“What time are you going to see your brother?” he asks.
“I should go soon.”
“All right. I’m gonna go for a run. And I’ll see you back here later. We’ll catch a movie, go for burgers, maybe?”
I nod. “That sounds great.”
He kisses me again and then he disappears into his bedroom.
By the time I’m ready to go, he’s already gone.
***
Shane is despondent. He holds the phone, but he says very little, answers me with shrugs or one-word answers. When I tried to talk positively about the fact that he might spend time in a hospital instead of a jail, getting better, he stares at the table.
“Are you not feeling well?” I try.
“I’m fine,” he says quietly.
After ten minutes, he tells me I should get going and then he kisses his fingertips and touches the glass.
He didn’t ask about me. He didn’t ask anything. He looked like he had trouble staying awake. He’s pale and he’s lost more weight.
I speak to the guard before I go, saying I’m concerned about him. He can’t help me but says he’ll have someone phone me.
I leave with a heavy heart and get back to an empty condo at five o’clock.
I call Shane’s lawyer to express concerns, but there’s no answer, not surprising for a Saturday. I look him up online and write an email with a list of my concerns about Shane, asking for an urgent callback.
And then I sit at the kitchen island and fiddle with another new story, a romantic comedy with lots of sex, while I wait. And wait some more.
***
I text Austin at seven thirty.
Are we still on for dinner and the movies?
He doesn’t answer.
I hear him come in after midnight. I’m in bed, though not sleeping. I don’t come out. Instead I wait. He doesn’t come to my room. I go to the bathroom and then linger in the kitchen making a little bit of noise so he’ll know I’m awake.
He doesn’t come out of his room.
And I’m not sure why.
42
Austin
I’m on my way out the door for a run at seven o’clock Sunday morning and I run into Jada in the hall.
She looks startled. And she stops and stares, those big eyes on me wanting an explanation.
“Sorry about last night,” I say quickly. “I ran into an old friend and went for a drink and lost track of time.”
“I texted.”
“My phone died.” I shrug. “Goin’ for a run. See ya later.” I put my earbuds in and head out.
Like an asshole.
Because that’s what I feel like. And that’s what I’m gonna have to be. Because I’m not capable of anything right now but hurting her and might as well sabotage myself and get it over with now before I’m tempted to get any deeper.
I head past the asshole at the desk who wants Jada, not looking at him or saying anything. Why is he always here? Does this guy ever take time off?
I head to the park.
I didn’t run into an old friend. I was out for my run, thinking too much, and I wound up renting a car. I visited Suki, the woman who raised me and my siblings.
Suki lives a few hours from here with her sister. She moved here when she retired, the same year I came here for college. She’s a seventy-year-old woman with no children of her own, but plenty of nieces and nephews as well as a long resume of raising rich brats. She raised me and my siblings and then she moved here when she retired, which happened the year I moved here, starting college. I know she wanted to visit her sister, she said she’d stay for a few months and test it out, but she wound up staying permanently.
I know it didn’t hurt being closer to me thinking of me as her final ‘baby’ before retirement. That year I was here, just sixteen-seventeen years old, I made the three hour drive every other weekend. She didn’t like Taylor, who came twice and then stopped coming because she told me Suki didn’t like her and tried to stop me from going.
Suki happens to be an excellent judge of character.
I visited her yesterday, feeling like I didn’t get enough time with her at Aiden’s wedding. And spending time with her put a lot into perspective for me.
“Austin, love of my life, it’s not like you to be so sour, so angry.”
I had just told her everything that’d happened with Sienna.
I also told her I was getting in deep with another girl, but that I wasn’t sure it was the right move.
“You shouldn’t tug someone along by their heart if you’ve got too much baggage to give them what they deserve, Austin. You don’t need me telling you this.”
“You’re right. I don’t think I have the capacity for a relationship right now. Anything with her is just gonna be me taking and not giving back. I don’t want to talk about my problems, don’t want to lay them on her, and I’m just gonna wind up hurting her.”