Page 5 of Call You Mine
Like leaving was always the plan.
Like staying had never even crossed her mind.
The lamp on my nightstand cast this soft yellow light over everything, warm enough that it should’ve felt intimate but instead made the room look strange and temporary, like a hotel.
Like none of it belonged to either of us.
I tried to play it off, told her it was no big deal, that I’d only asked because it was late. My voice sounded too casual, too rehearsed, like I’d practiced not caring. She smiled, quick and polite, before saying she had an early morning at the coffee shop.
It was the first time she used the excuse, and definitely not the last.
The front door had shut behind her a minute later, and the whole house went quiet in that heavy, hollow way it only does after someone leaves. Too big. Too empty. Every sound echoed back at me like proof I was alone again.
I was too wired to sleep that first night, so I wandered through the kitchen, taking in the sight of my car keys thrown on the kitchen counter, the two wine glasses we’d left on my coffee table, and the blanket we used on the couch still crumpled on the floor. All these small signs that someone had been here—evidence of a night that should’ve meant something.
That was the first time it hit me that we weren’t wired the same way. I was already picturing slow mornings and shared coffee with her toothbrush next to mine in the bathroom. She was calculating how fast she could get dressed and make it out before sunrise.
And still, I wanted her.
As I stood in the middle of my empty house—the one I’m dying to make a home—with the lights off and the air too still, I realized I should’ve known better.
But then she texted me a few days later when I had just gotten home from a twenty-four-hour shift at the fire station.
I was tired and beat, but the memory of that auburn hair splayed out on my bed sheets, those hazel eyes hooded with pleasure, those sharp, perfectly manicured fingernails scratching down my back, was enough for me to tell her to come over. I remember thinking maybe this time would be different. Maybe she’d linger. Maybe she’d sit back down on the bed and stay awhile. Maybe she’d look at me like I was someone worth sticking around for.
But she didn’t—she doesn’t.
And now, every time my phone lights up with her name, I tell myself this is the last time, that I’m done mistaking her lust for something deeper. But then the house echoes when it’s empty, all that space pressing in on me, and I start picturing her walking through the door again—sleepy, half-smiling, like she belongs here—and the loneliness gets louder than my common sense.
So, here we are. Eight months later. Still just as incompatible as ever, except for the sex, and I’m the one left hurting my own feelings by thinking that these nights will wear her down enough to give me an actual chance.
A chance I want more than anything.
I keep thinking if I give her enough nights like this—quiet, tangled, tender—she’ll finally see what I see: that we could be more than just bodies passing time, that she doesn’t have to leave before sunrise.
I let my arms drop to my sides, opening my eyes and following the blades of my fan as they circle around and around.
Ava is the first woman I’ve pursued since graduating fromthe fire academy and moving to Milwaukee to work at my uncle’s station, and I have no intention of looking elsewhere. Why would I? I’m happy with the small part of herself she lends me every now and again—like it was taken directly out of my dreams.
It’s those moments in the middle of the night where she hands me these small, unguarded pieces of herself—sleep-heavy smiles, quiet confessions, lazy brushes of her fingers as if she forgot she’s supposed to pull away.
For those few soft, fragile hours, I can pretend we fit; that she’s mine; that I’m hers.
Instead, I always end up in the same spot, staring at the dent her head left in the pillow, wishing it didn’t feel so much like losing something I never really had.
The automatic deadbolt engages on the front door—a softwhirringsound punctuated by a beep pulling me from the thoughts.
I realize I’ve never been awake when she actually leaves, but I always find the front door locked the next morning. It’s a small act most would say means nothing, but it’s one that I noticed right away.
And as someone who is used to taking care of everyone and everything around them, small acts like that do mean something—especially to me.
I remain exactly where Ava left me, surrounded by the stillness.
Then, I hear the doorknob turn.
My stomach lurches at the thought that she’s coming back. Maybe she changed her mind. Maybe she decided to stay.
But the front door doesn’t open.
