It’s a little quirk of his I’m beginning to notice, the tendency not to rush me for an answer, to be alright sitting with the silence and letting me take my time deciding what I want to say.
I’m not sure if I appreciate it or am unnerved by it.
Maybe both.
“It’s just that…” My cheeks heat and my stomach squirms with discomfort. “I don’t… I don’t eat meat. Or eggs. Or dairy. But if you’ve got some… I don’t know, some bread and peanut butter, I could make myself a—”
“Making something vegan is no problem. How do you feel about mushrooms?”
“I—” I say, stopping short in surprise. “I love mushrooms.”
Irving smiles. “Good. And pasta?”
“Pasta sounds incredible.” At just the mention of it, my stomach lets out a little growl, and Irving’s smile grows even wider.
“Coming right up. While I get things ready, do you want to take a shower?”
He nods toward a door at the side of the room that I assume leads into a bathroom, but another problem presents itself.
I glance down at the pile of my wet clothes sitting on the rug in the middle of the floor, then at the blanket still wrapped around me, and Irving chuckles.
“It’ll absolutely be too big on you, but I’ve got something you can wear.”
Before I can protest, he heads back up to the loft. When he returns a minute later, he’s got another big plaid shirt and a pair of sweats with a drawstring waist bundled up in his arms.
“Sorry,” he says with a rueful grin. “You’ll probably be swimming in these. I can throw your stuff in the wash so it’s clean for later.”
My surprise at just how generous he’s being momentarily overrides my immediate instinct to deny the offer, to tell him I can do my own laundry if he shows me where it is, and I simply nod.
“Bathroom’s that way,” he says. “Use whatever you need to, and there are fresh towels in the cabinet.”
Again, I have no chance to protest before he passes over the bundle of clothes and turns to grab mine off the floor. He carries them through another door at the back of the kitchen that must lead to the laundry, and I stumble into the bathroom feeling more than a little off balance.
I drop the blanket and start poking around the room to find what I need. There’s shampoo and conditioner and soap in the shower, and after grabbing myself a fresh towel and turning on the water, I step beneath the spray.
As I do, I try to ignore the cloying feel of surreality tugging at the corners of my mind.
I breathe in, then out, then glance around the bathroom through the clear glass of the shower door to anchor myself in the present.
It’s another beautiful space—small, but thoughtfully designed with dark gray slate floors and fully tiled walls. Theshower is huge, taking up nearly half the room, and the waterfall head is mounted directly above on the ceiling, obviously installed with Irving’s height in mind.
Those little details give me a mental perch to stand on, something to keep me here, grounded, and prevent me from thinking too hard about everything that happened today, how my entire world feels like it’s been tipped on its head.
But as hard as I try to stay where I am, my thoughts keep wandering, from Irving’s cabin, to my car who-knows-how-many miles away at the trailhead, to my life back in Seattle.
Inexplicably, they land on Cody.
More specifically, I think of one of the last big fights we had before he left. It’s the fight that would be waiting for me if I followed all the strings that stretch from this moment I’m in to the one that started it all. The fight that led to the break-up and my desperate need to feel normal again, to feel like myself, to search and search for some way to take back my power and find my center.
What had it been about, again?
A year later, it’s hard to remember all the details, but I think it had started with his insistence that he hadn’tforgottento show up for a dinner hosted by the biotech company I work for, celebrating all the company’s highest performers.
It had just been my fault.
My fault, that I didn’t text him earlier that day to remind him.
My fault, that I didn’t schedule him a reminder on the goddamn Google calendar we’d shared.