Page 19 of Under Locke & Key

Out with someone that wasn’t Steph . . .

Wasn’t Steph . . .

Steph.

Nate’s words follow me all the way home, in every heartbeat and clicking of my blinker as I drive through Dulaney on autopilot with my world dropped out from under me again.

I made it a few days without thinking of her.

At least not in any way that hasn’t been pushing me forward with the new endeavor.

Whenever it starts hurting, I remind myself how I plan to deal with it.

The hyperfocus on the new business has been taking up every inch of my brain space until it’s become all I can see.

It’s been years since I’ve felt this single-minded and intent on something to this degree.

I was, and am, more than happy to have it continue that way because at least then I’m not drowning.

I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to avoid her here.

Even though my life with Steph was in Philadelphia, people here know of us, some have even met her on the few instances I made my way back here.

Nate is one of those people.

He knows. Everyone knows. The second Steph changed her name on socials to her first and middle, cutting off the Dawson and leaving it to rot, everyone knew.

By the time she’d scrubbed me from the rest of it and unfriended or unfollowed the people tangential to my life, I’d already had an influx of messages checking on me.

Are you okay? I saw Steph’s Insta.

No. No, I wasn't okay and I wouldn’t have known jack about Steph’s Insta unless they said something since I don’t have one of my own.

Concerned friends were how I realized my ex-wife had removed me from her online life and past with surgical precision, even going so far as to carefully crop me out of pictures I distinctly remember being in.

Logan let me stalk her socials through his phone on a particularly rough night around last Halloween.

Steph dressed up as that character from 13 Going on 30 with the colorful dress and captioned it “Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving” with her pina colada’ed hand thrust up into the air like she was toasting with the whole damn world.

All of it comes rushing back now that the diversion of dusty movie theaters and a shiny, swishing ponytail isn’t in front of me. Nate’s other observation pierces the veil of my heartbreak at the reminder of touring the spots today.

Someone that looks nothing like her at all.

Rachel. Rachel with her hungry eyes, and bare face, and the way I can see her brain turning before she speaks.

She’s measured. Something about how she acted in her interview and the careful way she spoke to me today about not wanting to take over or step on my toes gives me the impression that she’s had to learn how to do that—train herself to respond in a way that’s expected of her, and that resonates with me.

There’s something deeper buried there and I wonder what type of woman waits beneath the constructed shell of professionalism and fear of failure.

Her facade isn’t physical the way Steph’s was.

Steph covered up the cracks through her physical appearance—competence through optics.

It’s how she got me in the first place when she was in college.

Looking for a tutor, simpering and gushing over my capability, even though deep down I knew she was just using me to help her do some of her assignments.

Still, the young, insecure guy who’d only ever felt like a weirdo up until then didn’t want to question it too hard.

And I grew into my overly large hands and feet, my lanky body finally filling out, which helped attract Steph too.

She was convinced we’d be a “power couple,” and I was just happy to be along for the ride.

Steph made me feel seen at a time where being invisible was all I’d ever known.

Now I know there are far better ways to be loved than to have to wait for someone’s gaze on you to feel important.

I only wish I’d learned the lesson before years of my life and my heart were given away.

Pulling into my parents’ driveway, I take a deep breath to steady myself before I climb the steps up to the garage apartment without heading inside to talk to them.

My mind is a mess right now. I need time to sort through the past and the present and a future I never envisioned but I’m determined to see through.

Afternoon fades into evening, my mom dropping dinner off outside my door as if she can sense I need space.

My eyes are leaden, the promise of sleep teasing me after hours of mental planning.

The list of tools and tasks grows and grows until I’ve got a notebook full of the next few months of my life.

Part of me cautions that I should schedule time in there to breathe .

. . to let myself think, but that’s a dangerous game and after nine whole months of thinking—of considering every angle of my failed marriage—I’m ready to put it behind me.

Lifting my hand up, the moonlight from outside glints on the white gold on my ring finger, and I twist my wedding band around and around.

It would be so easy to tug it off and toss it out.

It’s just there out of habit after all. So easy and yet . . .

I’ll do it. Soon. I owe myself that final step, but damn my inability to admit absolute defeat.

Taking it off means finally acknowledging that I knew we were over far before those papers were served.

It’s my own yoke of safety. Taking it off removes the last barrier I have between opening myself up to the possibility of hurt.

I fall asleep with smooth metal on my skin and when I dream, it's of a black, shiny ponytail and a small hand tucked inside of mine for the barest of moments. Not enough and not allowed, even in the depths of my subconscious.

* * *

I visit the remaining two locations with Jim on Sunday and although I feel terrible about it, I don’t ask Rachel to come.

Waking up multiple times last night with her at the edges of my mind has left me unsteady and I know if she joins us today I won’t be able to focus at all.

This was such a colossally bad idea. Rachel Mackey is my employee.

I need to get myself under control so we can tackle the week ahead and every week after that.

The showing is lackluster without her. Jim tries his best but I’m in a foul mood and the locations he has for me do little to improve it.

“It’s an old fabric factory. Small-scale but it’s been untouched for a while,” Jim explains as we walk through the squat and long room.

It’s similar in feel to the mill location from yesterday but there’s no lingering scent of sawdust in the air, just cold scrubbed concrete and windows comprised of small squares that are too grimy to see through.

We’ll have the same problem here as we do there.

Building rooms from scratch, trying to soundproof them, it feels a little overwhelming.

The second, and last, location isn’t any better.

Despite it inhabiting all the charm and history I’d like, it’s unsuitable.

Too far from downtown, the Colonial Brownstone is stunning, but the doorways and passageways are too narrow, and the tiny steps up to the front door too steep.

The spiral staircase is a nightmare on its own.

There’s no way this will be an accessible building without a lot of time and money.

Something I am limited on. So, the choice is made, almost for me.

“Thanks for bringing me out here, Jim. I’m going to confer with Rachel and get back to you as soon as possible, but I think I have an idea of where I’m headed. I appreciate you taking the time to help us.” I hold out my hand for the realtor to shake and Jim gives me a kind smile.

“I look forward to hearing from you, and I meant it. It’s going to be great to have a place like this in town. I’m glad you found your way home.”

The words hit me in the solar plexus and all I can do is give him a tight smile, my ability to speak momentarily failing me.

Driving off shortly after, Jim leaves me standing on a residential sidewalk with too much buzzing in my brain.

There’s really only one person I can, and want to, talk to about this.

Sorry to bother you on a Sunday.

Do you have a minute to talk?

I think I have a location in mind but want to run it by you.

I’m near downtown if you’d like to meet somewhere.

I’m not sure why I’ve even phrased it like that. It’s not as if she has any bearing on what place I let. Rachel will be dealing with what's happening inside of the building, not which one it is. Still, I meant it when I said her opinion mattered. The reply comes swift.

Rachel

Hey! I’m in the middle of something

Heart dropping into my shoes, the force of my disappointment is a shock to the system. Before I can even try to grab my words back through the ether she follows up with,

If you don’t mind meeting at my apartment, we can discuss here.

I’m about five minutes out. Is that okay?

Perfect. Door’s unlocked!

There’s a parking space behind the building

That . . . doesn’t seem safe. I would’ve thought a girl from D.C. knows better than to leave her house unlocked, but then again, I did say five minutes. Maybe the thing she’s in the middle of is time sensitive and she can’t drop whatever it is at a moment’s notice when I arrive.

Thankful that I don’t have to brave the Sunday post-church downtown parking situation, I head toward the robin’s egg blue door I’d seen her disappear into yesterday.

The shop beneath her apartment has their door ajar and the rich aromas of tea, herbal and heady, floats out onto the sidewalk.

I allow myself one deep, calming breath, nodding at the old man behind the register, staring out the window at me before I head upstairs.

It turns out the thing she’s in the middle of, the one that prevents her from locking her door, isn’t time consuming so much as it is dangerous.