“You and me,” he said. “I’m . . .”
A seismic tremor passed over her nervous system. Her muscles went rigid.
“I don’t think we should do this anymore,” he said, looking down at his hands. “It’s not working out.”
“What do you mean?” she said, panic rising in her throat. He couldn’t be saying this. This could not be happening.
“I don’t think . . . it’s good.”
“Is this . . . Izzy?” she asked.
He cocked his head and shook it.
“Izzy? No. Nothing with me and Izzy. It’s . . . me. It’s . . .”
Her phone was ringing.
“You should answer that,” he said.
She wanted to throw the phone into the street. Instead, she stared at it. It was Janelle. She didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He didn’t look at her. “You should probably go back. It’s easier that way.”
“David . . . ,” she said, her voice a croak. This seemed to affect him, and he drew his arms closer into himself.
“Let me know you got back okay,” he said. “When you land.”
And then he turned and walked away, down the street, taking the fire safe with him. She wanted to run after him but found she couldn’t move. She was magnetized to the sidewalk. Her brain was free-falling. It was a gentle fall, slow, like a feather on the wind, tacking back and forth toward the ground. It was almost funny. She might laugh, except there was a hollow ringing in her ears.
The phone rang again, and she answered it.
“Where are you?” Janelle said, out of breath. “We’re . . .”
“He dumped me,” Stevie replied before bursting into tears.
There was not a moment’s hesitation.
“We’re coming,” she said. “Where are you?”
“What the hell happened?” Nate said as Janelle and Vi helped Stevie back to her room a few minutes later. Stevie was crying so hard she was hiccupping violently. Janelle and Vi eased her onto the bed.
“He dumped her,” Vi explained.
“What? Just now?”
“Just now,” Janelle said. “Because he’s an asshole.”
This was a crisis, and one that required organization. In other words, this was Janelle’s moment to shine. They sat Stevie on the bed, and Janelle surveyed the mess around her. She looked almost pleased, like this was the kind of challenge she had been waiting for.
“Okay,” she said. “We have five minutes. Vi. Everything out of the closet and drawers. Just dump it here in a pile. I’ll sort and pack. Nate . . .”
Nate was retreating away from the doorway.
“Get her some water.”
Nate vanished waterward.
As quick as Vi could throw items, Janelle plucked them up and rolled them. Everything—the dirty underwear and socks, the over-worn T-shirts. She found a nook for everything, from the unused tampons to the spare coat. She wrapped the jam and a coffee mug in clothes, picked through the toiletries, leaving behind anything that was no longer viable or posed a leak risk. Watching her, Stevie found that her crying was slowing. She was out of moisture. Out of energy. Transfixed by movement, like a lizard.
Nate returned with a bottle of water. He approached Stevie cautiously, like she might explode. She accepted it and tried to drink, but it started her hiccups again. Nate sat next to her, keeping an inch or two between them.
“Do you want me to . . .” He searched for something to say. “I don’t know, punch him in the dick or something?”
“Leave that for me,” Janelle said, maneuvering the last items into the bag. “Where’s your passport, Stevie?”
Stevie glanced around and pointed at her backpack. Soon, everything had been accounted for. They gave her a cloth to wipe her face, took a box of tissues, and headed out. Stevie wondered if the elevator door would open and he’d be in the lobby, ready to apologize and call it all off.
But of course he wasn’t.
Vi had gathered up their keys and placed them on the front desk. Her room was gone.
“All keys look the same,” they said, trying to make conversation while the front desk person checked the keys back in. “You would think there would be more designs of keys . . .”
Janelle gestured that the car had arrived. And that was that. They were back in the car, back on the motorway, going back the way they had come.
Before David, Stevie had never had a boyfriend. That meant that she had never known what it meant to suddenly not have one. She had not experienced someone saying, “I don’t want to be with you.” It made no sense. It was David. Her David. Stevie and David. A giant hole had been ripped in the backdrop of her life, revealing some weird, indistinct vista ahead. England was being wiped away, mile by mile. Looking out the window reinforced her imminent departure, so Stevie closed her eyes. At first, the darkness brought a wild swell of pain—emotion she couldn’t control or understand. It was a wave, and she was going under and would not survive. She pressed her eyes tightly, trying to remember the meditation tricks she’d learned to deal with anxiety. She would retreat so far inside herself the world would never see her again. Let the thoughts and feelings come. Just acknowledge them and let them be.
There was no name for this staggering monolith of heartbreak. She tried to note that it was pain—pain, pain, pain, fear, pain, agony, panic, pain, nausea, embarrassment, anger, loss . . .
Under all of that, something was calling to her.
You saw it, said a voice in her head. You saw it.
Saw what? Where?
The voice in her head mumbled, cleared its throat. Stevie could almost hear it shuffling its notecards.
House, it finally replied. House. You saw it in her house.
Stevie grabbed this mental lifeline. She would give it every ounce of her being. She tightened her jaw and put in earbuds and blasted Britpop at herself. Get into the feeling of the time. The rhythm. The mindset. The jangling guitars and joking lyrics. She closed her eyes and floated around Angela’s house in her mind. She materialized in the living room, staring down at the sofa. What color was it? Emerald. The wall behind it was slate gray. There were crumbs on the coffee table. There was the smell of the curry . . . this was followed by the smell of the curry in the garbage later. The sourness.
What else? Angela kept money in her kitchen. A fire safe under the stairs. Books in every room. Books and beheadings . . .
“We’re here,” Vi said gently.
They had stopped in front of the massive glass and metal of Heathrow Airport. They were inside, dragging bags, waiting in line. Then the bags were tagged and taken away on a conveyor belt and they were off to security to put their remaining belongings in bins.
Remaining belongings. What were they again? Sleeping pills. Rocks. Keys. Phone. Throat drops. A toothbrush, maybe? Something else.
She followed along behind the others, weaving through the crowds. She cast a dazed and sad eye over the many things the airport offered to her as she left. Surely, she couldn’t depart England without a bottle of whisky, a set of china teacups, a Paddington Bear, a biography of some grim-looking sportsdude, an overpriced purse, a shawl, several bottles of perfume . . .
Did people come to the airport just to set their money on fire?