I choose emotional because honestly, those feelings never leave, and at least alone, I don’t have to explain myself.
The bedroom door is pulled closed, but the scent of fresh laundry hits me when I push it open. She’s been in here, and my immediate response is to rush from the room and confront her for being in my personal space, but she doesn’t seem the type to snoop. If anything, she’s as private as I am. The throw pillows on the bed aren’t in the same spot Lana liked to place them, indicating she probably changed the sheets, a kind gesture on Ali’s part, but I don’t know how to feel about her being so close to this bed.
Irritated and unable to walk in any further, I back out of the room, leaving the door open as if letting it air out some will make it easier to return later in the day.
“Can you grab the colander please? The spaghetti noodles are almost done,” she says when she sees me walk into the kitchen. “I’m not really a cook, but I figured you can’t go wrong with noodles and sauce.”
I stand, locked in place for a second before moving to the cabinet to do her bidding.
“It’s from a jar, the sauce I mean. You wouldn’t want to eat it if I tried to make it from scratch. I didn’t buy ground beef, so there’s—”
“It’s not here,” I snap, my irritation from earlier growing when I can’t find what she’s wanting. The sooner I get it for her, the sooner I can get away from her.
“Oh, I moved it under the cabinet by the sink.”
“By the sink?”
She turns, watching my face for a second before answering. “You drain noodles in the sink. It doesn’t make much sense for it to be by the stove.”
The familiarity of this conversation hits me in the chest. In our first apartment, I had this very conversation with Lana, arguing the same point Ali is making right now. That little argument was one of many, and I loved having tiny fights with Lana. More often than not, it led me to showing her just who was in charge. That day ended with us naked on the kitchen floor of that tiny apartment. Lana thought she won in the end because after, she swatted my naked ass with a spatula, declared “my kitchen, my rules” and told me to get lost.
“You need to leave things where you find them,” I hiss through clenched teeth, angrier than I probably should be over the location of kitchen items.
Ali blinks at me, her chin lifting a few inches higher as her chin begins to quiver.
I expect her to either cry or yell, to call me out on being a massive asshole, but she simply nods.
She doesn’t argue her point like Lana would’ve. She doesn’t tell me to kiss her ass. I can’t admit that I agree with her. I can’t even accept that this is no longer Lana’s kitchen. This is simply a room where meals are made, no longer the heartbeat of the house.
“Dinner will be ready in ten minutes,” she says, pulling open the cabinet by the sink. She places it in the sink before turning back to me. “I’ll put it back by the stove after I wash it. Would you like garlic bread and a salad with dinner?”
Her eyes are shiny when she looks in my direction again, but she doesn’t allow the tears to flow down her cheeks. This woman is stronger than I first gave her credit for.
“I’m not hungry,” I mutter before walking out of the room.
The guilt weighs on me so heavily that later in the evening, after she’s eaten, cleaned up, and gone to bed, I pull the colander from the dish drainer and put it in the cabinet by the sink. I don’t have the courage to apologize. If I started down that path, I’d spend a lifetime saying I’m sorry for all the wrongs I’ve committed recently.
The next afternoon, after noticing all the dishes are put away, I check the cabinet. The woman is just as stubborn as I am because that damn colander has been moved to the cabinet by the stove.
Neither of us mention it again.
Chapter 15
Alyssa
“It looks like you’ve been saving all your energy for today,” I tell Aria with a smile as she scoots around the living room in her walker, squealing in delight. “I’m so glad you’re feeling better.”
I watch her, drying my hands on a dish towel as she makes another circle around the room. It took three days for her to not cry when she was given a bottle, and although for the last four days I could tell she felt better, it wasn’t until she woke with a smile from her nap this afternoon, a week after being diagnosed with pink eye and a sinus infection, that I knew she was truly better.