A Winter in New York(85)
I don’t have any excuses for it. Finding out you’re a widower made it impossible to walk back from that stupid, horrible lie, but I just can’t go on with it any longer. What kind of a person tells a lie like that? I’m so ashamed. You deserve so much better than that, than me.
There’s something else you should know about this too. Adam found the video of me singing at Bella’s school and messaged her for my number. I don’t believe he’ll come to New York, and even if he does he absolutely isn’t a physically violent threat to Bella, but I need you to know so you can be watchful, just in case. I’m so desperately sorry to bring that to your door.
I’m leaving New York and I won’t be coming back this way again, so this is goodbye. Thank you, Gio. Thank you for the Monday nights and the safety of your arms, for the Christmas tree and the mug with my name on, and for not being able to say horrible things to me, even as a joke. I’ve never felt I belonged anywhere the way I do with you, and with your family. Tell them I’m sorry too? It’s really quite something to be a Belotti.
Be happy, Gio. Your heart is too full of love to keep it all locked inside you.
Love,
Iris x
35.
AS CHRISTMAS NIGHT GOES, FINDING myself homeless and sleeping in a storage unit is only my second worst on record, which speaks volumes about my life with Adam Bronson. I’ve brought a pillow and blanket from my apartment, although it’s quite warm in here now thanks to Felipe’s space heater. I have warmth and light from the lamp in the corner, and no one is likely to trouble me. You’d have to pay someone a fair amount to sit in that sterile reception downstairs over the holidays and, unsurprisingly, no one is around depositing junk in their units either. I have this soulless place to myself. I’m relieved to find there’s a toilet at the end of the corridor; that’s one embarrassment dealt with, at least.
I’ve run my phone battery down on purpose, because I can’t face the barrage of messages that will no doubt shotgun in once my letter is discovered. I bury my face down into my pillow and close my eyes at the thought of the letter, the truths I’ve told, the bridges I’ve set ablaze. There is a hollow, miserable peace to be had in finally telling Gio the truth about Adam. I should have done it face-to-face. I should have done it months ago. I know both of those things.
I sigh heavily and put the video of my mother into the machine, and then I close my eyes and, just like when I was seven years old, I let her sing me to sleep.
* * *
—
I FEEL LIKE AN animal in a lair. I washed my face and brushed my teeth in the tiny cloakroom sink this morning, but I feel crumpled and stiff, half alive. I’ve been out for supplies, skulking around like a fugitive even though the place is still deserted. The street outside was too, just a dog walker in sight when I ventured across to the bodega on the corner early this morning. Their bacon, egg, and cheese roll was my breakfast, and I’ve stocked up on enough to get me through for a day or two. I know I can’t stay here any real length of time, but I don’t seem to be able to form a plan. My brain feels as if it’s surrounded with cotton wool, muffled and unable to think beyond the next half an hour. I’ve been sleeping, or trying to, and I’ve been remembering, or trying not to. Florida doesn’t appeal, despite Felipe’s recommendation. L.A. doesn’t appeal either—my mother didn’t find any happiness there and I’ve no reason to imagine I would either. I’m definitely not going back to London, I know that much. For today, and maybe for tomorrow, I’ll lie low here and hope my mind unfogs enough to work something out. I feel like a person on the cusp of falling. I see how homelessness can happen, how easily people can fall through the cracks when they don’t have other people around them to watch their backs. I’m not going to be homeless, I won’t let myself fall that low, but I understand the downward plummet, how easy it is to feel transient, and it’s sobering.
* * *
—
IT’S BEEN ANOTHER DAY and another night, according to my watch and my aching bones. I have to get out of this place today. I’ve decided to leave behind the things I can’t easily carry, my gelato maker and other bits I won’t need immediately, and then try to contact Felipe when I get myself set up somewhere and have him send them on to me. I hate the thought of leaving my stuff, my gelato machine most of all, but it’s the only way I can face getting myself moving today. I feel at my lowest ebb, physically incapable of lugging my things through the snow.
I hear the lift doors out in the main hallway rumble open and sit perfectly still, even though there isn’t a realistic chance of anyone having discovered I’m here and coming to turf me out for breaking the rules. My heart pounds all the same as I hear heavy footfalls, and then I suck in a sharp breath because someone is shouting my name and banging on random doors.
“Iris! Iris, where are you?”
A key fumbles in the lock of my door and then it’s yanked up, and Gio stands framed in the opening and stares at me. I feel so many emotions crash over my head, I want to put my hands up as a cage to hold them off. Humiliated by the state of me. Embarrassed that I’ve been sleeping in a storage unit. Full of self-hatred for the letter I wrote him, and frightened. Not of him. I’m frightened for him, because he looks like hell.