Dust of Snow (11 page)

“I don’t think there’s anything to talk
about, David. And I don’t know if it’s right for you to just let
yourself into my home like that.”

“I used to live here,” David said smugly.
“Call the police, if it bothers you. I don’t think they’ll arrest
me for trying to reconcile with my boyfriend.”

I began to breathe really hard, and my vision
blurred. I hated how I felt. Embarrassed, angry, disappointed, with
an underlying layer of self-doubt that had always been there when
we were together. He made me feel like I was
less
.

“You think?” I reached for my phone, but
David snatched out a hand and caught my wrist before I tugged it
free from my pocket. I kept my face as impassive as I could, but my
heart thundered in my chest. I’d never been afraid of him, but I
didn’t know this David. He seemed to realize his mistake and let go
of me.

“Will you just hear me out? I don’t
understand why we can’t even talk.”

“If you’d gone about it like a normal person,
we could have. But the way you’re doing this is all kinds of fucked
up, can’t you see that? I need you to leave.” And then I made my
own mistake. “I have a guest waiting in the car and—”

Two more steps and he’d crowded me against
the wall beside the television. The edge of a picture frame dug
into my back. “Are you seeing someone?” he ground out between his
teeth.

“No!”
What the fuck?
“And I don’t have
to explain myself to you. Get out of my house, David. I mean
it.”

He gripped my face, not hurting me, but I
wanted him to let go so badly I felt the hot pressure of tears
threatening behind my eyeballs. His thumb stroked my cheek.

“Greg, sweetie, I know I wasn’t good to you
before, but I wasn’t… I wasn’t in a good place myself. It’s been
tearing me up. I walked away from you for your own good, don’t you
see? I couldn’t make you happy then, but I think I can now. We
could be good together now.”

My belly flip-flopped. Was it true? Maybe if
we tried again we’d both be better this time. Maybe—
no
. For
the first time, there was something inside me—small and insistent,
like a pebble in my shoe—that hissed it was too late. A year ago,
or even a few months ago, I would have delighted in David going to
so much effort to win me back. Hadn’t I said myself that whoever
was sending the secret gifts didn’t know me?

I shook my head. “It’s too late,” I said
softly. “We were never going to work out, David. Not back then, and
not now. I don’t love you anymore. I don’t miss you.” As I said the
words I knew they were true. It was strangely liberating. “I’m
sorry.”

He went very, very still. I met his eyes, and
what I saw there made me flinch away, but David’s hand tightened on
my jaw, and then he kissed me so hard on the mouth his lips ground
mine painfully against my teeth.

“You’re not so innocent as you like to
pretend,” he spat. “You were just waiting for me to leave, making
me miserable so I’d take the decision out of your hands.” He shoved
me.

My head thumped against the wall, rattling
the picture frame, and for a moment I saw stars. Something sharp
stung my face, and I heard a tinkling noise as whatever it was hit
the floor. A door banged in the distance beyond the ringing in my
ears.

“Gregory! Oh my God, Greg? Are you all
right?” Ashley was crouched in front me, and I realized I was
hunkered on the floor, my arms cradling my head. “Did he hurt you?
That son of a bitch. I’m going to—” Ashley tore to his feet but I
stopped him by cupping the back of his calf. It felt solid and
muscular in my palm. I couldn’t take more violence, especially not
from Ashley.

“It’s fine,” I pleaded. “It was an accident.”
Ashley’s eyes darkened to the color of soot, and I winced. “A heat
of the moment thing, anyway. It’s nothing. He’s gone now and he
won’t be back.”

I picked up the spare key from where it had
landed on the hardwood. Ashley’s eyes went from it to the spot
underneath my left eye that stung.

“Come on,” he said, gently cupping my elbow.
“Can you stand?”

“Of course. It’s nothing.”

“Well, let’s get the scratch cleaned up
anyway.”

I examined the cut on my cheek in the
downstairs bathroom. It was a tiny thing that had already stopped
bleeding, so I just dabbed at it a little with the wet corner of a
clean towel.

Ashley hovered in the doorway. “Do you want
to talk about it? Has he done this before?”

I shook my head. “I haven’t seen or heard
from him in a year, until recently. This is the first time he’s
showed up here, and it won’t happen again, since he so kindly
returned the key.” I tried to laugh and sounded like a dying
goat.

Ashley’s gaze hardened as it dropped to the
cut on my cheek. “You can press charges, you know.”

“I know, but it’s not worth the hassle. And I
can take care of myself.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Ashley said, and his
smile made me feel warm inside. “Just, if you ever need anything,
call me, all right? And maybe think about changing those locks.” He
looked so earnest and sincere I found myself nodding. “Do you want
me to go?”

“Oh.” I glanced around, patting my pockets
for my keys. “I’ll drop you off if you want to go home. And I’m
sorry. About all of this, I mean. You shouldn’t have—” I ran out of
steam and flopped my hand against my leg.

Ashley wrapped his fingers around my wrist
and stared into my eyes. “No,” he murmured. “I’m asking if you want
me to go. I’m not saying I want to leave. Because I don’t.”

“Right.” I glanced at his hand on my arm. His
thumb stroked softly back and forth. Goose pimples rose under his
touch and traveled all the way up my arm to my neck. “I could make
coffee?”

Ashley’s cheeks dimpled and he let go of my
wrist. “How about hot chocolate, since it’s pretty late. Do you
have any?”

“I do. I’ll just—”

“How about you tell me where I can find
everything, and you sit down. Do you have marshmallows?”

“Uh, yeah. Everything’s in the pantry. Apart
from the milk. That’s in the fridge. Obviously.” I cringed but
Ashley just grinned at me and shooed me toward the kitchen. I
hopped on top of the island and swung my legs as he walked back and
forth rummaging through my things. It should’ve felt awkward, but
it really didn’t. It struck me again how good it felt to have him
in my home, and I was happy he’d stayed. Otherwise I would’ve
wandered around the house asking myself where David had been and
what he’d looked at. What he’d touched.

When Ashley handed me a cup of hot chocolate
with five tiny marshmallows floating in it, he didn’t move away
again. He leaned against the counter as he blew over his own mug,
his hip pressing against my thigh.

“Thanks.” I held up my mug and he clinked it.
I tried to fish a marshmallow out with my mouth before it melted.
Ashley’s eyes twinkled, and I could see him smiling brightly behind
his drink. He had a nice mouth; it sat full and wide in his
otherwise delicate features. His nose was very straight, and his
almond-shaped eyes were set apart slightly too widely. It only made
him more beautiful, in my opinion.

“Anytime.”

“Hmm.” I sipped the hot drink.

“Greg?” Ashley set his drink down behind him
and turned to face me. “I mean that. Anytime you need anything, or
if you want to hang out, I’m here. You’re a great guy. I’m sorry
about acting weird at the party.”

My sugarcoated mouth felt sticky and I
couldn’t speak. Ashley ducked his head and reached for his own mug
again, and we drank in comfortable silence.

EIGHT

AFTER I DROPPED off Mother at the airport for her
early morning flight to Texas, I came home and put on my
sweatpants, determined to relax. Carl was in France and I was
officially on Christmas vacation. I picked up the remote and
settled in.

Twenty minutes later I paced, the floors
creaking and Curly watching me avidly. The house could do with a
good tidying, so I set about scrubbing and vacuuming and dusting
the entire place, top to bottom. The hours ticked by in a flurry of
activity.

I was wiping a picture frame when my left
hand began to shake. I set the frame down—it was one of those with
four different photographs in it. One of Curlywurly fast asleep on
his back, paws in the air. One of Mother and me when we’d gone to
the zoo a few years ago. One of me and Carl during some office
party or other. And one of David and me. I wished I could say I’d
forgotten to take it out, but the truth was I didn’t have a single
picture I could replace it with unless I stuck another one of the
cat in there.

Not a single friend. Not a single place I’d
gone to that I’d want to show off. No Eiffel Tower, no Roman
aqueducts, not even Mount Rushmore. I’d had friends before David,
hadn’t I? When had I stopped meeting up with them? How had I let
them drift out of my life? I was almost thirty and what did I have
to show for it?

I gazed around. I hadn’t even put up my
Christmas decorations. David had always rolled his eyes at my tree
and lights and garlands. Sometimes it was so hard to remember what
I’d seen in him for half a decade. But in the beginning he’d been
funny and charming. God, that seemed like a million years ago. Now
it was hard to remember who I’d been before him.

Christmas was in a few days, so there was
hardly any point in decorating now. And I was alone anyway. Wasn’t
it lame to deck the halls if there was no one to share it with?

No
. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself
and put up the fucking tree.”

“Mrrw?” Curly stared at me with his head
cocked.

I scritched his ears and he closed his eyes.
“I said I’m putting up a tree.”

“Mrrw.”

“That’s right.” When I dragged up the boxes
from the basement, skirting around David’s crap with renewed
resentment, I tossed him an old garland that he tore apart with
zeal. I dug out a Christmas CD, and Bing Crosby soothed me while I
decorated.

A text message from Mother pinged as I boiled
water for macaroni and cheese. I hadn’t eaten, and it was never
good for my stomach to get too hungry. The text was a photograph of
her and Valerie, taken by one of the daughters no doubt, with
Austin’s beautiful skyline in the background, the sunlight bouncing
brightly off the skyscraper windows. I smiled and replied.

So jealous! Love you!

My chest contracted with something that
wasn’t heartburn at all. But I was fine! I was going to do this
thing. This holiday thing. Me and Bing and Curlywurly.

It was barely three p.m. and the overcast day
was nearly dark out, so I decided to turn on all the Christmas
lights. My small tree gave the living room a warm glow, and I’d put
it on a table by the window so people could see it from the street.
The lights I’d wound along the banister all the way up the stairs
lit the hallway and part of the kitchen. Everything was neat and
tidy—I’d even vacuumed Curly’s scratch post—and I felt proud of my
pretty little home. It didn’t matter no one else got to see it like
this; it made me feel good.

Humming “Silent Night,” I went back to finish
making my mac and cheese. With an all-mighty bang that made me
yelp, the entire house went dark. From somewhere, Curly shot out of
one hiding place in search of another. For a second I stood
motionless in the kitchen, and then I swore, loudly. I tried a
light switch. Nothing. I looked out the window, hoping selfishly it
was a blackout and the whole block would be dark. My neighbors’
Christmas lights twinkled in the dusk, mocking me.

In a kitchen drawer I found a small
flashlight and made my way into the basement. The fuse box hung
above David’s stuff, which I mercilessly shoved out of the way. I
flicked all the switches, but nothing happened. I had no idea what
to do next, so I went upstairs and searched for electricians on my
phone.

Every single one of them told me they
couldn’t come for two days. Fucking great. I had to wait for
Christmas Eve to have power.
Call Ashley
, a small voice that
sounded an awful lot like Mother nagged inside my head, and for a
second I was tempted.

There had been something between us, I was
sure of it. But a flush of humiliation washed over my cheeks as I
imagined calling him now, admitting I’d been decorating for
Christmas all by myself and had apparently blown an epic fuse and
fucked my house’s old wiring. No. I couldn’t. I couldn’t admit to
anyone I was that pathetic. Especially not Ashley.

I suddenly realized that no electricity meant
no heating, and an ugly pain rippled through my chest, sending me
sliding down the wall to the floor. A distant part of me thought,
Oh, is this what a heart attack feels like?
But no, nothing
that dramatic. Quiet but harsh sobs made my throat hurt, and tears
splashed the kitchen tiles as the batteries in my flashlight gave
out. I was being dramatic and pathetic crying in the dark, but damn
it, for five minutes I was going to let myself have my pity
party.