CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I was surprised to find my front door locked. I dug for my key and let myself in, grabbing my mail from the box on the way. My little mailbox was falling off my house. Another thing to fix. As I flipped through envelopes, a realtor’s brochure of fancy, expensive houses in Atlanta was on top. I searched for the smiley realtor—Sandra Deen, was her name. The price for a house in Buckhead, with a sparkling swimming pool, was three million dollars. Yeah, I freaking wish, Sandra.
Until I hit the lottery or my random idea of opening up a chain of high-end spas takes off, it’s the little white house with the dangling red mailbox for me. When I got inside, the house was heavy with silence. I went through the rest of my mail—nothing interesting, mainly bills and flyers—and because the entire house smelled of Elodie’s popcorn and it made my stomach growl, I grabbed some pretzels from the pantry.
My house felt different with no sound. It felt strange not hearing the name Olivia Pope every few minutes. I was completely alone. No Elodie. No Kael. We didn’t agree on a time or anything, but I guess I’d assumed that he would be at my house when I got off work.
Where else would he go?
I microwaved the last of the leftovers from Mali. I washed a load of dishes. Sat at my kitchen table. Grabbed the paperback I was reading to pick up where I had left off. I tried to focus on the story, but I kept thinking about Kael, wondering how he would be when he got here. If he was still coming. Would he be more talkative than before?
I loved to torture myself with second thoughts, so now I wondered if I had misconstrued the whole situation. Did Kael want to come over? Was he under the impression that I wanted him to come over? I started to convince myself that he might be thinking I was weird or pushy. Or both.
Ten minutes later, I was back to reality. No way would Kael be sitting around overthinking our conversation—wherever he was. I was totally overreacting.
Overthinking. Overreacting. Not exactly skills I could put on my résumé. I put the book down without having read a word, then picked up my phone and went through Facebook, typingKael Martinin the search box. No change in his profile. And I still couldn’t bring myself to send him a friend request.
I clicked out of his page and went to my inbox, as if I was expecting an important email or something. I was pacing around my room before I knew it, going in circles, getting myself worked up. I stopped dead in my tracks when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. With my dark hair pulled back, my eyes wild, I looked like my mother. Frighteningly like my mother.
I lay on my bed and grabbed my book again, but soon felt like I needed a change of scenery, so I went to the living room and flopped on the couch. I checked the time on my phone. Almost seven. I picked up where I’d left off on my last dog-eared page—I had never been a bookmark kind of girl—and let Hemingway’s brutal tale take me to the First World War. It wasn’t the distraction I had hoped for, though. The closer I got to sleep, the more Kael’s face appeared on multiple characters. He was a drill sergeant. A wounded soldier. An ambulance driver. And he looked at me like he recognized my eyes.
I woke up on the couch, the sun bright on my face. I looked around the living room, gathering my thoughts. Elodie was in the shower; I could hear the water running.
And Kael hadn’t come back.