I wipe my face with the back of my hand and look around the room.I need to get out of here.Permanently.My plan had been to leave the following morning, but I need to get out of here ASAP.
I pull my bags from beneath the bed and start packing.There’s something meditative about it once I lock in.I’m not crying anymore.I’m focused and hollowed out, moving with vacant efficiency.Clothes first.Then toiletries.Books.Once my room is mostly packed and organized, I grab everything of mine from the bathroom.Then I head into the living room and start collecting everything that he hadn’t gathered yet.
Soon, the scant evidence that I’ve ever lived here is gone.Then I remember the things in the kitchen cabinets—the few mugs I’d added to his collection, the ceramic dishes I’d brought out to make dinners more fun.My gaze moves to the blue hand-painted vase full of last week’s farmer’s market zinnias.They’re ready to be thrown out, the flower petals papery and drooping.I grab the small handful and take it to the trash can.
And that feels like the end of it all.
I make several trips out to my car, loading up the sedan until it looks exactly like it did when I arrived in May.Full to the brim, too many appliances, one woman’s transient life packed up and waiting for the next chapter to begin.
Once I’m done, it’s early evening.Griffin still hasn’t come back.I wonder where he is; maybe he’s in Cleveland, quieting his thoughts with the weight equipment.Or maybe he’s sifting through the same mental wreckage that I am.
But if he was able to look me in the eye and close the book on our love story, then maybe he’s fine.Clearly he’s far more capable of controlling his head and his heart than I am.
I’d hoped he’d let himself want this enough to try.Wantmeenough.
But I was wrong.
I do one last walk-through.His spare room is empty, sheets and comforter stripped, looking like it did when I first stayed that drunken night in May.I peer into the bathroom—neat, organized, new shower curtain and rod still in place.I pause at his bedroom door, daring myself to look inside.Absorbing the manly, quiet space that became my refuge this summer.It smells like him, and the scent makes my gut wrench with sadness.
I shut the door and head to the kitchen, where I fish out the bulging envelope from my bag—the accumulation of all the rent money I’d meant to pay him but he wouldn’t accept.Well now, he can’t say no.I place it on the counter, and then…there’s only one last thing to do.
Give him back his key.
I wrench the little gold key off my keyring and set it on the counter next to the envelope and the vase.
My entire body is heavy as I slip outside for the last time and shut the door on the house that accidentally became my home this summer.
I found my thing this summer in Bayshore.The book reviews, the account, the version of myself that shows up and doesn't shrink.I built something real from nothing, in a town I'd been running from for years.
I found peace with my family.
I foundmyself.
I wipe away a few tears that spill out as I hit the road to drive west to Chicago.I have six hours ahead of me to cry and wallow.I’ll need it.
Because Bayshore didn’t just give me a new career path and unexpected healing.I found my person here too.
But he’s decided he’s not going to be a part of my story anymore.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
GRIFFIN
I manage to keep myself away from the house for the entire day.I can’t bear to see Casey’s anguish again, so I head to Cleveland and then my condo, and then I take meetings about the upcoming season until dusk falls.
By the time I step into the house, I’m full of anticipation.Because I know all it’s going to take is one look from her to dissolve the armor I spent all day rebuilding.
I have hockey back.I can’t add the love of my life on top of it.
It’s too much.It’s dangerous.I need space and time and distance and levelheadedness.
I don’t hear anything as I walk into the house.I flip the lights, listening for some sign of her.That’s when the details start sinking in.
All the stuff I’d gathered for her—trying to be helpful and in control, like always—is gone.The boxes are gone.The house feels empty somehow, even though everything is technically in place.
Then I spot the house key glinting on the countertop.Next to a fat envelope full of what I can only assume is money.
No note.Nothing.Because why would she, after what I said—and didn’t say—to her this morning?