Page 64 of Hounded
He missed it, having moved on from ransacking my tool bag to swatching eyeshadow on his wrist. Currently, a wide stripe of yellow was being added to the colors stacking up his forearm.
“Not sure, actually,” he replied. “I took a cabbie’s recommendation.”
Returning to the shower repair, I tried to feign disinterest, but my tension drove the screwdriver harder into the pipe, loosening the tiny round screen with a cracking sound that made me fear I’d broken it.
When it dropped into my hand, undamaged, I exhaled, then asked, “Did you have fun?”
“Sure, I guess. Didn’t stay long.” He stared at the rainbow he’d created on his skin before looking over at me. “You into clubbing?”
The screen was caked over with white, calcified grit, and I saw plenty more on the nozzle tips of the showerhead. Stepping out of the tiled enclosure, I offered the screen and showerhead for Indy to take.
“These need to soak,” I said. “Vinegar and bakingsoda. They’re under the kitchen sink.”
Indy’s nose wrinkled as I dropped the items into his hands. “Ew.”
“Hardwater,” I explained. “You might have to scrub them, too.”
Nodding, he exited into the hall, clearly eager to offload the scummy filter and showerhead.
With him gone, I went for my espresso gone lukewarm on the counter. I finished it before vacating the bathroom. In the kitchen, I found Indy in the kitchen filling a Ziploc bag with distilled vinegar. He dropped the showerhead and filter in, then sprinkled baking soda straight from the box. The mixture fizzed and bubbled, and Indy closed the bag then set it in the sink.
He propped his hands on his narrow hips and watched as I walked past. “So, clubbing,” he said, restarting the conversation I had intended to let end.
“Do I seem like the clubbing type to you?” I asked.
“Maybe if you had the right company.”
That prickly feeling returned, and I wove around him to set my empty coffee cup beside the stove. The club, like the trailer shower, was a place of mixed memories. It would take twenty minutes or more for the buildup to loosen on the detached head and screen, and I didn’t intend to spend that time on uncomfortable topics. Fortunately, Indy took the hint to move on. Unfortunately, the alternative subject was worse than the first.
“About your boyfriend…” He eyed me, uncertain. “The one who died…?”
“What about him?”
Indy reached for the paper towel roll beside the sink, tearing off a sheet and wetting it to wipe the eyeshadow off his arm. He spoke slowly. “When you say ‘dead,’ do you mean it metaphorically? Like he’s dead to you but actually alive?”
In the pause, I thought I could smell the smoke. I faced toward the bedroom loft with the mattress I’d replaced and the scorched ceiling I’d painted half a dozen times. My conversation with Sully had exhausted my tolerance for reliving the recent past, but Indy was staring, waiting for the answer to a question that was too near the truth for my liking.
I turned away from the bedroom and squared myself with Indy, my shoulders stiff with tension.
“I came home from work, and he was dead,” I said. “Nothing metaphoric about it.”
A wave of confusion washed over Indy’s face. It wasn’t the response he’d expected, but that was fair. I hadn’t expected anything about what had happened, either.
When he looked away, I thought the conversation had been put to rest, but instead, he clenched his hands and faced me with more determination than I’d seen from him this lifetime.
“I remember what you said.” The set of his brows was stern, almost angry. “When you dropped me off at rehab. You told me you loved me.”
Of all the things I wished he would remember, that moment of weakness was not one of them.
Shaking my head, I started edging toward the exit. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Indy pursued, driving me closer to the door. “Did you mean it, though?” he asked. His voice was tremulous.
I was running away again. Waving a white flag when I needed to stand and fight. For him. For us.
Sully wanted me to think about it. Was this what I wanted? Or was I falling out of love?
My back hit the trailer door. When it opened outward, I nearly fell down the stairs in my haste.
