“YOU’RE LATE.”
“Sorry. I was at the gym and lost track of time.” Tossing my gym bag on the porch, I reached into the rear pocket of my jeans and pulled out my wallet. I shuffled through the bills, plucking a twenty from the stack, and sat down on the concrete step, handing it to the lanky kid sitting beside me. “Here. There’s an extra ten.”
Mason tilted his head in my direction and glanced at the money, one blue eye squinted as he freed the bill from my grasp. Folding it in half and then folding it again, he stuffed it in his front pants pocket. “You feeling okay?”
Was I feeling okay?
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because you gave me extra money. That’s not like you. Normally, you’re cheaper than a one-cent piece of candy.”
“One cent? You can’t get any cheaper than one cent.”
“Exactly.”
I smirked, watching as he shook his blond shaggy hair from his face.
Cheeky little bastard.
“Maybe I am, but I appreciate you hanging around and keeping an eye on him for me.” My gaze followed the path of his eyes as they left mine and landed on his worn sneakers, his neon green laces frayed within an inch of their life.
He tugged at the threads surrounding the hole on the knee of his jeans and shrugged. “It’s no big deal. Beats being at home.”
I frowned. “They fighting again?”
He gave me a small nod, and I clamped down on my jaw to prevent myself from saying something that might come back and bite me in the ass. It was none of my business. Not really. Mason was a good kid: strong and independent, a bit of a smart-ass at times, but otherwise, the most reliable and trustworthy ten-year-old I’d ever met. He lived a few houses down, and after learning about his less than ideal living situation—parents who constantly fought and cared more about themselves than their own children and a teenage sister who was too wrapped up in her high school social life—we’d struck a deal. He hated being home, and I needed someone to take care of my dog when I was preoccupied with appointments. It was a win-win. I introduced him to Rex, and the rest was history. The dog had instantly taken a liking to him. To be fair, I had, too. With the exception of Addy, Mason was the only person in my life I saw and communicated with on a regular basis. The friendship we’d formed had been unexpected, given our vast age difference, but I recognized something in him that I saw in my younger self: a lonely kid forced to grow up way too soon.
Slapping his palms against his thighs, he pushed to his feet. “I should get going. Dinner will be done soon.”
“All right, man. Were you able to feed Rex for me?”
“No. I was going to but then saw your truck pull up and figured you’d probably feed him.”
“Yeah. Cool. I’ll take care of it.” I held my fist out. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He bumped his knuckles against mine. “See you tomorrow.”
I watched as he walked the path from my front porch, his head down and his hands in his pockets as he kicked a stone across my yard, and then started along the sidewalk toward the blue-doored bungalow.
“Hey, Mason,” I hollered, stopping him in his tracks and forcing him to turn and look at me.
“Yeah?”
“You need me, you know where I’m at.”
He lifted his chin in a silent gesture of understanding. “Thanks again for the money.”
“You’re welcome.”
I waited there until he vanished into his house and then grabbed my bag and retreated inside my own.
I was exhausted.
The day had been long, the hours spent at the gym seeming to stretch on for hours as I moved from machine to machine, working parts of my body that had lost most of its muscle mass over the course of my recovery. Thirteen months since I was able to return to exercising, and I was finally starting to regain definition and strength. Staying healthy and remaining in shape had always been a priority, but it had become my main focus post-surgery. Between the immunosuppressants I was required to take, not only daily, but for the rest of my life, and the possibility of my body rejecting the heart, I didn’t need any other reason for compromised health.
Setting my gym bag on the floor beside the door, I headed into the kitchen and straight for the cabinet where the bag of dog food was stored. As if on cue, Rex appeared out of nowhere, his curly tail wagging excitedly as I filled his bowl full of kibble. I quickly topped off his water dish and placed them both down on his mat, watching him for a few seconds before walking over to the cabinet and fishing out the orange prescription bottles. Over the last year and a half, this had become my normal routine, as mundane as it was. I twisted the safety caps off the vials and leaned against the counter, popping the cocktail of drugs into my mouth and downing an entire glass of water.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’ve just fed you.”
The mutt—a mix of a pug and a Jack Russell—didn’t move. He continued to sit and give me the death glare, his upper lip lifting as he snarled and barked at me to refill his food bowl.
I placed my cup down on the counter, my fingers curling around the edge as I shook my head and braced myself for the impending war.
He wasn’t winning this time.
No way in hell.
His small, black beady eyes pierced the distance, and if he hadn’t weighed a whopping twenty pounds, I probably would’ve been intimidated. What had I been thinking anyway when I brought him home? Clearly, I wasn’t in my right mind when I allowed the persuasion of the staff and volunteers, along with his cuteness, to fool me.
Buy a dog they’d said. It will be fun they’d said. He’ll keep you company and bring happiness and joy to your life they’d said.
They’d. Lied.
Since adopting him, all the damn thing did was eat me out of house and home. And judge me. Like he was doing right then. He barked again, louder and with a slight growl and showing of his teeth, and then turned and waddled his porky behind out of the kitchen, dismissing me as if I hadn’t rescued his ass from the shelter and given him the best home in town.
“Ungrateful little shit,” I mumbled under my breath as I pushed off the counter and walked over to the breakfast bar where I pulled out a stool and dropped myself on it.
Damn dog didn’t even like me, yet his presence made the entire house feel a lot less lonely.
Sitting there, I allowed my gaze to settle on the pile of bills that continued to grow with each new day, and the realization I’d spent too long avoiding hit me like a speeding truck that lost its brakes: I needed to return to work. Sixteen months without a steady income had negatively affected my bank account, and while I had enough money saved to last me at least sixteen more, it was time to refuel the desire I’d once had and lost.
Fisting my hands through my hair, I sighed. A stressful tension stiffened my muscles. Aside from everything else in my life that still needed figuring out, I couldn’t focus. I hadn’t been able to focus.
Two weeks.
Two weeks had passed since I spent an entire morning with Cassi at the café, and she’d been the only thing I thought about—the only thing on my mind. I needed to forget her. I needed to move on with my life and allow her to do the same, but in the short time I’d spent with her, she’d left this mark on me. Somehow, she’d branded herself into my thoughts and there was no shaking her. Lifting my head and blowing out another pent-up breath, I gripped the back of my neck and sorted through the stack of envelopes. As I organized them into piles, my phone vibrated across the countertop.
I glanced at the name flashing on the screen.
Vanessa.
For the length of two more rings, I contemplated answering the call before willingly ignoring it and sending it to voicemail.
At one point in time, Vanessa had been more than an occasional fling. She’d kept my bed warm on several sleepless nights, and I might have even imagined a future with her, but that future had turned bleak, as had our relationship.
When the notification popped up a minute or so later, I hit the speaker button, curious to hear what she possibly had to say.
“Hey, it’s me. I know it’s been a little while, but … well …” Laughter filled the line, absent of the usual happiness that poured from her. It sounded sad, hopeless. Guilt attempted to slither through my veins at the idea that I was responsible for breaking her, but I refused to bear the entire weight of our downfall. We were both to blame—her, maybe more so than me. “I miss you, Sam. I miss you, and I know you’re still mad and hurt. You have every right to be, but I wish you’d talk to me. I wish …” She sighed heavily, as if knowing her words fell on deaf ears. “Just call me, okay? There was a bid that came in. A new church in Boston is being built, and they want you to design the windows. It would be stupid to pass on the opportunity, so … whether you want to take the job or not, call me, please.”
The line went quiet, save for the echoes of silent desperation. She was waiting, hesitating, wanting to say something more. I waited with her, anticipating the three words she had murmured only one other time—words I didn’t care to hear because deep down we both knew they’d be filled with empty meaning.
They never came.
The call ended, and I was left alone in the silence of my house, in a room where the air seemed too thick and impossible to swallow.
Shaking my head, I deleted the voicemail and rose from my seat. My legs carried me through the kitchen door that led outside. A chill from the cold air lifted the hairs on my nape, and a layer of goose bumps formed on my arms as I crossed the leaf-strewn path toward my work studio. Four months ago was the last time I’d stepped inside, but even then I couldn’t bring myself to do anything other than stare mindlessly at all my unfinished work.
Flipping the switch on the wall and watching as the bright, fluorescent light illuminated and refracted off the hundreds of finished pieces suspended from the ceiling, I drew in a leaden breath. The outside breeze whirled through the open door, and the stained-glass wind chimes hanging above my head created a plinking symphony in the otherwise quiet room.
Solitude. Peace. Escape.
This place and my work had been all those things up until my transplant. So what had changed? Why had I lost the desire and will to be there? It was a question I’d spent the last year and a half asking, one that never seemed to come with an answer, but I yearned for the desire to return all the same. I was desperate to experience the thrill and excitement of creating something new, turning a concept in my head to a physical object I could hold in my hands.
I thrived on fixing the broken.
Treading over to my drafting table in the center of the room, I glanced at the templates for the last project I’d been working on: a fire-breathing dragon with an impressive three-foot wingspan. Over the years, my designs had varied, changed. I’d begun to create less of the standard stained-glass window pieces and more challenging 3D objects and sculptures. Bowls. Vases. Light boxes. Trinkets, such as kaleidoscopes and planes. I enjoyed testing myself and my limits, and the dragon had been something I’d promised myself I’d eventually finish. The glass had already been purchased and cut, yet left untouched, collecting dust along with all my other tools.
Frustration and shame gripped me.
What would my mother think if she were still alive? This studio had been hers, after all. She and my father had passed the art on to me, and now it was nothing more than a waste of space.
Failure was the word that came to mind.
Driven by none other than the need to prove myself wrong, I sat down in front of the glass and started placing the pieces where they belonged. They didn’t fit. Why the hell didn’t they fit? Everything had been drawn to scale—the template foolproof. I flipped through the pages, glanced back at the pieces that had taken me hours, days even, to measure, trace, and cut.
Relax, Sam. You’ll figure it out. There is no way you screwed this up. There is no way you let over a thousand dollars in glass go to waste.
I lost count how many times I reiterated those words. It didn’t matter, because somewhere along the way, I had fucked it up. The cuts were wrong. The whole goddamn design was wrong. And the glass, the glass was completely and utterly unusable.
“Fuck.”
My hand formed a clenched fist, crumpling the papers—the template I’d spent far too long perfecting—before letting it drop to the floor. Grabbing my drawing pad and pencil, I attempted to start over. I spent the next hour marking lines on a stark white page, only to find they weren’t exactly right. Something was off. My mind wasn’t here in my studio, concentrating on the project at hand, but elsewhere. It had been elsewhere—everywhere except where it needed to be. Tearing the drawing from my book, I crumpled that one, too, and tossed it to the growing pile beside my feet. At least two dozen more joined it.
Give it up for now, Sam. Let it go.
Shoving the pad away and launching the pencil across the room, I stood from the stool and walked over to a simple piece that was together but waiting to be soldered. This was simple enough. I couldn’t possibly screw this up. I turned on the soldering iron, waited for it to reach its ideal temperature, and then brought the solder to the lines of copper foil edging the cut pieces.
The splintering of glass rang in my ears—a result of the iron being too hot or just a lack of steady hand in its proximity to the glass— and my grip on the iron tightened.
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, flipping the off switch on the iron and struggling to find an ounce of patience as I returned it to its cradle.
This was useless. Absolutely fucking useless.
Self-deprecating thoughts dug me into a hole I couldn’t seem to get out of, and forcing myself to spin around, I made my way to the door.
Gritting my teeth, I slammed my hand against the light switch on the wall, once again extinguishing any hope I had at moving forward with my life.