Marriage For One

As Owen walked past me, shaking his head, I carefully looked out from the doorway, my eyes searching for him. When I couldn’t find what I was looking for, I fully stepped out of the kitchen and walked through the tables until I was standing right in front of the window, looking outside.

Just like Owen had said, he was gone.

The next night, I stayed at Sally’s place, swapping the comfort of the coffee shop’s kitchen island and the lined-up chairs for a couch. I spent hours with my phone in my hand as I debated texting him. Eventually I fell asleep with my phone on my chest and never messaged him. I thought I slept for about three hours in total, and he kept me company in my dreams the rest of the time, which was even worse than not getting any sleep because when I woke up, I lost him all over again.

Sally had seen the two suitcases I owned stacked in the little office room in the back and had already guessed that something was seriously wrong. Since I thought I’d lose my ever-loving mind if I didn’t tell at least one person what was going on, I told her everything. I rushed through admitting our whole marriage was nothing but a business deal and that we’d been wrong to assume otherwise. Then I’d caught her up on the rest of it.

She was as appalled as I had been the first time I’d heard everything from him, but then she decided she found the whole thing romantic.

“So what’s going to happen now? Has he called you?”

“It’s over,” I repeated, probably for the hundredth time. “He has no reason to call me.”

I left out the fact that I’d waited for him to do exactly that the night before.

“What about this place? What will happen to the coffee shop?”

“I don’t know,” I mumbled.

I truly didn’t know.

The lunch rush started, and we didn’t have time to do anything but work our asses off the rest of the day. It was around six PM when she approached me with a weird look on her face.

“Uh, Rose, did you say Jack waited for you that first night outside?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I think he started his shift again.”

Trying my best to look like I was busy in the kitchen while Owen was out in the front—me actually doing nothing useful at all, of course—I decided to keep my hands occupied and started checking cupboards, because trying to look for nothing in order to look like you weren’t interested in what the other person was saying was always a fun idea. “What are you talking about?”

She waited until she had my full attention, and my heart had started beating too quickly to ignore her until she gave it up on her own.

“I’m talking about him leaning against his car and just standing there, right now.”

I didn’t have a single word to say to that other than rushing to the doorway and trying to spot him.

“Are you going to talk to him?” Sally asked, coming to stand next to me—out in the open, like a normal person. Owen glanced at us and then, after seeing us craning our necks, shook his head and kept chatting with a customer, talking about the times the coffee shop was the least busy.

“No.”

“Have a heart, woman. It doesn’t look like he’ll budge.”

“It’ll be a long and cold night for him then.” I pressed my lips together to hide my ridiculously pleased smile.

“Oh, come on. Can I at least take him some coffee? It’s freezing out there.”

“It’s his coffee shop. He paid for it, after all. If he wants to come in, I can’t stop him, but I’m not going to roll out the red carpet either. I don’t care if you take him coffee or not.”

“Rose—”

“I love him, Sally,” I admitted, cutting off whatever she was about to say. “I love him, but I’m not ready to act like what he did didn’t hurt me or that it wasn’t wrong. I need him to understand what he did. I need him to take the time to think it through, and if that means he wants to come and wait outside or something, he is free to do whatever he wants.”

“So it’s not over. It’s over for now, but it’s not over.”

I thought her words over as I watched Jack talking to someone on his phone. He didn’t see me watching him, taking in my fill, but his eyes were definitely on the coffee shop.

“I miss him,” I conceded into the silence.

Sally pushed her arm through mine and rested her head on my shoulder. “Owen?”

He looked at us over his shoulder.

“I need you to start being romantic now,” Sally ordered, and my lips tipped up. She still hadn’t given up on him, and I thought Owen secretly enjoyed her attention.