Page 209 of By A Thread

“What are you saying, Malina?”

She looked uncomfortable. “I don’t think it’s my story to tell,” she said finally.

Exasperation was my new permanent company. “Whose story is it?” I asked.

“Start with Gola and Shayla,” she suggested. “And talk to your mother. Tell her Paul knows, and he’s going to use it against her.”

68

Ally

Ileft my key and my work phone and laptop on Dominic’s foyer table. Every gift he’d ever given me stayed right where it was. The only thing that actually hurt to leave was the glossy black piano I’d only just begun to acquaint myself with.

And Brownie. My sweet, sweet boy who was currently chewing on the strap of my gym bag. “Come here, buddy,” I said, kneeling down and hugging his warm, furry body. Excited, he half tackled me to the ground, and a good six inches of tongue went down my ear canal.

“I’m gonna miss you so much,” I whispered into his soft fur. “You be the best doggy in the world and miss me and don’t chew on that piano, okay?”

His tail thumped happily against my gym bag, and I wondered if he would actually fit inside the bag. I could say he got out while I was leaving… But then Dominic would be all alone again. And as much as he deserved it, I couldn’t take his Brownie from him.

One last kiss on the head, one last accidental mouthful of dog tongue, and I picked up my bag and walked out.

The blinding pop of sunshine wrenched a humorless laugh from me. It was almost fifty degrees today. But I was cold and dead as winter on the inside. I should have seen it coming. I should never have gotten involved.

There were a lot of things I should have done. I pondered each and every one of them at great length during my train ride.

I felt my numbness starting to crack, felt the thrum of pain, real pain, beneath the icy surface. As a defensive measure, I cranked my Men Are Big Stupid Shitheads playlist. I needed to get through the next two hours of my life as a functioning human being before I could give in to the tidal wave of really shitty feelings that was threatening to crush me.

“Just hang in there,” I whispered to myself.

It must not have been a whisper because the woman next to me shot me the side-eye.

“Sorry,” I mouthed.

“Don’t you be sorry. Men are dirtbags,” she said.

I closed my eyes. I was going back home to Jersey. Or back to my father’s house. I guess I didn’t really have a home.

Home had been my father’s house. Then Dominic’s. Nothing had been mine since I’d moved back.

Maybe it was time I remedied that. I had a lot of freaking decisions to make… after my impending breakdown.

* * *

The meetingwith the real estate agent went well. Better than well. Even though I was a broken shell of a human being who just couldn’t quite keep my shit together.

I got teary-eyed showing him the bathroom where Dominic had helped me level the vanity. Because of course everyone got sentimental overbathrooms.

The agent was a cute guy in his early thirties, and when he told me what price he thought we should list the house at, I burst into tears and hugged him. He’d patted me awkwardly on the back and then announced loudly that he needed to go meet his girlfriend for lunch.

When he left, and I was all alone in the house that no longer felt like home, I got antsy. I took advantage of the warm weather and walked to the nursing home. I found my father in a chair in the lounge staring out the window.

But when I told him about the house, he called me my mother’s name and asked if I’d seen his term papers.

I left feeling abandoned by the two men I loved the most.

And that’s why it hurt so, so much. That devastation simmering beneath the surface just waiting to erupt.

I loved Dominic Russo.