Page 35 of Ellie Hayes and the Himbos
“The couch that I bought? Yes. And that’s Alistair. Grant and Diego are here, too—”
“They’re her roommates,” Heather finishes for me, with no shortage of wicked glee.
“Her—” Cole wheels toward Alistair, the clips on his bike shoes grinding audibly into the hardwood, one week having been enough time to abandon myno footwear beyond the threshold, bike be damned, policy. He gives Alistair an affronted once-over. “You’re, what?Twenty?”
“Dude, whatever,” Alistair gripes. “I turned twenty-one, like, amonthago.” He turns to me. “Imma load this up,” he says, indicating the plant, which in no way constitutes a load, and extends a curt “Excuseyou” to Cole, who stiffly maneuvers his bike so my bevined roommate can toe on his sneakers and step out.
Cole stares after him, then fixes his pale eyes on me. “Are you living withundergrads?” He looks to Heather and Mark. “Did you know this last week?”
“Do you think we’d have told you if we had?” Heather asks. Mark just glares. Probably because he’s still catching his breath. He had his butt kicked at endurance earlier.
I don’t know what to expect from this interaction, and while I appreciate their loyalty, I do know that I’d rather not have an audience. “Would you give us a moment, please?” Heather nods and helps the still semi-incapacitated Mark from his seat and into the hallway.
Cole purses his lips, and with hauteur subverted by his head-to-toe highlighter-yellow riding ensemble, shifts the bike from his shoulder to hang it on the wall stand beside him. He refused to store hispreciousin the communal bike cage downstairs, so I scoured the internet for an in-unit solution and installed the little rack—custom, because of the hyper-aerodynamic design of hisframe—while he was at work one day not long after we moved in. I even used a stud finder.
And he couldn’t spare the seconds it would have required to wash a goddamn bowl.
He crosses his arms. “Why won’t you answer my calls? You won’t even text back.”
NoHow are you?NoI’ve been worried, or anything relating to the MS prospect. Five years together, and all I get is a pissyHow dare you?Disappointment settles over me like a physical thing. Not at his response, but because I honestly hadn’t expected anything more from him.
I conjure some dirty-bowl anger to combat it. “Because there’s nothing to say. You’re not strong enough forthis,” I say, pointing at my right eye, “on top ofthis”—I clutch my abdomen. “What’s left to cover?”
He tosses up his hands. “That doesn’t mean that I don’t care—”
“But it does mean that you don’t careenough. Which is fine,” I insist, wanting him to get this through his still-helmeted head. “We’d been done for a while, Cole. We both knew it. We could have split amicably and raised a glass of whatever outrageous wine you ordered—”
“Thecab,” he says, with just enough superiority to set my teeth on edge.
“Which is ared. Which you know kills my stomach but ordered anyway. On a night we were supposed to be celebrating me, if you’ll recall.”
“It was going to pair beautifully with my pasta—”
“You arenothelping yourself,” I say, my voice dark.
Cole shuts his mouth, blinking in surprise. That wasn’t veryhisEllie of me.
“Instead,” I continue, “you made it clear that you could only be with me conditionally.” I look into his still-wide eyes, hoping to convey how painful it is to even say it out loud, but he’s looking at me like I’ve sprouted a second head. “Do you not get how much worse that is than just splitting up? I already deserved better than what we had. So I sure asshitdeserved better than to sit around here waiting for you to decide whether I’m worth the effort of being with me.”
“I never said any of that!” he complains, the surprise replaced by a defensive edge.
I shake my head, the disappointment crushing. He doesn’t get it, and there’s no point in trying to make him. You can’t make someone care.
Cole looks at me and sighs. “Now what?” he asks, with the same resignation he had when I came in with my eye covered. Hearing it now is just as gutting as it had been that morning.
“That’s how you reacted when I came to tell you about my eye. Do you know that?” I ask, genuinely curious, though I can anticipate his answer. “When I came to tell you that somethingterrifyingwas happening to me, your first thought was that it would be yet another inconvenience to you.”
He’s shaking his head, tiny little side-to-side jerks of denial. “I don’t remember—”
“I’ve obsessed over those two words that just tumbled out of you. I’ve turned it into amantra,” I add, with a bitter laugh, “and you don’t even remember saying it.”
I hate that I’ve done that. That I can give him the slightest bit of credit for the changes I’ve made, even if they were motivated by spite. And I can be mad about the disrespect for my belongings, and my time, since I got to empty his drawers. Those texts I hadn’t responded to had asked if I’d “really thought this through,” and where I kept the colander. Nothing about my eye or my general well-being. No apology. He’s never even asked why I left in the first place.
Shame smothers what’s left of my anger. “I made myself sosmallfor you,” I say. “My wants, my pain, just to avoid inconveniencing you. And I can’t even be mad at you for missing it, because I never expected you to notice.”
I don’t know when the scales tipped, when my desperation to remain relevant and useful in our relationship outweighed the actual affection that should have been its foundation. It’s mortifying. Or it should be. Now, only a week removed from that version of myself, it’s like I’m pitying someone else. I can extend her some grace, the poor thing. She doesn’t even know that she can climb a rope.
“Hey.”
