Page 161 of The Incredible Ordinary

Then you want me to stay?

No!

Safe to say rational is not a word that could ever be used to describe that conversation. I don’t think sane applies either.

Wren nods like he hears my thoughts.

“Maybe there’s a reason?” he says it gently. So, so gently. Like he’s not sure how the insinuation will go down.

I close my eyes and let out a tired snort of laughter. “Maybe,” I whisper.

When I look around, Milán’s absence is everywhere. I want him here. Even if he’s probably pissed at me. Annoyed, at the very least.

Way to make yourself look like an even halfway enticing option.

“Go to bed,” Wren tells me. “Things have a habit of looking better in the morning.”

I nod.

Even though I don’t believe him.

I go to bed and listen to the house and the city settle all around me. I count flashes of light from the headlights of the cars passing outside my window like they’re sheep, but sleep doesn’t come. It’s quiet enough that I start to imagine sounds. There’s a point when I’m sure somebody’s walking on the stairs, but when I go to look, heart beating loudly, impossible hope raging in my chest, there’s nothing.

At four in the morning, eyes gritty, brain fuzzy, I give up. I go to my closet and dig out the T-shirt Milán sometimes wears when he stays the night and pull it over my head.

A few minutes later, I pull the collar over my nose.

I lie very still and inhale the faint scent of him that clings to the fabric.

Maybe he can just occasionally mail me one of his shirts after he’s gone, so I can continue being pathetic in the middle of the night?

I wish he was here. I wish he was here so desperately it hurts. If he was here we could figure this out. Think of something. Some way to make us work.

There’s an annoying voice in the back of my head that scoffs with derision. A compromise, it says snidely. God knows those make people happy. And maybe it’s better to end it now anyway. A sharp cut instead of a dull blade. Because eventually Milán is going to leave anyway.

Only… a year is a long time. AndI’m not looking for plane tickets.

He’s happy.

I don’t know how I know it. Maybe I’m projecting. Maybe it’s just me who’s happy. I don’t know. I never asked him.

But then… isn’t it worth finding it out?

For the thousandth time, I pick up my phone from the nightstand. For the thousandth time, I open my messages and start to type. For the thousandth time, I delete the words.

I drop the phone on my chest.

Stare at the ceiling some more.

When the phone starts buzzing on my chest. I nearly drop it from sheer surprise and then scramble to pick it up when I see Milán’s name on the screen.

“Hello?” My heart is so loud I feel it beating in my mouth.

There’s a beat of silence. The second stretches, terrifyingly long.

“Hey.”

I close my eyes from sheer relief.