Maybe it affected both our lives, and it wasn’t just me who never got over it and never moved on. Maybe Rea buried herself in her work and never bothered to find anyone to spend her life with because she knew the one person she wanted to do that with was out there somewhere, thinking about her, and she was thinking about him too, and her heart belonged to him still, even though he didn’t know it.
Me. I mean me. Jeez, it’s complicated thinking about myself in the third person.
It’s even more complicated thinking about Rea maybe never having moved on. Why didn’t I press her a little harder eight years ago? Why didn’t I ask more questions? I was so shocked and hurt that I just blindly accepted her reasoning. She didn’t think it would work out. We were almost done with college, so I figured she’d somehow outgrown the relationship, outgrown me. That she wanted more for her life, or maybe just something different. We had been dating for four years, and we were still young. Stuff happens when people are young.
Why didn’t I fight for her? I wanted to, but on my part, I thought it’d be pathetic, and it would have pressured Rea into staying when she didn’t want to, just out of pity. I didn’t want to be pitied. But then she left. She moved across the country, and I lost her.
I was so certain she wasn’t gone before that. That I hadn’t lost her in one or more of those ways people lose that someone special because they lose the fire or spark. I was doubly sure Rea and I would one day be old and gray, tottering around on canes together, still cracking jokes and being our typical obnoxious selves. I thought we’d always be Rea and Kayden.
So what the hell happened?
I haven’t genuinely admitted to myself how crazy that question has driven me. I don’t need or want closure from Rea. I want answers. Ones that make sense. Because it’s like living with a mystery or an open-ended question.
If we’re talking about those ridiculous would-you-rather statements and the options were living with that mystery or walking around with a jar of pungent-smelling farts tied around my neck for the rest of my life, having to continually inhale them all day, I’d choose the jar of farts. That’s how badly I want to know because we’re talking about an eternity of farts here. Although, maybe after a while, I’d get used to the fart smell, and it wouldn’t even bother me anymore. I don’t think I’d be very popular, though. Other people would probably smell them and steer clear of me. It would also be a life of loneliness, which would also suck.
I’ve been lonely enough these past years, even surrounded by my family and friends.
I don’t have any clear direction if I should stay or leave. I want to stay, but I also don’t want to hurt Rea. What we did last night danced dangerously close to the line I know I shouldn’t cross because neither of us is ready. I also know I can’t leave. Because leaving would break me.
I clutch the sparkly reindeer card to my chest until a second knock at the door surprises me. I walk forward a few steps and pull it open, irrationally hoping it’s Rea, but it’s a young guy dressed in a blue uniform with a clipboard in his hand.
“Kayden Deroy?”
I glance past the guy, who has shaggy blonde hair, a set of shades on, and a deep tan, to the enormous truck parked at the curb. There’s a home furniture logo pasted on the side and a picture of a modern-looking bedroom. Thank god it’s not pizzas.
“That’s me.”
“I have a massive delivery for you,” he states with an ironic tilt of his lips as though he finds it funny.
A second truck pulls up behind the first, and then a third, and I guess I know why he finds it pretty humorous. Four burly-looking men get down from those trucks and scurry around, opening up the cube body’s big doors, getting ramps set up, and pulling out wheelers.
“Right. Do I have to sign that?”
“Just after we unload everything and you’ve checked it over to ensure there isn’t any damage. Although, it might take a few hours. If you want to show us where you want everything…”
“Sure.” They couldn’t have arrived at a better time. This, I can deal with. Although it might have been ill-advised to order furniture before the renovation even started, I figured, fuck it. I was tired of sleeping on an air mattress and sitting on the floor.
If the delivery guys are surprised at the state of my house—broken walls, bare floors where the hardwood was ripped up, no kitchen sink, and on and on—they don’t show it.