Until a couple days later, when I walked into my apartment after my last day of orientation and found it occupied.
“Oh,” Shae said, lowering a box labeled “bowls” to their feet. “Hey, Angie.”
I stood, frozen in place, at the entryway, feeling all the anguish I had been holding back burst forward like a tidal wave against a hastily built dam. Somehow, although I’d assumed Nia was planning to move in with Shae, my heart hadn’t accepted it as truth. After all, Nia and Shae had only been dating for about three months, nothing compared to the eleven years I’d spent at Nia’s side. Shae seemed to know this too, judging by the way they shuffled their feet awkwardly in front of me, shoving their hands deep into the pockets of their artfully tattered jeans.
I heard some clattering in the kitchen: Nia, probably looking for any last baking supplies to pilfer. I watched as she scuttled into view from behind the kitchen wall. She held my gaze as she placed a box very gingerly on the dining room table, her mouth dropping open as if to speak—
I couldn’t take this. Swallowing against the toad in my throat, I kicked my shoes off and marched into my bedroom, closing the door behind me quietly. Throwing my backpack onto the floor by my desk, I let my head fall back against the door and inhaled deeply. I could feel my body fighting to produce tears, but I fought back just as valiantly, willing my heart to slow, wishing away the bitterness.
“This is you becoming an adult,” I whispered to myself. Behind my closed eyes, I could see Nia in the kitchen, her hair piled into a bun on top of her head, looking at me like I was a stranger. “Letting go. People grow apart. It happens. You have to let go—”
“Okay . . . So what was that?” Shae snapped, loud enough for me to hear them through the walls.
“Leave it, Shae,” Nia said with finality.
That was it. I exhaled in a shuddering breath, then trudged to my bed. My slacks came off first, then my button-down top. I peeled off my socks with my toes, then burrowed myself under my covers and cocooned myself in my comforter.
“No, babe,” Shae said. “I’m not leaving it. Why was that so weird? Thought you said she was happy for us?”
“Drop. It.” Nia’s voice was cold.
Suddenly, I felt like I was drowning, choking against a pain that I had summarily failed to keep at bay. My chest physically hurt, every beat of my heart distinct and excruciating. I’d been heartbroken before, so many times that I had practically lost count. It had always hurt but . . . not like this. Never like this. If I could sink into my bed and feel nothing ever again, I thought, it would be preferable to this.
I lay in miserable silence for what felt like hours, listening to their muffled voices, Shae’s litany of sighs, the creak of feet against our—my—ancient floorboards. Outside my door, I could sense the tension in the aggressive way that Shae seemed to be filling boxes, the grating sound of tape being pulled taut and papers rustling becoming my white noise.
Eventually, though, the door to our apartment clicked shut, and I was finally alone.
I rolled out of bed and shrugged on a robe. The living room was in immaculate shape, the air heavy with the smell of lemon-scented cleaner; they had clearly cleaned up before leaving. Which meant that this was it. Nia had moved out. I walked through my new space in mournful silence, taking note of what I had lost. She had left her paintings but taken her throw. Her vase—a real one, not one of the counterfeits I’d used to prank Frederick—sat on the living room table, a single fresh daisy in it. Her row of size 11 shoes was gone, and the rack neatened; even my hastily tossed flats had been put in a place of honor on the top row. She had left behind a single pastel-blue apron—her favorite one, I realized, with a start. I ran my fingers along the strap, and knew, with certainty, that we were over.
Suddenly, I didn’t want to be alone, and certainly not here.
From my bedroom, I heard my phone, abandoned on my nightstand, buzz.
It was Ricky. Everything okay? he said. Shae just texted me that it might not be.
Before I could lose my nerve, I called him. I listened to the line ring once, twice—
“Hey,” Ricky’s voice sounded husky with disuse. He cleared his throat.
“Hey,” I responded. “What are you up to right now?”
“Nothing,” Ricky said. “Just watching TV.” His tone softened. “Are you okay?”
“I’m great,” I said hastily. “Can I join you?”
Seventeen
I pulled up in front of Ricky’s apartment at 9:15 p.m., a full forty-five minutes before what Michelle would have deemed “booty-call o’clock.” It was dark out, the side street where he lived dimly lit by sodium streetlights. I managed to snag a spot right in front of his apartment, and parallel parked with the smoothness of a true, deep-dish-slinging, “no ketchup on my hot dog”* Chicagoan. And now I sat in my car, still gripping my gear shift, trying to figure out what the hell I had just done.