Collared(78)

I lift a brow and feel relieved he’s acting normal, giving me a hard time and all. “Exactly.”

He looks away for a second, but his eyes find their way back to me. “I checked around your room and outside your window. There are some big recycle bins behind your room, so someone could have been dumping their bottles or something and made that noise. You’ve also got people living above you, and with the way apartments are built, a person could be tiptoeing up there and it would sound like a hippo had moved in.” Torrin points at the ceiling. “I can’t find anything else, but I can hang around for a while. You know, just in case you hear it again. So you know for sure.”

Recycle bins. Upstairs neighbors. Everyday noises of apartment life that had practically put me in some kind of PTSD state. I feel embarrassed and silly and immature and a bunch of other things.

“Thanks for checking.” I shift. “And sorry. I’ll try not to wake you up in the middle of the night the next time my neighbor flushes the toilet.”

Torrin smiles. It’s a different one than I’m used to. It looks more forced than natural. “It’s okay. And I wasn’t asleep anyway. This was actually a welcome distraction.”

“A distraction from what?”

He shrugs. “My thoughts.”

I don’t know what to do with him here—inside my own place. Do I invite him in for something to drink? Would we have that in the kitchen? The living room? Not that I can move anyway because his eyes are pinning me to the door.

“I heard about them suspending you.” I swallow. I never made that call my dad recommended. I didn’t because I knew if I did, I couldn’t just say I was sorry like I’m going to try to now. “You don’t deserve that. I’m sorry.”

“They didn’t do that. I did that to myself. I requested the suspension.” He wanders into the living room, and I follow him. He turns on another lamp.

“Why?”

His back stays to me when he stops. “I needed time to think . . . thus, the thoughts keeping me awake tonight.”

My living room, like the rest of the house, contains a mishmash of furniture. An old sofa from Sam’s place. An overstuffed chair and coffee table from my parents’ basement. A couple of side tables from a yard sale and a houseplant from the nursery in town. It has no theme or cohesion at all, but I like it. Nothing here belongs together, so I guess there’s one characteristic it all shares.

Torrin’s taking in the room. I think he likes it too.

“Sorry I interrupted them—your thoughts. Do you want to, you know, talk?” I curl my leg beneath me as I sit on the couch.

Torrin glances over his shoulder. “Do you?”

The way he asks, I know he’s not thinking about his summer plans or what day of the week’s his favorite. “Should I?”

“I don’t know.” He turns around to face me, and in the light, I can see how tired he looks. I was right though, it’s not just tired—it’s exhaustion. Like someone’s wrung him dry and is still holding on. “You’ve definitely been the highlight of my thoughts—a little firsthand knowledge would be helpful.”

“I don’t know, Torrin . . .” I say, summing up every answer to every unanswered question that hangs between us.

“Tell you what—you help me with that firsthand knowledge thing, and I’ll help you unpack.” He tips his chin at the stack of boxes stuffed in the corner.

I check the retro clock stationed on the coffee table. “It’s almost midnight.”

“Are you actually planning on going to bed tonight?” He looks at me like he knows better.

He does. Sleep is out of the question after being scared into a closet by some footsteps and recyclables.

“Because I’ve been trying for two weeks, and I’ve officially lost my knack for it,” he adds.

I exhale, and his eyes trace the shadows below my eyes. “I’ve lost my knack for it too.”

“So unpacking it is?” He’s already moving toward the boxes. He heaves the top one from the pile.

“Thought dissection it is,” I mutter and rise to help him unpack . . . and with the other thing.

“You got your own place.” Torrin carries the box over to a side table and sets it down. “I like it.”

I grab the box cutter to rip it open, and Torrin doesn’t jump back when I pop out the blade. “I thought it was time to get my own place and figure out whoever this new Jade is and let go of the one I was clinging to.” I slice through the tape and open the box. It’s a few vases Mom wrapped up for me to use for decoration or for flowers.

“I get it.” Torrin unwraps the first vase from its pile of newspaper. “Dumping the dead weight, right? Getting rid of the baggage?”

I feel something else inside the box that isn’t a vase but is wrapped up with the rest. I pull it out and unfold the paper. Then I hold it up for him. “Not all of it.”

His hands stop working the newspaper free when he sees the picture. It’s one of the photos of the two of us I found stuffed in my parents’ attic. I “unstuffed” them and packed them all to bring here with me.

In this one, Torrin and I are at Westport Beach. He’s up to his knees in the ocean, and I’m on his shoulders. I’m looking down at him, and he’s staring up at me, and we’re both somewhere between a grin and a laugh. Our hair’s messy from the salt and wind, and our skin’s showing the faintest of pink from a sunscreen-less day at the beach.