The Grumpy Landlord, page 11
He took a step back.
It was a small movement. A shifting of weight. But it felt like a slap.
He put the island between us. A barrier of granite and distance.
"I'm fine," he said.
"You don't look fine. You look..."
Like you regret everything.
I couldn't say it. If I said it, it might become true.
"I have a lot on my mind," he said.
"About the gallery?" I asked. "About Marian?"
"About everything."
He looked at the shirt I was wearing. His gaze lingered on the collar, then dropped to my bare legs.
For a second, a flash of heat sparked in his eyes. A memory of my legs wrapped around his waist. A memory of the sounds we made.
Then he blinked. The heat vanished. Replaced by ice.
"You should get dressed," he said.
I froze.
"What?"
"The house is cold. You'll freeze."
It wasn't concern. It was a dismissal. He didn't want to see me in his clothes. He didn't want the reminder.
My stomach twisted. The giddiness evaporated, leaving behind a sick, sour feeling.
"Ethan," I said, my voice trembling. "Talk to me. Please. What is this?"
"It's morning, Willow. That's all."
"It's not just morning. Last night..."
"Last night was a reaction," he cut in.
The words hung in the air. Ugly. Sharp.
"A reaction," I repeated. "To what? Stress? Adrenaline?"
He looked down at his hands. He rubbed his thumb over his knuckles.
"We were both upset," he said. "Emotions were high. It happens."
"It happens?" I laughed. It was a breathless, hurt sound. "You make it sound like a car accident. Or a medical procedure."
"It was a mistake."
He didn't shout it. He said it quietly. Matter-of-factly.
I felt like he had reached into my chest and squeezed my heart until it stopped beating.
"A mistake," I whispered.
"I crossed a line," he said. "I'm your landlord. I'm... I'm not good for you."
"Stop deciding what's good for me!" I shouted.
I slammed my hand on the counter. My palm stung.
"You don't get to do that. You don't get to hold me like I'm the most precious thing in the world and then wake up and tell me it was a clerical error."
He flinched.
"I'm trying to protect you," he said.
"From what?"
"From me."
He looked up. His eyes were haunted now. The ghosts were back. They were crowding the kitchen, sucking out the air.
"I break things, Willow. I told you. I tried to warn you."
"You didn't break me last night," I said softly. "You put me back together."
"For now," he said. "Until the next time. Until the nightmares come back. Until I shut down and leave you alone in the dark."
He ran a hand through his hair.
"I can't be what you need. I can't be the hero."
"I don't need a hero," I said. "I just need you."
He shook his head.
"You don't know me. You see the idea of me. You see a sketch."
"I see the man who saved me from Marian. I see the man who let me paint in his kitchen. I see the man who touches me like I'm holy."
"That man is a fraud," he said harshly.
He grabbed his keys from the counter. The metal jingled. A jarring sound.
"I have to go."
"Ethan, don't walk away."
"I have rounds."
"You're running."
"I'm working."
He walked toward the door to the garage. He moved fast. Like he was escaping a burning building.
He stopped at the door. His hand hovered over the knob.
I held my breath.
Turn around. Come back. Kiss me.
He didn't turn around.
"Lock up when you leave," he said.
Then he opened the door and walked out.
The heavy thud of the door closing echoed through the house.
I stood in the kitchen.
I was wearing his shirt. I smelled like him. I could still feel the imprint of his body on mine.
But he was gone.
And the silence that rushed back in wasn't empty. It was heavy with everything he hadn't said.
I wrapped my arms around myself. I sank onto one of the barstools.
I pulled my knees up to my chest, tucking the oversized shirt around my legs.
"Stupid," I whispered. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."
Sadie was right.
He was shattered glass. And I had cut myself trying to hold him.
I sat there for a long time. I watched the sun move across the floor. The golden light turned harsh and white.
The coffee he had left on the counter went cold.
I needed to leave. I needed to go back to the guest house. Back to my own mess.
I couldn't stay here in his perfect, empty museum.
I slid off the stool. My legs felt shaky.
I walked upstairs to get my clothes.
The bedroom smelled like sex and sleep. It made my throat tight.
I picked up my dress. My bra. My panties.
I took off his shirt. I folded it. I placed it on the bed, right where he should have been.
I got dressed.
I walked back downstairs.
I needed water. My mouth tasted like ash.
I went to the fridge.
There was a piece of paper taped to the stainless steel door.
It hadn't been there before. Or maybe I had been too blind to see it.
It was a page torn from a small notepad.
I recognized the handwriting. Sharp. Angular. Precise.
I reached out. My fingers hovered over the paper.
I didn't want to read it.
I knew what it would say. It would be an eviction notice. A list of damages. An invoice for the broken heart.
I pulled it down.
I read it.
Willow,
We need to talk.
—E
Four words.
No apology. No explanation. No "I had a great time."
Just a summons.
"We need to talk" was universal code for "It's over."
I crushed the paper in my hand.
I looked around the kitchen one last time.
It was perfect. It was orderly. It was cold.
I walked to the front door.
I unlocked it.
I stepped out into the bright, blinding day.
I walked across the perfect lawn to the guest house.
I went inside.
I locked the door behind me.
I looked at the easel. At the painting of the man with gold in his cracks.
I grabbed a tube of black paint.
I uncapped it.
I held it over the canvas.
I wanted to cover it. I wanted to drown the gold in darkness.
But I couldn't.
My hand shook. A tear splashed onto the floor.
I dropped the paint.
I curled up on the rug, right where we had sat the night before.
And I waited for the talk that would end everything.
Stubborn Hearts
Ethan
The hospital was a machine.
It ran on electricity, oxygen, and the rhythmic beep of monitors. It was sterile. Predictable. It was the only place on earth where I knew exactly what to do.
Usually.
Today, the machine was malfunctioning. Or maybe I was.
I stood at the scrub sink, staring at my reflection in the stainless steel. My eyes were bloodshot. There was a grayness to my skin that had nothing to do with the fluorescent lights and everything to do with the fact that I had ripped my own heart out of my chest and left it on a kitchen counter three hours ago.
It was a mistake.
The words echoed in my head. Cold. Clinical. A surgical excision of the best night of my life.
I scrubbed my hands. The bristles bit into my skin. I scrubbed until I couldn't feel the phantom sensation of Willow’s silk skin under my fingertips. I scrubbed until the smell of her vanilla and paint was drowned out by Hibiclens.
"Dr. Rourke?"
I didn't turn. I kept scrubbing.
"Dr. Rourke, you've been at that sink for ten minutes. The skin is going to come off."
I froze.
I looked down. My knuckles were raw. Red.
I turned off the water.
Sarah was leaning against the doorframe of the scrub room. She was holding a chart against her chest like a shield. She didn't look impressed.
"I'm thorough," I rasped.
"You're manic," she corrected. She walked over and handed me a towel. "You're not scrubbing in. Your shift ended twenty minutes ago. You're just... standing here. vibrating."
I dried my hands. The towel was rough.
"I have paperwork."
"You did your paperwork. I checked. It's perfect. As always."
She narrowed her eyes. Sarah had been a trauma nurse since before I was an intern. She had seen me at my worst. She had seen me come back from the desert with sand in my boots and a thousand-yard stare.
She wasn't afraid of the stare.
"Go home, Ethan."
"I can't."
"Why? Is your house on fire?"
"No."
Yes. I set a match to it this morning.
I threw the towel into the bin. It landed with a dull thud.
"I can't go home because if I go home, I have to think. And if I think, I might do something stupid."
"Stupid like what? Buy a sports car? Get a tattoo?"
"Stupid like believing I deserve to be happy."
The words slipped out. A confession in the tiled confession booth of the OR prep room.
Sarah’s expression softened. The sarcasm drained away, leaving behind a weary kindness that I didn't want. I didn't want pity. I wanted orders. I wanted a mission.
"Is this about the girl?" she asked. "The artist?"
"She has a name."
"I know. Willow. The one who makes you smile at tablets."
I leaned back against the sink, crossing my arms over my chest. The metal was cold against my back through the thin scrub top.
"She's... complicated."
"She's human," Sarah said. "We're all complicated. You're complicated. You're a walking knot of survivor's guilt and hero complex wrapped in very nice scrubs."
I scowled.
"Thank you for the psychological profile."
"No charge."
She stepped closer. She wasn't intimidated by my height or my mood.
"Look, I don't know what happened. But I know you. You push people away before they can leave you. It's your signature move. It's cleaner that way. Less messy."
"It's safer," I argued. "For them."
"Is it?"
"I'm damaged goods, Sarah. You know that. I have nightmares that would make a civilian wet the bed. I have a temper. I have... silence."
"And she breaks the silence?"
I looked at the floor.
"She obliterates it."
"And that scares you."
"It terrifies me."
Sarah sighed. She tapped the chart against her leg.
"Ethan, look at me."
I looked up.
"You spend your life fixing people," she said. "You sew them up. You restart their hearts. You save them. But you treat yourself like a lost cause."
She pointed a finger at me.
"Whatever scares you this much? Whatever makes you want to run for the hills and hide in your bunker? It's probably right. It's probably the only thing that's going to save you."
I stared at her.
Whatever scares you this much is probably right.
I thought about Willow.
I thought about the way she looked this morning. Wearing my shirt. Her hair a mess. Her eyes full of a tentative, fragile hope that I had systematically dismantled with four words on a piece of paper.
We need to talk.
I hadn't wanted to talk. I had wanted to push her away. I had wanted to reinforce the perimeter because she had gotten too close to the blast zone.
But Sarah was right.
I wasn't protecting her. I was protecting myself. I was a coward hiding behind a shield of nobility.
"I told her it was a mistake," I whispered.
Sarah winced.
"Ouch."
"I told her I was a fraud."
"Double ouch."
"I left her in the kitchen and came here to hide."
Sarah shook her head.
" well, you're excellent at surgery, Dr. Rourke. But you are an idiot when it comes to women."
She patted my arm.
"Go fix it. Stitch it up. Before the patient bleeds out."
She turned and walked out of the room, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the linoleum.
I stood there in the silence.
The hum of the hospital faded.
I closed my eyes. I pictured the painting she had made. The man breaking apart, gold pouring from the cracks.
She didn't see a broken man. She saw a man who was healing.
And I had thrown it back in her face.
I pushed off the sink.
I grabbed my bag. I grabbed my keys.
I walked out of the hospital. I didn't walk. I marched.
I had a mission.
* * *
The drive home was agony.
Every red light felt like a personal insult. Every slow driver felt like an obstacle placed by fate to punish me.
I gripped the steering wheel until the leather creaked.
What am I going to say?
I rehearsed speeches.
I'm sorry. Too weak.
I was scared. Too pathetic.
I love you.
The thought hit me so hard I almost swerved into the next lane.
Love.
I hadn't used that word in years. Not since before the war. Not since I buried the version of myself that believed in happy endings.
But what else was this? This constant ache. This gravitational pull that made my orbit center around a chaotic, paint-splattered woman in my guest house.
I loved her.
I loved her mess. I loved her noise. I loved the way she looked at me like I was the sun, even when I was acting like a black hole.
I pressed the gas pedal. The truck surged forward.
I needed to tell her. I needed to stand in front of her, strip away the armor, and let her see the truth.
I turned onto my road. The trees blurred past.
I pulled into the driveway.
The sun was setting. The sky was a bruise of purple and orange.
My house loomed dark and silent.
But the guest house...
I looked toward the cottage.
It was dark.
Usually, at this time, the windows would be glowing. She would be painting. Or dancing. Or cooking something that smelled like garlic and joy.
The windows were black.
Maybe she was sleeping. Maybe she was in the main house, waiting for me.
I killed the engine. I got out.
I ran to the front door of the main house. I unlocked it.
"Willow?"
Silence.
The house was exactly as I had left it. Cold. Empty.
The shirt—my white shirt she had been wearing—was folded neatly on the edge of the sofa.
It looked like a white flag of surrender.
I touched it. It was cold.
Panic started to rise in my throat. A bitter bile.
I turned and ran out the back door.
I crossed the lawn to the guest house.
"Willow!"
I didn't bother knocking. I tried the handle.
Locked.
She never locked the door. She said locks were for people who had things worth stealing, and all she had was ideas.
I fumbled for my master key. My hands were shaking so bad I dropped it twice.
"Come on," I hissed.
I jammed the key in. I turned it.
I threw the door open.
"Willow, listen to me, I was wro—"
The words died in my throat.
The cottage was silent.
The air was stale.
I flipped the light switch.
The room flooded with harsh, artificial light.
It was clean.
The drop cloths were folded in the corner. The paints were capped and lined up on the windowsill in a perfect row. The brushes were washed and in their jar.
The easel stood in the center of the room.
It was empty.
The painting—the one of me, the one with the gold—was gone.
I walked into the room. My footsteps echoed on the concrete.
"Willow?"
I checked the bathroom. Empty.
I checked the small closet.
Her clothes were gone. The flowy skirts. The combat boots. The yellow cardigan.
The cat carrier was gone.
She hadn't just gone out.
She had left.
I spun around, looking for something, anything. A note. A sign.
There was nothing.
Just the gray walls. The gray couch. The gray rug.
The color was gone.
She had made good on her promise.
I'll stay out of your way. I'll be a ghost.
My knees hit the floor.
It wasn't a conscious decision. My legs just gave out.
I knelt on the rug where we had made love less than twenty-four hours ago. I put my hand on the fabric. It was cold.
She was gone.
I had pushed her, and she had finally fallen off the edge.
"No," I whispered.
The word cracked in the empty room.
I pulled my phone out. I dialed her number.
It rang. And rang. And rang.
“Hi, you’ve reached Willow. I’m probably painting or chasing the cat. Leave a message! Make it colorful!”
Her voice was bright. Happy.
It sounded like a ghost.
Beep.
"Willow," I said. My voice broke. "Willow, please. Pick up. I'm... I'm at the cottage. You're not here."
I took a shaky breath.
"I was wrong. God, I was so wrong. I'm not... I'm not trying to protect you anymore. I'm just trying to find you. Call me. Please."
I hung up.
I stared at the phone.
I looked at the empty easel.
