He trailed off but kept his eyes pinned to mine and I knew in that instant he did it so they wouldn’t wander. They wouldn’t become assessing.
But his next word and the hesitation said everything.
And it destroyed me.
“Attractive.”
I fought back another wince.
“It’s just that you don’t shit where you live,” he went on. “And, babe, you live right across the street and we both got kids.”
That was a lie. A kind one. But it was a total lie.
He didn’t want me, plain and simple.
I was just his…“attractive” neighbor.
I gave him that because he needed to give it to me and I needed to let him.
“You’re right,” I agreed.
“You’re a good woman, Amelia.”
God, that was completely lame.
But worse, I wasn’t even that.
“I…I’m…” I shook my head. “I can’t say how sorry I am. You’re a good neighbor. You’re a good guy. You’ve been so very kind to me. And you’ve got great kids. Can we,” I shrugged, hoping it was nonchalantly, “forget this even happened?”
That’s when the grin came but it killed that it wasn’t easy.
“Absolutely.”
I swallowed before I nodded and said, “Thanks, Mickey.” I drew in a breath and let it out finishing, “And again, I’m really sorry.”
“Nothin’ to apologize for. It didn’t happen.”
A good man. A kind man.
A man with great kids, all of whom I’d now go out of my way to see extremely rarely.
It was wave from the car or haul my behind into the house if I had the bad fortune to be out when they were out time.
“Right,” I said, injecting a firm thread in my voice. “I’d ask you in for a glass of wine but I don’t have glasses and I’m kinda in the middle of something.”
His grin got easier. “I’d say I appreciate the offer but I don’t drink wine and I also got shit to do.”
He was lying.
Then again, so was I.
It was over.
This should have caused me relief but instead, it dug deep then curled out long tentacles, the tips spreading acid through every part of me.
“Okay.” I started to close the door. “See you around, Mickey.”
“Hope so.”
That was a lie too.
I pushed my lips up into a smile.
He held his grin as he lifted a hand and turned away.
I didn’t wait politely to close and lock the door, I did it immediately.
I turned back to the room. The recessed overhead lights were on, dimmed, but I’d normally never turn on overhead lights. I’d use lamps.
Except I didn’t have any.
My feet wanted to take me to my bedroom, the bathroom there, the mirror there.
I didn’t let them.
I walked to the kitchen and I did this thinking, fuck it.
So when I got to the kitchen, I opened a bottle of wine and poured a healthy portion into a plastic cup.
I took it out to my deck. Since moving in, I’d been out there, not much. When I got to the railing and stopped, I felt the chill coming off the sea and I liked it.
I needed deck furniture.
I needed a to-do list.
I needed a to-do list with a variety of headings, this likely ending up the length of Santa’s gift list.
But first, I needed to make a decision.
Stay this low and allow myself to sink lower.
Or get my head out of my ass and pull myself together.
I’d come out to Maine to do the latter, and within a few weeks, ended up kissing my handsome, good guy neighbor, in one fell swoop killing a promising relationship of friendship and camaraderie and turning it into an awkward relationship of avoidance and unease.
I needed to talk this out and to do it, I wanted to call Robin. I wanted to tell her all that had happened and listen to her saying the things she always said to me. How sweet I was. How smart I was. How beautiful I was. How I deserved good things in my life. How I deserved to be treated properly. How I deserved to be cherished and protected and respected.
But I wasn’t taking Robin’s calls, only exchanging quick texts and emails, which would now be only texts since I’d sold my computer.
And I’d cut myself off from Robin.
I couldn’t call Josie or Alyssa because I could tell they were close with Mickey and they’d think I was crazy, stupid, weak and lame for doing what I did.
And in the awkward relationship stakes, they’d side with Mickey. He was their friend. I was just a new acquaintance who was grasping onto friendship with all I had because I was so terribly needy.
And I knew they would, not only because they’d known me two weeks and him for ages, but because my friends who hadn’t defected because I’d lost my mind after Conrad left me had defected when Conrad left me.
No.
I had to figure out what I wanted.
I had to figure out who I was.
I had to create a home.
I had to win back my children.
I had to build a life.
I had to get some self-respect.
I had to stop acting like an idiot, weak and selfish and stupid.
I had to start looking out for me.
I had to stop being so needy. I no longer had a husband to fulfill me. I had lost the children who, simply breathing, gave me all I could need. I had to find something for me that would fill those voids.
And I couldn’t sink any lower. I couldn’t live another day feeling like I had that day. I couldn’t live another week, another month, an eternity, feeling like I had since Conrad told me across the bed we shared, the bed we made our children in, that he was leaving me for another woman.
I’d left my life behind because it was not a good life.
And I’d come to Maine to change that life.
So I had only one choice.
No matter what it took, no matter how much time, no matter that it made me bleed, no matter what it cost me, no matter that it would take everything I had and force me to find more, I had to do what I’d come to Maine to do.
I had to make a home.
I had to heal my family.
I had to find me.
I had to let go of the old.
I had to pull myself together and start anew.
Chapter Five
Off and Running
“We got…a bowl.”
Alyssa announced this after she pulled said bowl out of its bag and protective tissue wrap and set it on the edge of the bar of my kitchen.
I stared at the bowl.
Josie, standing by Alyssa, spoke.
“It’s a nice bowl.”
“We’ve been shoppin’ all day, all over the county, and we bought…a bowl,” Alyssa countered.