Chapter 7
We hadn't moved from the foyer. That was the strangest part. The front door was still open and the daylight coming off the driveway made a hard white rectangle on the hardwood, and the black duffel bag was still exactly where it had been since morning, untouched by the base of the staircase. Nobody had picked up keys. Nobody had closed the door.
Eli stood with his hand back in his pocket, his watch catching the lamp light every time he shifted. Tyler hadn't moved from near the doorway either. His hands were still in his pockets. The air felt like we'd been holding our breath too long.
Tyler was the one who broke it. Not loud. He looked at me, not Eli.
"Mara," he said. "Can I ask you something? Why didn't you just text Eli Friday before you said yes?"
I felt my shoulders pull in. My cardigan slipped a little more off one shoulder and I didn't fix it. I stared at the duffel bag because it was easier.
"It's a fair question," Eli said quietly. He wasn't snapping anymore. That was worse. His voice had that calm, tired edge he got when he was trying not to push me into a corner.
I swallowed. The house smelled like coffee and the vase water from the side table. Outside, the dark SUV sat in the driveway and I could hear a lawnmower two houses down.
"I knew what he'd say," I said.
Eli blinked. "You knew what I'd say?"
"I thought I did," I said. My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to.
Tyler tilted his head. "So you didn't ask because you thought he'd say no?"
I nodded before I could talk myself out of it. The honesty felt hot in my throat.
That was the truth I hadn't said out loud in that foyer all morning. Friday night, Jason had texted me at 9:47. My phone was on the kitchen counter while Eli was in the shower. Jason's old truck had finally died on 41, he said, and the shop couldn't get the part until Tuesday, and he had this lake trip he'd already paid for with his brother. Could he borrow our spare car, just Saturday and Sunday? He'd bring it back Monday morning, full tank.
My first thought hadn't been about the car. It had been about Jason at twenty-two, sitting next to me at the leasing office on Broad Street, signing his name next to mine because I had no credit and no one else to call. He'd co-signed my first apartment when my mom couldn't. He'd helped me move that busted futon up three flights. He'd paid the electric bill one January when my hours got cut and never brought it up again after we broke up. I still remembered how careful he'd been to make it not feel like I owed him.
That history had jumped in front of everything else. I typed yes before I thought about Eli at all. Because saying no to Jason felt like saying all of that didn't matter, like I was the kind of person who forgot.
"I didn't want to be the bad guy to him," I said, and my eyes stung. "I promised him the car for the weekend because I felt guilty saying no. I thought if I told you after, you'd just... go along with it. So I wouldn't have to be the one to disappoint him."
Eli exhaled through his nose and looked down at the floor. For a second I thought he was going to get angry again.
Instead he said, "You know what that car is to me?"
I shook my head.
He glanced toward the open door, toward the SUV outside, but I knew he meant the other one, the spare parked on the street.
"We kept it," he said. "Remember when we talked about selling it last spring? We could have taken the money. We didn't. We kept it because we'd just made the last payment together. You and I. At the kitchen table. We sat there with the bank app and watched the balance go to zero and you said, thank God we actually own something together."
I remembered. I remembered him printing the title and putting it in the file box in our closet, both our names on it. It felt adult in a way I hadn't felt before. Not his, not mine. Ours for emergencies, for his early shift if my car was in the shop, for my mom's doctor appointments.
"That car is the first thing we paid off as a married couple," he said, his voice low. "So when you gave it away without asking me, it didn't feel like you lent a car. It felt like you decided what our marriage is worth without me."
The words landed hard because they were true. I felt my chest tighten. Tyler looked between us, uncomfortable but not leaving. That was why he was still there, I realized. Not to pick a side, but to keep us from turning it into something ugly.
"I didn't think about it like that," I whispered. "I thought you could survive without it for two days. That's what I told you. I told myself that too."
"You did," Eli said. "And I asked you if your promise to your ex mattered more than my right to use our own car. And you said it's not like that."
"It's not," I said again, but now it sounded different. "But I see why it felt like that to you. I was trying to avoid a fight with Jason by starting one with you. And that wasn't fair."
Tyler cleared his throat softly. "So what do you guys do when you both need the same thing from the same car? You can't both have it this weekend."
May you like
We both looked at the keys on the side table by the lamp. They hadn't moved. The black duffel bag sat there, waiting for someone to decide if it was going in that trunk or not. Eli's hand flexed at his side, and I realized I was still holding my breath.
We saw each other clearly now, guilt and partnership sitting right next to each other in that bright foyer. But neither of us had picked up the keys.
