I droveLindsi’s car across town – since Oz needs his truck back for work – and let Ben out at the front of Riley’s house. He stared for five long minutes, as though suspicious that Riley is actually inside and this was a massive ruse just to punk him.
But once I crossed the new ramp at the front of the house and unlocked the front door, when I stood at the threshold and stared into sparkling eyes while he stood in the dark and watched me, he finally took a step back, then another. Then he turned on his sneakers and jogged away.
I set my alarm to call the house thirty minutes later to make sure he got home safe – he did – so now I find myself walking around Riley’s sparkling home and questioning if it really was as filthy as I recall earlier today.
You’d never know it was trashed and stinky. You’d never know the fridge stank. Or the blinds were pulled down.
But the truth cannot be denied as I move to the master bedroom with Nacho close on my heels. Bending low, I find Ninja exactly where she was when I left. Bent tail and scared eyes. She’s the proof I need that this whole fucking nightmare is actually real.
The house really was trashed.
The cat’s tail really does hurt.
And Riley really is in the hospital with a lot of anger pointing right at me.
“Gonna come out yet, Ninja?” I lower to my knees and elbows and rest my chin on Riley’s pile of jeans. “Gonna come out, baby?” Nacho squeezes between my chest and the floor. She gives happy little snorts, which draws Ninja’s attention, but still, she remains put.
Sighing when she doesn’t come out, I stand and leave the closet, but despair moves to hope when I find new paw prints on the laundry floor. Ninja used the litter box while we were gone. She came out to eat the little bowl of gravy and chicken mix I left for her, then she used the bathroom and didn’t do it in the closet.
Good enough.
Grabbing a bottle of water from the newly cleaned fridge, I move back into the hall and stop in the guest bedroom. Stepping from hardwood onto plush carpet is a luxury I didn’t realize I needed in this moment. When it’s cold and dark outside and the guy your heart races for kind of hates your guts, it’s the small luxuries that seem to make the biggest impact. Peeling my socks off and leaving them by the door, I dig my toes into the thick carpet and study the piles of plastic bags tossed haphazardly on the bed.
Curious, I pull things from random bags and frown. Handrails. Double sided tape, and Velcro dots. Even a ‘grabber’ on a long stick, to pick things up off the floor or off high shelves. I pull out a long plastic package with steel tubes inside, and a picture of a toilet on the packaging…handles for the toilet?A handheld showerhead to replace the one in his bathroom sits in a white and blue box. And a shower chair in another, larger box leans against the bed and awaits assembly.
I look at the dozens of bags, mentally tallying the insane amount of money spent, then I make a plan to call Bobby and Jack tomorrow to thank them, because I’m pretty sure this was their doing. And I’m pretty sure it cost a small fortune.
I’ll be working a long time to pay these people back; their time, their money, their work, and kindness. But I’m not too proud to accept these things. I was coming here to make a list of everything Riley would need, so I could get an early start tomorrow and start shopping, but because of their generosity, I move straight back to Riley’s room and blatantly help myself to one of his shirts.
His anger today says he wouldn’t be okay with this. Not only wouldn’t he be happy with me walking aroundhishouse inhisshirt, but he’d probably want to yell at me some more and remind me of the hatred I’m not sure I deserve.
But he’s not here tonight, so he doesn’t ever have to know I wanted a hug so damn much, I’ll settle with smelling his shirt. Stripping down to my panties and tossing my jeans aside, I pull the cotton shirt on and stand for a moment in the heady scent of his cologne andmansmell.
Nacho sits at the closet and chatters with the silent Ninja, but she’s happy, and Ninja isn’t complaining, so I leave them and go back to the guest bedroom to decide where to start.
Bathroom.
I think I’ll start with the bathroom, since being able to pee and shower under his own power will be important. I grab the packages with all the railings and handles, then move to the kitchen. I noticed while cleaning today that Riley keeps a small stash of tools under the sink, so I grab the things I need – screwdriver, wrench, Allen keys – grab the boxed shower seat on the way back through the hall, then I dump everything in the master bathroom and get started.
The guest bathroom has a bathtub. The master does not.
The shower in the guest bathroom isinthe tub. The shower in the master is a straight walk in and out.
So I focus my efforts on the bathroom he’ll be using, and get to work switching out the showerhead and installing hand rails.
Eleven p.m. rolls around while I work on the rails.
Twelve, when I install the toilet handles.
I trip on the bathroom rug at one and toss it across the room on a cry of exhausted rage.
And at two, I tug the toilet seat out of the box, but give up halfway when I lose the screws and can’t for the life of me find them with both eyes malfunctioning.
Walking away from the chaos and closing the door with my eyes already mostly shut, I bypass the bed Iwantto sleep in, move along the lonely hall, and shove the bags off the guest bed with a sigh. Sensing its bedtime, Nacho leaves the closet and follows me into the room, snorting her demands until I let her up onto the bed, then she burrows under the pillows until I give up on scolding her.
I don’t even care, because I want a warm body and a heartbeat in my bed, even if she’s just a pig.
Closing my eyes, I will away my tears, and beg for the nightmares that sit at the edge of my foggy brain not to come. Crying, because I haven’t given myself a chance to truly grieve since seeing Riley, I slide my hand under the spare pillow and scratch Nacho’s belly to ground myself. I don’t think of hospitals, or bullets, or missing legs. And I especially don’t think of the tears I saw in Riley’s eyes when he demanded I leave and never return.