74. Baby

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June

The house was too quiet. Lying still in bed, I could hear my own breathing, loud like someone had turned up my internal volume. Sometimes, something buzzed below me, probably the fridge in the kitchen, and once or twice, a car drove by, the engine purring softly. No endless streams of traffic, sprinkled with ambulance and police sirens. No neighbors watching tv, or people shouting at each other, or a rumbling bass from a party downstairs. No Luis producing a cute hiccup, or Valentina coming home from a late shift. It should've been heavenly, but instead, it left me alone with my thoughts, raging through my mind without end.

Half an hour after I'd went up, Nathan's footsteps clambered up the stairs, heavy and slow — I could still recognize them. Maybe it was a bit like music. No matter how old you were, no matter how long ago it'd been since you listened to a song, you would instantly remember the second it came on.

I'd tried to focus on falling asleep, only it hadn't worked. The sounds of the tap running and being turned off, the vague whirring of a toothbrush in the distance, and him walking past my door set me on edge, and I'd buried my head in my pillow, trying to drown out everything around me. Around midnight, just when I'd seemed to slow down my heartbeat a little, he left his room again, gently descending the stairs. He came back up almost immediately. What had he been doing? Checking if he'd locked the door?

Why did I even care? I was here for the money, and I'd gotten it. That was all. Tomorrow, I'd book a return flight and pack up again, and I would not, under any circumstances, ask why he and Charlotte had broken up, if it'd been my fault, and if he missed her like I'd been missing him these past two years.

Because deep in the night was the only time I allowed myself to be painfully honest.


When Valentina had asked me if he knew I'd be coming, I lied and said yes. If I'd confessed to her he didn't, she would've called him herself, I was sure. First, I hadn't dared to admit to myself why I didn't want to announce my visit. After sticking my key in the front door and finding out the code to the burglar alarm hadn't changed, I hadn't been able to deny it anymore.

It gave me a choice to turn back.

What if I'd stumbled over baby wipes and a life-size wedding portrait hanging on the wall? Or what if he'd completely redone the place, erasing all traces of me? Or worse, what if Charlotte would be lounging on the couch?

In all those scenarios, I couldn't imagine wanting anything except for running far, far away.

Luckily for me, none of it had come true. No kids. No wife. No new kitchen. No Charlotte.

"Morning."

He turned around, a wide smile unfolding on his handsome face when he spotted me standing there. For some unknown reason, he was wearing oven mitts, the orange ones with burned fingertips, which contrasted hilariously with his dark blue jeans and toned arms. I concluded yesterday he must've taken up a sport, because never before had he had muscles like these. It looked damn delicious on him, and something in me wished I'd have stumbled across a Nathan with a beer belly instead, sitting in his boxers on the couch with chips crumbs strewn about his shirt. It would've made me feel better, anyway. I left his life, and he made it into something better. Great.

"Morning," he said, taking off the mitts and throwing them on the counter. "You slept in late."

Stop smiling like that, with your ocean blue eyes. It wasn't making this any easier. I was going to leave soon — this was not an invitation for us to become friends again. That would only end in hurt, and I'd hurt enough already. "Guess I had to make use of the situation. It's been months since I could."

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