Chapter 2 - I Put the Ring Away and Drove Past Her Turn
The string lights buzzed over my head and the deck was already empty behind me. Olivia had stepped out of frame, just like that, her heels clicking once on the wood and then gone down the stairs. The sunset kept going without her. I could still feel the heat of it on the back of my neck.
I looked down at my hand. The ring was still there between my fingers, catching that low light. I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath until my chest hitched. I slipped the ring into the front pocket of my black pants and pressed my palm flat against it, just to make sure it wouldn't fall through some hole.
My name is Ethan Carter. I was the guy who had just promised his whole life to a woman who said it wasn't enough.
The sedan was parked three feet from me, black and clean and not mine. I'd borrowed it for the night from the lot where I detailed cars on weekends, telling my boss it was for family photos. The keys felt too heavy in my other pocket. I walked around to the driver's side and stood there a minute, because getting in meant admitting I was leaving alone.
That's when I saw it. On the small table by the railing where she'd been standing — her light handbag. Small, pale, the strap hanging off the edge. She'd left it.
I picked it up. It was lighter than I expected. I could hear the deck stairs creaking below, a car door somewhere in the parking lot. For a second a stupid hope moved through me that she'd come back up for it, that we'd have one more minute and I'd do it better. I held the bag out in front of me like some kind of offering.
She did come back. I heard her footsteps before I saw her hair. She stopped two steps from the top, just her shoulders and face showing over the deck line.
"You left this," I said.
She looked at the bag, then at my pocket where my hand was still pressed. "Thanks," she said. It was quiet. She climbed the last two steps and took it from me without our fingers touching.
I wanted to say please don't walk away from us again. I didn't. I'd already said it once and watched it land nowhere. My throat burned and I swallowed it down.
"Do you need a ride?" I asked.
She shook her head. "I called a car. It's already downstairs."
A car. Not me. I nodded. That was the whole conversation. She turned before the light left her sequined dress and went back down. This time I listened until I couldn't hear her anymore.
Down in the parking lot, the air smelled like hot asphalt and charcoal from somebody's grill. The borrowed sedan ticked as the engine cooled. My boss, Ray, was leaning against his truck with his arms crossed, watching me come down the wooden stairs alone.
He didn't ask how it went. He could see it.
"Keys," he said, and held out his hand.
I dropped them in his palm. The metal clinked. "Tank's full. I put twenty in it on the highway."
Ray looked at the sedan, then at me in my navy shirt with the sleeves rolled, my brown shoes dusty from the deck. "You okay, kid?"
"Yeah," I lied. It came out too fast. "Thanks for letting me take it."
He nodded toward the far end of the lot where my old Honda sat low on bald tires. "You sure you don't want to follow her? Talk it out?"
I looked toward the frontage road. Her rideshare was already pulling out, brake lights red for a second, then gone. My chest pulled toward it. Everything in me wanted to get in the Honda and follow those taillights to her place and sit on the curb until she listened.
"No," I said. "I'm not chasing her."
I meant it, even if my hands were shaking. I unlocked the Honda and got in. The seat was burning hot through my pants. I started it and turned left out of the lot, away from downtown and her apartment building with the gated parking. I drove toward my side of town, past the gas station and the diner, to the two-story walk-up where the paint peeled over the doors.
Inside my apartment, the air conditioner rattled and never really cooled. I locked the deadbolt, kicked off my shoes, and stood in the kitchen with the sunset bleeding orange through the blinds. Then I reached into my pocket and set the ring on the chipped Formica table.
It sat there, small and bright under the cheap overhead light. I stared at it until my eyes watered again, and I let them this time because nobody was watching.
May you like
One day, I'll make something of myself. I'd said it up there, soft, and I'd meant it as a promise to her. Standing alone, it sounded different. It sounded like something I owed myself.
I pulled out a chair and sat down across from that ring and didn't pick it back up.
