But now?
Now, the very idea of opening the door filled me with dread.
How could I go back? Pick up where I left off like nothing happened. Something happened. Something big happened. And it had changed me.
I wasn’t the woman who once lived there.
And maybe… I would never be her again.
The mug clanked down in front of me, pulling me out of my thoughts, making my head jerk up to find Ranger already sitting across from me, both hands wrapped around his mug, making it look like a child’s toy with their size.
His gaze, that dark, distant gaze, was on me – reaching out, demanding to be let in.
“You still with me?” he asked. Growled. Really, the man growled more than he actually spoke.
My own hands curled around my mug, finding a sort of comfort in the burn.
“Y… yeah.”
They were the first words I had spoken in, well, I wasn’t even sure how long. My voice sounded odd, scratchy, a little foreign even to my own ears.
“Good. Now…”
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out.
“Don’t need to be sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I get it. Been there. I get it. But that’s done, yeah?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I mean… I didn’t… I’m not sure I even knew what I was doing. I just…”
“Wanted the pain to stop,” he filled in for me.
“Exactly,” I agreed.
“Can’t promise you it’s gonna stop. Think maybe it never completely goes away. But you can learn to manage it. Live with it. Eventually, even start to thrive in your own way. Maybe a new way.”
“This is your new way of thriving,” I guessed, looking around.
“Might not be everyone’s idea of it, but it’s mine.” He paused, eyes falling to study the blackness in his cup. “Could be yours.”
“Mine?” I repeated, not sure I was understanding.
“If you’re done with the ideas of ending it all, I can… share this.”
“Share this?”
I mean, the man wasn’t exactly a conversationalist, but I was pretty sure he was almost being purposely vague.
“You don’t want to go home.”
“I can’t,” I confessed, my own gaze falling.
“Get it. That’s why I’m offering.”
“I’m sorry, but… offering what, exactly?”
“This. You want to escape for a while, learn how to exist again…”
“You’re going to let me stay?”
“There are rules.”
“That I don’t try to kill myself.”
“That, yeah. And other things.”
“Are you going to tell me those things, or am I supposed to guess?” I asked, watching as his gaze rose again. I couldn’t be sure, but there almost seemed to be a small light in his eyes. “If I guess right… do I get a grunt? A growl?” I went on, feeling a weird fluttering feeling in my chest when his lips twitched.
Clearly, he wasn’t a man prone to smiling. It felt good to be able to almost make it happen.
“You stay here, you work. That’s the way it has always worked for clients. More people means more work. Only got so many hands, so many hours…”
“I can work,” I cut him off. “I mean… I don’t know what to do. But… I can learn. If you’ll show me.”
“Ever work in a garden?”
“I’ve killed every houseplant I’ve ever owned,” I admitted.
“Don’t have houseplants,” he mumbled. “It’s different. You’ll figure it out.”
“I’ll figure it out,” I agreed, tone more sure than I felt.
“We get up with the sun.”
“I, ah, you’ll wake me?”
“Yep.”
“Okay.”
“Okay. It’s settled then.”
With that, his chair scratched against the floor as he moved to stand.
“Hey, Ranger?” I called, watching as his body almost seemed to jolt a bit, stiffened, before he turned, brows raised.
“Yeah?”
“What do you want from me?”
“Sorry?”
“You’re going to give me home and food and support. What are you getting out of this? What do you want from me?”
“Want you to live,” he said, then turned, stalked off to his room, shut his door, left me there to have things sink in.
I was going to be able to stay.
He hadn’t even put a timeframe on it, an end date.
I was just going to be allowed to crash here indefinitely. Until I felt better. If I ever felt better. I would be taught new trades. I wouldn’t have to worry about rent, bills, a job.
True, it meant that my very presence here was, well, a crime. But from the looks of things, Ranger had been here many, many years. Without an issue. So there was no reason to think that I would be in trouble for staying with him.
Sure, it meant giving up a lot.
Job, co-workers, little luxuries I had gotten used to.
But, somehow, none of that felt like a loss.
Neither did my apartment full of carefully chosen items.
My rent was paid up until the end of the month. And from there, it would likely be two months before the eviction notices would start. And then, eventually, the super would let himself in.
I didn’t know for sure, but I had a feeling that he would have a right to sell off my things – or rent out my apartment as a furnished one.