Page 56 of Taming Tesla

“I’ll wait here,” I say, leaning against the doorframe while giving her what I hope to Christ is a smile and not a creepy stalker leer.

She looks like she’s going to insist I follow her up. Instead she nods. “Okay,” she says, tilting her head in the direction of the stairs. “I’ll be right down.”

She jogs up the stairs and disappears through the open archway. I can hear her moving around. Down the hall to one of the brand-new guest rooms. Not her old room. Our room. The only room in the apartment that didn’t get a complete overhaul.

After she left, I went a little crazy.

Okay, I went a lot crazy.

The kind of crazy that only total destruction can mollify. I knocked out walls. Pulled down ceilings. Ripped out cabinets and plumbing. I didn’t stop until it looked exactly the way I felt. Devastated. Damaged. Destroyed.

It didn’t matter that I’d only finished renovating it a handful of months ago. I wanted it gone. All of it. Anything that reminded me of her. How she felt. Tasted. Smelled.

I destroyed it all.

But when I carried my sledgehammer into our room, intent on tearing it all down, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t destroy the place where I felt her the most. So, I left it alone. Closed the door. Put it away. Moved on.

And then I started to rebuild. Fix it. Make it bigger. Better. Looking around the space, you’d never know it had been in ruins only months before.

The irony is not lost on me.

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