LILY
Seeing my house key on my doormat brought the reality of what I’d done into too-bright focus, like when a flashbulb lights up a darkened room. I crouched down to grab my key, feeling as though everything was now too harsh and raw. The scratchiness of the sisal mat, the coldness of the metal, the sharpness of the teeth—they were tiny reminders of the heart-pinching truth: he was gone and I had only myself to blame. He’d opened himself up to me, and I’d crushed him. And crushed myself too.
“Come on,” Daisy said, unlocking her door, “I’ll make some popcorn and we can watch some house-flipping shows. We can heckle their paint choices and second-guess the wisdom of their countertops.”
I pressed the key into my palm and shook my head. This day had worn me right out, and I felt deliriously tired as well as desperate to be back in the place where he’d held me in his arms. “I just want to lie down, I think.”
Daisy narrowed her eyes and studied me. “I’m your sister. Let me wallow with you. It’s the least I can do.”
But again I shook my head. I gave her a kiss, and Ivan too, and began to head up the steps.
“I’ll be here, Lily,” she said softly. “I’m always here for you. We are,” she added, jiggling Ivan and making him blow laughter bubbles from his drool.
I sniffled and nodded as I hauled myself upstairs. “I know,” I said without turning to face her. I didn’t want her to see more of my sadness, but more than that I didn’t want her to see the sudden wave of jealousy that I was feeling toward her. Yes, Boris had made a truly spectacular mess of her life, but at least she’d had the courage to love him against all reason—at least she had been brave enough to step out into the love hurricane, consequences be damned. And now, even in his wake, at least she had Ivan. Like a morning glory after a nuclear blast. Not me, though. There would be no morning glories for me.
When I stepped into my apartment, I could tell that the General was in full parrot-polygraph mode. There was no point in slapping some painful fake smile on my face; he’d see right through it. So I opened his cage, offered him my finger as a perch, and let him sit on my shoulder. He nuzzled my cheek with his forehead. “OK?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Not really.”
He clucked at me and puffed up his feathers and quietly chattered, “Not really? Not really. Not really,” as he tried to perfect the sounds.
I lowered myself down onto my living room rug, sitting cross-legged with my computer in my lap. The General oversaw my every click and keystroke as I took a guess at the flight path that Gabe must have taken to Scotland. Without me and my absurdity to complicate everything, I guessed he’d fly right out of Savannah. On the screen appeared a flight-tracking map, showing an arching semicircle north to New York City, and then another across the ocean to Edinburgh. Each time I refreshed the page, the little plane icon got farther and farther away from where I sat. Each moment increased the distance between us, which I had put there. I’d been the one to fire that arrow, and I felt so full of regret about it that I could hardly see through the tears.
His life had him always moving forward. But mine had me fixed like a pin in the map. And that was just how it had to be.
I slid my computer off my lap and unfolded myself from the floor, awkwardly shuffling across my living room with pinprickly sleeping feet. Picking up my gratitude jar, I unscrewed the lid. I dug through the papers on top until I found the page on which I’d written Gabe’s name. I stared at the letters and ran my fingers over each one.
I felt so bad for what I had done. Hurting him, rejecting him . . . and that pain his eyes. God, I would never forget the way he’d looked at me, not as long as I lived. And the mention of me being the only thing in his own personal gratitude jar made me almost weak in the knees. But I still felt that the two of us together was an absolute impossibility.
And maybe something best forgotten altogether.
Walking into the kitchen, I folded up the paper with his name, doubling it over itself. I put my foot on the lever of the garbage can and held my closed palm over the bin, hovering over the coffee grounds and banana peels.
But I couldn’t bring myself to open my hand. I couldn’t bring myself to throw the paper or what it represented away. I couldn’t bring myself to let go.
There’s a big difference between playing it safe and playing it scared, he’d said. He was on to something. I knew that. And even though I had no idea what to do about it, it made me very certain of something else. Once my bubble had felt like a cushion. Now it was starting to feel an awful lot like a cage.