Page 78 of No Place Like You

I’ve been thinking about this moment a lot lately. The days and hours leading up to it. The anticipation of how it would feel to finally walk out of this room I’ve inhabited and made mine. There were moments when I thought maybe the melancholy that kept coming in waves would just disappear. And even moments when I thought I would be happy to leave, too eager to go home to feel anything other than excited. But now that the moment is actually here, it’s worse than I expected. I almost want tounpack, shove all my things back where they belong, and curl up into a little ball underneath the blankets. Maybe even ask Dexter to join me.

Dexter.

He’s the reason I feel like this. Not this room or the apartment or even the city. It’s Dexter. He’s the one I’m going to miss.

“You want me to take your suitcase?”

I’m pulled from my thoughts, my depressing, puppy face inducing thoughts, and look at Dexter standing at the doorway. He’s standing there, his shoulders slightly hunched and his arms sitting awkwardly by his side like he’s unsure. He gestures at my suitcase with a look of unease, and I nod.

“Yeah, it’s all packed.”

He takes it from me without another word and wheels it to the living room, where he has his own suitcase lined up against the back of the couch. We stand there in quiet, disconcerting silence as he sifts through some mail.

“Is Janet going to come by to check on your apartment?”

He nods. “Charles, actually. I asked him to come by once or twice to bring in the mail and make sure the place hasn’t been taken over by rats. Or squatters.”

I smirk, trying to lighten the mood.

“You aren’t forgetting anything?”

I shake my head. “I triple checked.”

He nods again and pulls at the back of his neck. “We still have another hour or so before we need to leave. You want to go grab some coffee?”

I smile. “Sure.”

We leave our luggage by the door and exit the building. We walk carefully through the streets, too aware that this will be one of the last times we’ll be leaving his apartment to do anything coupley. We won’t be going out for drinks to meet up with work friends anymore. We won’t be having dinner with Janet and Charles or stopping by Pepper Thai to pick up more takeout. We won’t be having any more early morning coffee runs.

We walk in silence, Dexter’s hand gripping mine while I feel him give me an occasional squeeze. We stop at the nearest Starbucks and enter the already crowded shop. The line is long, and we wait patiently while perusing the menu, even though I already know what I’m going to order.

When it’s finally our turn, Dexter reaches into his wallet and peeps open the bifold. “I’ll have two upside-down venti iced caramel macchiatos with oat milk and a light caramel drizzle,” he tells the cashier while looking into his wallet as if he’s reading off the order.

The cashier taps away at the screen in front of him and tells us the total before Dexter retrieves his card from his wallet and pays. After the quick transaction, we move on to the waiting area for our drinks.

“What is that?”

“What?”

I poke a finger at his pocket. “That thing you had in your wallet.”

“Your drink order.”

I look at him, confused. “Like, you wrote it down on a piece of paper?”

Instead of answering me, he takes his wallet out of his front pocket. When he opens it, he angles it toward me, showing me a piece of paper tucked into it. I expect to see my drink order messily scribbled on a Post-it Note or something equally haphazard yet considerate. But instead, it’s so much more than that.

“Is this the order label off the side of the cup?”

He nods. “I picked it off the cup that first morning you bought me coffee,” he explains, holding the wrinkled paper between his index finger and thumb. The typed-out text is worn and practically impossible to decipher. The words abbreviated to shortened terms like Vt Icd Carml Macch and my name in the similar bold font, all dated to two months ago.

“And you’ve kept it this whole time?”

“Yeah.”

I stand there, completely dumbfounded.

“What?” Dexter asks, watching my gaped mouth and speechless state.

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