have patients and a motherfucking goldfish who needs me here.
“Can you watch Phish for a while?” I ask, attempting to rid myself of one obligation.
“Why? Are you going somewhere?” My sister follows me upstairs to my bedroom and immediately opens the curtains to let more bastard light in. Tiny particles of dust drift in the air as I pick up a pair of scrubs from the floor, searching for the cleanest pair.
“My plane leaves Friday morning.” I drop denim to my ankles and expose my boxer briefs, unable to keep a smile back when my only sibling yelps and spins around.
“You’re going back to St. Helena,” she says over her shoulder.
“Is that a question?” I ask, tying my scrubs.
“Do you plan on sleeping in the front yard again?” Maby trails behind me to the bathroom. She leans against the doorframe, crossing her arms over her chest.
I turn on the faucet and splash cold water onto my heated face, unsurprised she knows about that. Apparently, my runaway speaks to everyone but me.
I wonder how long it would take to drown if I filled the sink and sank my head in? The liquid would fill my lungs instead of this heart fuck, and I wouldn’t have to listen to Maby talk about Ella anymore.
That sounds like a motherfucking win-win.
“I plan on doing whatever’s necessary until she talks to me.” A flash of heat fills my stomach when I think about the day she left.
When she dropped her engagement ring to the floor like it meant nothing.
When I took a bat to her car.
“Should I be worried?” Maby asks. She hands me a towel to dry my face.
“Not sure.” I look at myself in the mirror. Purple sleeplessness hangs heavy beneath my eyes, and my hair’s overgrown, sweeping the tips of my ears. I haven’t shaved my face in a week, and there’s blood on these scrubs.
Maby sees the stain when I do and asks if I need help finding a clean uniform.
“Forget it,” I say. I push myself away from the counter and leave. “I’ll grab a pair from the hospital.”
Her footsteps click on the wooden stairs as she hurries to keep up with me, but I can’t be in the fucking house a minute longer. The walls scream loneliness. The bedsheets are bitter. Every corner carries memories of the brunette girl who’s tangled in my veins, mangled around my lungs until I gasp for air the same way I do in the middle of the night when I remember Ella’s not here.
Panic shoves me outside, where my eyes close against the low sun streaming through tree branches and browning leaves. The cool evening temperature bites my sweltering skin, and the scent of damp grass, wilted flower petals, and the water flowing through the gutter offers me something real to concentrate on. Inhaling through my nose, I hold fresh air in my lungs and close my eyes as oxygenated blood flows through me and my head clears.
“Ella’s coming home for the wedding,” my sister calls out as I round the driver’s side of my Range Rover.
“I can’t wait three more weeks, Maby,” I say.
“If you can convince her to come sooner, do you want her to come back to this?” She steps outside and waves her hand toward the house. “It’s disgusting. She’ll just leave again. You’re a pig.”
The hospital becomes my sanctuary for the next thirty-six hours. Lacerations, fractured bones, head wounds, and chest pains coast through the emergency room, and there’s never enough staff to help everyone. I sleep for twenty minutes at a time, chugging energy drinks when I’m interrupted because the patient in bed eight is experiencing abdominal discomfort. Or because the little girl in bed two has a fever. Or because a gunshot victim just stumbled through the doors and collapsed in the waiting room.
“I didn’t know doctors can have tattoos,” some punk teenager with greasy hair covering his eyes and blood spilling from his busted lip says. This motherfucker is so dedicated to his juvenile delinquency he’s hugging the skateboard that sent him face-first into a brick wall. “That’s pretty cool.”
I set his chart down and pull my chair beside his bed. “You know what’s not cool?”
“What?” Skater boy grins, splitting the gash on his mouth wide open. Blood coats his teeth.
“Head trauma, dipshit. This is the third time you’ve been here in a month. If you still want to wipe your own ass by the time you’re thirty, I suggest you wear a fucking helmet.” I spin my chair toward the resident behind me, who’s pressing her lips together to hide her amusement. I ask her to stitch him up.
“Doctors can cuss?” The boy looks at his mom. She’s a blonde woman with permanent worry lines around her eyes and a swift hand, smacking her kid on the back of the head. “Ouch! What was that for?”
“Shut up so the nice lady can put you back together.” Mommy dearest is a wire hanger away from beating his ass in front of us all.
“I wouldn’t do that anymore unless you want to be the one wiping his ass,” I say with a wink, moving on to the next patient.
Dosed with caffeine and delirious from muted exhaustion, I stumble to the locker room when my shift ends and strip out of these sick-soiled scrubs. I exchange them for a clean set to wear home, pulling the shirt over my head with my eyes closed. The contrast between my hundred-pound eyelids and high sugar heartbeat wants me to put an end to consciousness and sprint back to the house on foot at the same time.
As my thoughts slow down with adrenaline, emptiness moves in from the belly up. It scrapes away oblivion until I’m hollow.
I pull in to my driveway with the burn of tobacco on my lips and no recollection of the ride home. The house is dark except for the jagged shapes of light thrown from the properties next door, and just as quiet. It’s a stillness that amplifies once I enter the house and see the empty spot where Phish’s tank was.
I intend to text my sister to thank her for bearing my ward, but dial Ella’s number instead.
Because misery needs its fucking company.
“You’ve reached Gabriella Mason. Leave a message and—”
Tossing my phone onto the kitchen counter, I open the fridge and grab a beer. It’s only when the bitter liquor numbs my tongue do I notice my sink isn’t full of dishes and my dirty clothes sit in color-coordinated piles in front of the laundry room door.
I walk through every room in the house, sipping insensibility. Maby made the bed, swept the floors, and she cleaned my bathroom, which is where I find a note taped to the mirror.
Cleanliness is godliness, asshole.
Do your own laundry.
My family managed every decision in my life for as far back as I can remember. They decided what I studied in college, what I spent money on, and the type of people I surrounded myself with. Until Ella. But then she dictated my quality of life. Since she’s been gone, the only thing I’ve had complete control of is my lack of self-control. I didn’t dust the fucking nightstands or restock the fridge because I didn’t want this place to feel like home.
I wanted it to be uncomfortable.
Unrecognizable.
Cold.
Now I’ve been shot back in time as if Ella will pass through the door at any moment to find our home the way she left it.
The bat is in the garage where I left it.
I slam the Louisville Slugger through the washing machine’s lid, swinging my arms back to strike again. Slivers of glass spill into the metal bucket, tap on the laundry room floor, and skid against my feet. Crushing it under my shoes, I send the bat to the side of the Maytag over and over. Sheet metal bends and buckles and chips with each strike, rocking from side-to-side with the force of my aggression.
“Who’s the asshole now?” I cry out, spitting on the crushed aluminum and sending the bat across the kitchen.
Yeah, that’s still me.
The For Sale sign sways in the light breeze, squeaking as it flaps back and forth on rusty hinges. I was afraid the house would sell when I was away, and the sign would be gone, leaving an empty hole in the grass where the post stood. An overflow of relief sweeps through me as I walk upon it and ease its swing, debating whether or not I should catch it on fire or chop it into pieces.
New treatments cover the windows so I can’t see inside the small house. I don’t bother knocking on the door and drop my backpack onto the concrete walkway. Stubbornness made it clear she won’t admit she wants me around, so it’s up to me to prove I’m not going anywhere without her.
There’s no way I can spend another weekend in the elements, on the porch, so I came prepared this time.
I almost have the camping tent pitched on the lawn when Ella rushes from the house dressed in a pair of overalls splattered in paint. The ends of her hair are dipped white, and paint is freckled across her nose. A painter’s mask hangs from around her neck, and all the broken parts of my life come together with my sweetheart this close.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Teller?” She points at me with a matte finished finger. Ella smells like lacquer and coffee and frustration, and I want to drop to my knees and adore her until the day love kills us both. Then I’ll hang from her halo.
“Are you going to let me inside?” I take her in, soak her up—inhale.
Long lashes flutter against varnished speckled freckles, and Ella’s dark brown eyes sharpen as agitation changes her expression. My heartbeat hustles like the blush spreading from her chest to her cheeks, triggering a need to touch what’s mine so badly, I nearly take a bite out of her.
“I don’t have time for this,” she exclaims, running her hands through her hair. “Why are you here? Why are you doing this to me?”
The last spike gives in to the damp glass under my hand, securing my home away from home to the ground for two seconds before Ella pulls one up. She tosses it to the end of the lawn, hurrying over to the next one.
“You’re fucking insane,” she says, reaching for the spike.
I circle my arms around her stomach and spin her away, forgiving the kicking and scratching as she assaults me. To have her this close is worth broken skin and bloodshed. To feel her against me again in any capacity is worth dirty jeans and scuffed shoes when we fall to the ground. I’m the big spoon to her little spoon, and maybe the neighbors won’t call the cops when they hear her scream.
She darts out of my hold, leaving me in the damp grass to stand over my body with her hands planted on her hips. I rest my palms under my head to get comfortable because bad attention is better than no attention. I’ve always liked the fire in her eyes.
“I’m hosting an open house in a week.” Ella kicks my leg, not nearly as hard as she’s dished before. “You can’t be here. You can’t pitch a fucking tent in the front yard. You can’t do this to me, Tell.”
My lips reach into a smile. “That’s the only tent I’ve pitched since you left me. Heartbreak left me soft, baby.”
Her eyes widen, and she kicks me again—harder this time. Ella tries to storm away, but I grab her by the ankle and get to my feet before she punts my face like a football. I’m not completely upright when her fists collide with my biceps, and then my shoulder, and then my throat.
“You are impossible!” She thrusts her hands onto my chest.
“Let me help you, Smella.” I take hold of her wrists. “You don’t have to do this alone.”
Ella struggles against my grip, but I keep her at arm’s length to protect myself from her attempted murder. I’m begging her to calm down, and she’s trying to take my knees out when a teenage boy with a bowl haircut stops his bike in front of the house and asks Ella, “Are you being attacked?”
Ella doesn’t acknowledge the teen’s existence, but he’s offended me.
“Are you fucking blind?” I ask. Persistence screams and sinks her teeth into my knuckles. “I’m the one being attacked.”
He wipes sweat from his forehead and shrugs. “Yeah, but she’s a girl.”
“So?” I say, letting go of one of Ella’s wrists to push her face away from my hand.
Bike boy lingers uncomfortably with his wheels between his skinny knees, sweating and dirty. “So, she probably can’t defend herself.”
Beads of blood pool on my knuckles. No doubt my skin is still under Ella’s fingernails … but she’s the one who can’t defend herself?
“Get the hell out of here, Trever, before I tell your mom I caught you and your friends peeking through my windows last week,” Ella shouts. The temporary distraction gives me enough time to put some space between us before she scratches my eyes out.
“No, we didn’t.” He scoffs.
“Didn’t you?” she asks. Ella’s chest rises and falls under the straps of her yellow overalls. “Didn’t you and your twerp friend sneak into my backyard?”
I fight the urge to point my finger and laugh at Trever, who’s turned thirteen shades of red. His eyes dart from the sidewalk, to the sky, to a passing car, unable to face his accuser. Trever’s one chuckle away from bursting into tears, but he doesn’t need to worry. If I laugh, she’ll remember I’m here and kick me in the balls. He’s safe for now.
“We just wanted to see what you were doing inside.” The peeping Tom comes clean.
“Exactly.” Ella waves him away. He pedals down the street and she shouts, “Don’t let me catch you around my house again!”
With ten feet between us and my heartbeat slowing to an average pace, I feel safe enough to laugh. She puts an end to it with a single glance, unamused with my amusement and fed up with Trever and me. But there’s something familiar in the way she glares at me. The smile that’s hidden behind her scowl encourages hope.
“Admit it, baby,” I say, shoving my hands into my pockets.
Ella rolls her dark brown eyes. “Admit what?”
“Admit that your milkshake brings pubescent teenage boys to the yard, so you need my help fighting them off.” I shrug, unable to keep the smile on my face.
Lifting her hands like she might wrap them around my throat, Gabriella groans and turns away from me. I follow her before I realize what I’m doing, solely aware of the panic which threatens to suffocate me if she’s out of my sight.
“Gabriella,” I say. The lack of breath I deal with every moment we’re not together empties my lungs, and I’d prefer her hands around my throat than this fucking bit-by-bit torture.
“What, Teller?” She doesn’t turn around to face me. “What do you want?”
“I want you back,” I admit with what oxygen I have left in me. “I—”
Fire and rage meet me head-on, but her glossy eyes don’t match the defeat in her tone when she says, “Then you shouldn’t have lied to me.”
There are no words because I have no air left to speak them with.
“Did you come here expecting me to forget everything and take you back?” she asks. She wears a spot of paint on her ear like an earring. “We’re not good together. I think we’ve proven that.”
Laughing out, I run my hand through my hair and take a step away. “Get real, Ella. Our breakup has nothing to do with Joe and Kristi, and everything to do with you.”
The sprinklers turn on, raining down on my bright orange tent. There’s a hint of satisfaction in my girl’s scoff—one I return when a sprinkler head breaks, shooting an Old Faithful-like stream six feet in the air.
“Let me help around here,” I say in a last-ditch effort to salvage what little chance I have of getting her back. She’s not ready for a conversation, and I can be patient. I can try. “I won’t bother you.”
Ella lingers in the doorway, glancing over her shoulder at the flood on her lawn before shifting her wet lashes and reddened eyes toward me. “There isn’t a day when you’ve left me alone since we met, Teller. You won’t start now.”
“Probably not,” I reply. “But you need me. For this.”
“I’ll think about it,” she mutters and closes the door behind her.
I sit on the steps and smoke a cigarette, waiting for the sprinklers to turn off. The sun falls behind the house across the street, taking the edge off the temperature and the pressure in my chest. I’m here—camping out on Ella’s front lawn like a fucking stalker—but I’m here, and for two smokes, everything’s okay in the world.
The next morning, I open my eyes and expect to feel the weight of devastation pressing me toward the center of the Earth. But I’m only met with grogginess as I unzip my tent and step onto the lawn, shirtless and rested. The authorities weren’t called during the night to haul my ass away, so I take it as a good sign and stretch my arms above my head, ready to start the day.
Addiction scratches the back of my throat, so I slip a Marlboro between my teeth and trot to the side of the house and take a piss.
Tilting my head back, I inhale toxins through my mouth and exhale through my nose, moaning in pleasure.
“Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh!” a woman’s voice shrieks behind me.
I pull up my shorts and turn to meet a fifty-something-year-old brunette lady with a gardening shovel in one hand and hose in the other, open-mouthed and hopping from foot-to- foot.
“Hey,” I say, blowing smoke over my shoulder. “I’m here with Ella.”
Who the fuck tends their garden at five thirty in the morning on a Saturday? This town’s weird. And I know what this looks like: shirtless, tattooed, chain-smoking male pissing on the neighbor’s house, but if this lady kept her ass in bed, there wouldn’t be a problem.
“It’s okay, Carol,” Ella’s voice chimes in from behind me. “He’s only here to torture me.”
I wink at Carol. She scurries away.
Ella posts at the end of the porch with a mug of coffee in each hand. She’s all bare feet and sleep lines, and I need her back. My life depends on it.
“She seemed nice,” I say.
Sleeping Beauty blinks slowly, not entertained with Carol’s outburst.
Carol’s, not mine.
Carol’s.
She sighs, but it doesn’t hide the smile curving her lips. “Teller, get your ass in the house before I change my mind.”