Page 31

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SADIE

“No, mom. I didn’t eat—”

“Sadvhi, you need to label your food.” Her voice cuts over the wind as I drive down King road on my way to Aubry’s.

As I’d feared, the hospital kept me for twelve hours.

They threatened that I couldn’t leave unless I scheduled another allergy test, but the only local specialist was booked until next December.

Rather than keep me for a year and a half, they let me go with a stern warning.

I’m getting far worse from my mother.

“It wasn’t eggplant,” I shout to be heard over her usual tongue wagging.

“Keep a food diary. I keep telling you, you must keep a food diary. It’ll also help to curb all of those unnecessary snacks.”

I don’t know which my mother’s more obsessed with, making sure I don’t eat eggplant, or making sure I don’t eat anything at all. She’s been fighting to slim me down since I was a six year old whose belly poked out of her starfish tankini.

What’s worse—me slowly choking to death thanks to a bite of eggplant, or having a fat ass?

I know someone who’d be very sad if I lost said ass.

Even though I shouldn’t, I take my eyes off the road and glance to my phone. My mother’s still berating me, jumping from one fad diet to the next. I stare at my text conversations with Aubry.

When they let me out of the hospital, I told him I was home and going to take a nap.

That was two days ago.

In all that time, he never responded. He read my text, then nothing.

So I told him I’d stop by after work and bring a present. I pat the basket filled with kitchen gadgets and a jar of barbecue sauce. It’s a home warming gift…for me.

Trapped in the hospital doing my best to assure the nurses my body was flushed of all evil allergens, I had a lot of time to think.

About him, about me, about us. About what taking that next big step would mean.

The pro column kept racking wins after wins.

While all that sat in the con was “he could leave me.”

My smile dips and I scroll back through our conversations. So many pictures of Astin. His filthy pleas for me to squash his head with my thighs. I land on the rules.

He must always reply to my texts right away.

Well…once I’m living with him, that won’t be an issue. I can just roll over and ask him to share more pics of his cat.

“Ah!” I jerk the wheel, missing absolutely nothing but pulling my car back into my lane.

“Sadvhi? What was that?”

“Nothing, mom.”

“Should I send your father? He can teach you how to cook without eggplant. We have quite a few recipes that will—”

I turn onto the road that’ll take me to Aubry, to my new home.

“No, mom. I can cook on my own.”

“Clearly you cannot. You put yourself in the hospital. Twice.”

“That first time was a…misunderstanding.” I will never live down thinking baba ganoush was hummus.

“And what about this time? Did the eggplant put on a funny hat and pretend to be a tomato?”

“I, um…” Sucked my boyfriend’s cock until I drank his cum. Oops. My face heats up as I pass the smaller houses on the way up the hill. “I don’t know.”

“This could be a new allergy. You might have another one!”

That was her third fear, right after having a fat daughter. My body randomly decided to hate eggplant one day. What was stopping it from finding something else?

“Mom, I don’t think—”

“You need another of those prick tests. Have you gotten a prick?”

The guilt slams into my stomach. My sweet, overbearing mother operates under the delusion that I am an innocent virgin who would flee at the sight of a penis.

Any boy I bring home is damn near interrogated, strip searched, and thrown into the hole until we leave.

Even a kiss is judged by my grumping father as too fresh.

Still, as I reach the road that ends at Aubry’s house, my chest lightens. A little mischief dances in my head. “I’m working on it, mom.” A nice, hefty prick that damn near splits me in half sounds perfect right now.

“Good,” she declares, and I nearly laugh.

As I pass by the statue of a nearly naked man with a cask of wine over his shoulder, I reach for my phone. “Sorry, mom. I’ve got to go.” My car slips under the house on the way toward the garage, and I spot a shadow of a man stretching across the concrete.

He’s waiting for me.

My heart fluttering, I lick my lips.

“Okay. Love you.”

I turn the corner, but it isn’t a giant of a man with dark black hair tending to his fire pit. A blond gentleman in a tan suit holds a sign tucked under his arm while staring up at the windows.

“Bye,” I mumble and end the call.

My car keeps up its trajectory, moving toward the garage I’ve parked in a dozen times without thought. But as I go, the man turns to watch. With his white-speckled beard and creases across his eyes, he’s certainly not Aubry. What’s going on?

I stop and put my car in park but don’t shut off the engine. My heart’s pounding a mile a minute, and I don’t know why.

Sliding out with my phone in hand, I pause in reaching for the basket to call out, “Hello?”

The man’s interest snaps from the windows to me.

“Can I help you?”

“Are you here to look at the house?” he asks excitedly.

No, I’m here to look at the person inside. Maybe do some touching. Give it a real good inspection from head to toe.

He runs over and extends his hand. “This place has five bedrooms, five baths and is five thousand-seven-hundred and forty-nine square feet.”

“Okay?” I mumble, completely lost. Why is he telling me this? Is it a scam?

A very confusing one.

“And just look at this view. Can’t get a view like that in the city,” he declares, gesturing out to the trees and the Sierras in the distance.

“I’m sorry…” I start to ask him to leave when I catch what he’s got stuffed under his arm. It’s a sign for a realty company. A For Sale sign with this house’s address plastered across it. “Wh… Are you selling this place?”

“Trying to.” He grins as if he told a joke. “Are you not here for the open house?”

Open house?

That’s… How long was I out?

I nervously check the date, making certain I wasn’t in a coma for six months and no one told me. But no, it’s October twenty-first.

“Where’s the owner?” I ask, framing Aubry’s last text from two days ago with my thumbs. A house can’t go from owned to open house in two fucking days.

“Greece, I believe.”

“What?” How the fuck is he in Greece?

“We’ve been trying to sell this place for over a year now. I mean, it’s beautiful. The market’s just in flux, you know. Damn inflation.” He shakes his fist to the air, and—in my panic—I give out a gurgling laugh.

What the hell is he talking about?

Aubry lived here.

Lives here.

He’s not in Greece. He’s here. Inside right now, feeding Astin and plunking on the piano.

We fucked all over this house.

On that couch right there. In the kitchen. On his bed. So many times. I didn’t make that up. He’s real. He sent me messages.

“Would you like to take a tour?” the realtor asks.

Yes! Let me in there so I can prove that this is all a big mistake. Aubry’s going to answer the door in just his gray sweatpants and be very confused. He’ll shoo the stranger aside then pull me into his arms. Order him to leave before he kisses me in the threshold.

I start to nod when one of the windows flings open.

Placing my hand above my eyes, I stare up. A large shadow looms in the glare. “Hi!” I start to wave when a giant sheet comes tumbling out.

“This place needs a dusting,” a stranger calls out to the realtor. He starts to beat one of the rugs I remember in the upstairs hallway. Dust rises into the wind and I begin to choke.

I don’t understand.

He asked me to move in with him. To live with him. We were going to go on vacation.

Two days later he’s in Greece? Selling his house? Moving. Leaving.

All because of me.

Because I put myself in the hospital. Because of my fucking allergy that I keep failing at.

“Ma’am?” The realtor stares at me.

I force on a smile and shake my head. “No, thank you. I…I need to go.”

Numb from my eyebrows down, I manage to fall into my driver’s seat and ram my knee into the console. It doesn’t hurt. Clear-eyed, I pull out of the driveway and back to the road.

He’s gone.

He lied.

He never wanted me in his life. Just on his cock.

Just like all the rest.

I stare up at my rearview mirror, watching his house with the white marble statue and ten foot hedges fade into the distance. My body is cold.

He doesn’t like me.

He could never love me.

My phone rings, my mother calling back. I reach to answer it when a truck pulls out in front of me. Slamming on the brakes, the car skids to a crawl just missing ramming into the back. But the momentum sends the gift basket tumbling off the seat.

As two whisks roll into a can of banana sauce, I begin to bawl.