Georgie, All Along (56)

“I better hit the road.”

My parents look up in surprise, interrupted in the middle of their sporadic two-person game of Remember-the-Herb.

“What about your tea?” Dad says.

“I’ll pass on the tea, sir,” Levi responds, and it’s . . . it’s absolutely bizarre, is what it is. No one calls Paul Mulcahy “sir.” It doesn’t seem respectful; it seems stilted, strained, embarrassed. My stomach flips over, queasy. Dad blinks and furrows his brow.

“I’ve got an early day tomorrow,” Levi adds.

“But, Levi!” my mom exclaims. “All your things are here! We never wanted to put you out.”

“Oh no, ma’am,” he says, and I roll my eyes. “I can gather up my things quickly. I believe they finished work on my house today.”

I jerk my head toward him, and for the first time since this whole farce started, he spares me a look. A fleeting, slightly guilty one.

There’s no way they finished work on his house today; he would have told me already.

But he’s back to not meeting my eyes again, and something inside me curls in on itself, tender and bruised and so, so disappointed. I’d meant what I’d said to Levi before we’d kissed—about liking the privacy of us, liking the two of us here—but I hadn’t explained to him how much I’d meant it. I hadn’t explained how, over the days I’d spent with Bel, truly helping her this time, I’d loved every small, secret break I’d taken to text him, loved getting each of his short but sincere replies. I hadn’t explained how it’d felt at The Shoreline tonight, moving through my shift with buzzing, relieved anticipation thrumming through me, all because I knew I’d be coming home to him tonight. I hadn’t explained the way it had been a revelation, to have a real sense of the boundary between being at work and being at home. To realize that the boundary is something I haven’t had in a long time, and something I want to have in the future.

Now, though? Now, with Levi not looking at me—with him moving around the house and gathering his things, Hank following at his heels and panting nervously—everything about that how much feels reckless, messy, too soon and too intense. All Levi had said that morning on the river was that he’d do some of my list with me, that he’d like to have some fun going back. And I’ve spent the last five days flinging myself forward, making up a new fic in my head, imagining that Levi was in it with me.

“Want me to put some of this in a to-go mug for you, Levi?” my dad says, holding up Levi’s untouched tea, and that’s when I realize Levi has spent the last few minutes making himself a pack mule, his and Hank’s stuff arranged on various parts of his upper body—a bag over each shoulder, Hank’s bed rolled up and tucked beneath one arm, a cloth tote gripped in each hand. This is the kind of I only want to make one trip desperation usually reserved for bringing grocery bags into your house.

“That’s all right, s—” he breaks off and clears his throat, which means he’s wised up to not calling a man in a Phish T-shirt sir. “Paul,” he corrects.

My mom stands and moves toward him, heedless of all he’s carrying as she wraps him in a clumsy hug. “What would we have done without you!” she exclaims, and over her shoulder, he finally looks at me.

“Georgie would’ve handled it,” he says, and this time, it’s me who can’t keep eye contact. Maybe he’s being polite, but right now, it lands like a blow. It’s as if the man I spent the last few hours having a great night with is all of a sudden wishing he could go back to a time when he wasn’t staying here, caught up in my mess.

Somehow, I manage a cheerful, smiling goodbye to Hank, and I’ve never been more grateful for how bad my parents are at reading a room, for how willing they are to fill up spaces with conversation. They talk Levi all the way into the kitchen, and if they notice that I hang back, they don’t say. I stay in the living room, listening to Hank’s nails tap across the floor and to my parents’ voices growing more distant as they walk Levi outside and to his truck. I shut off the TV, straighten and fluff the sagging cushions, pick up our bottles. Step back and take it in.

There’s too much in this house for it ever to be truly tidy. But right now, it seems pretty painfully blank to me all the same.

*

FOR THE SECOND day in a row, breakfast feels like a punishment.

Yesterday’s had the advantage of starting late, but that’s only because it had the vibe of a half bottle of hard cider hangover, which in truth was actually a stayed-up-most-of-the-night-thinking-about-a-man hangover. I’d shuffled out of my old bedroom—Levi’s room—at around noon, bleary-eyed and grouchy, and struggled to muster up a cheerful good morning for my parents, who were sipping more tea and giving me the same sorts of meaningful but undemanding looks they’d offered up after Levi had left. I’d distracted them by pretending I’d considered Miracle-Gro for their houseplants, then suffered through the gentle outrage that followed.

It should have been comforting, of course, to have my parents there, both of them slotting easily into the home that, not even two weeks ago, had welcomed me back into all its untidy, easygoing respite. But instead all I could think about was the way Levi had left traces of himself behind—his food still in the pantry, his milk in the fridge. I didn’t even have to hold down the toaster lever while I made my favorite comfort food, a fact that had filled me with ridiculous frustration.