Page 35 of Everything But Mine

Daray smirks. He reaches for his keys on the coffee table. “Just lock up when you’re done. And leave the key you still have on the counter.”

Daray doesn’t wait for a reply. He just walks to the door like he’s above the formality. The air shifts as he walks past. His shoulder brushes Eric’s—not a full bump, but definitely not accidental. Eric doesn’t flinch, turning his head slightly, eyes following him.

“Just so you know,” Eric says as he steps away from my touch, “she’s not your girl either.” Stepping into Daray, he stretches the full inch he has on him against his wider frame. “But that’s okay,” he says. “Amanda’s right where she belongs now.”

“I assume that’s with you?” he asks.

Eric doesn’t answer. Daray pauses, right as he reaches the door, and turns his head over his shoulder, smirking. “Well, she used to belong to my cock.” There’s disdain in his words, as if he’s spitting the words back at Eric. “Even that got old.”

I freeze. Diego, already halfway to the bedroom, swears under his breath.

Eric’s nostrils flare. “That’s the thing about you,” he says. “You don’t even notice when you’re wrong.”

Daray doesn’t respond. He just turns the doorknob and shuts the door behind him. My ex may even think he won that round.

Diego exhales. Eric turns to me, a reassuring smile on his lips. “Let’s get this over with.”

I nod at him, trying to show him his smile is comforting, but it feels stale—for his benefit more than mine.

Eric carries the boxes we brought into the bedroom. Diego follows. I trail behind, slower, already feeling drained. The room smells different. His cologne. Cassie’s lotion. Not mine. The bedding is new. The art on the walls isn’t mine. I was never offered wall space. But some things haven’t moved. My reading lamp is shoved behind a stack of unread books. My family photo has been turned face down on the dresser. My body oil is on the nightstand.

This room feels lived in. By two people. I tap my fingers on my thighs, tempering my itch to snoop. No one should intrude on what the privacy of a bedroom tells you about a couple. There are stories about them here I have no right to know. Cassie, though, knows about the body oil, and family photo I keep on my bedside. So fuck them.

I survey the room, taking inventory of what’s to pack. Eric can’t seem to look away from the tangle of sheets, like it holds answers he’s afraid to ask. His blush rises fast, and you can almost see it—the lie Daray fed him, replaying in his head. As if this bed was home to some magical dick. If only Eric knew. I should look away from Eric, when a shameful spark flickers inside me—I shouldn’t like that he’d blush like this for me. I smother it. Nothing left but friendship and ashes there. Maybe raising a child together, if I choose it. Either way, Eric isn’t mine to hope for or desire.

Diego glances toward the space just beyond the walk-in closet where he’s crouched. His brows knit. “Wait—He said he didn’t pack the bedroom.”

There are three boxes, still packed, but not taped closed. Labeled in Sharpie. Amanda—Books, Important stuff, and Transcripts and Records. He runs a finger along the hurried, scribbled writing. Diego can’t make sense of it. It makes sense, though, because Daray never wanted me here in the first place. Diego glances at Eric, who’s still caught in whatever he’s working through, and then back to the boxes. He lingers on the handwriting, recognition settling over him. Diego grasps the same thing I did a few days ago in minutes; I lived here, but it was never home.

I find myself staring at the same box, at the blocked writing, but now I’m standing in my cramped studio with a cracked window and a mattress on the floor.

I was dismantling my life. A beginning. A necessary next step. Eric was sitting cross-legged on my favorite throw pillow—a giant sushi roll, more stuffed animal than furniture. He was bubble-wrapping the signed editions I owned, treating my books as precious hints into my mind, frowning. Maybe he thought if he studied them hard enough, he’d finally piece me—and him—together.

He found a book we read together back in the day. He was flipping through the pages of the most worn-out copy, tracing my handwriting in the margins. I hadn’t touched that book since. The story had become too close—missed chances, and almosts. Let Eric be sentimental.

“You’re really doing this.” It’s not a question.

“It’s what makes sense.” I don’t look away from packing the last of my clothing.

He made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a scoff. “Do you really want him?”

“Eric, we’re… copathetic. Don’t do this.”

Eric squared his shoulders, and his face reddened while the veins in his neck strained. He curled at his sides. “Fucking copathetic, Amanda? That’s what you think we are?”

A flicker of satisfaction ran up my spine, quickly extinguished yet undeniable. “What would you say we are, Eric?”

“I would say we are both broken and miserable and lying to ourselves and each other.”

I froze. It was—is—our rule that we don’t talk about the could-have-beens. I made sure of it. I never let us.

“No.”

“You’ve never let me, Amanda. You’ve never⁠—”

I cut him off sharply. “I want to never have to think about it. Ever.”

We faced each other. His gaze calculating the right amount to push before I shut down.