Page 22 of Unreasonably Yours

Toni

“What's in it?” I ask my brother, balancing the phone between my ear and shoulder as I carry the package inside.

“No clue,” he says absently.

I give it a gentle shake. “So it could be a bomb?”

“It was addressed to you.”

“Anthrax?”

“That came in envelopes.”

“A lot of anthrax.”

He huffs an exasperated sigh. “If you want me to open your mail, I will.”

“God no.” I drop onto the couch, grabbing my keys off my box-styled coffee table to hack at the tape. “Far too risky.” A smell that once meant something like home wafts from the box the moment I pry it open.

“Everything alright?” Ben asks. “Toni?” He follows up when I don't immediately answer.

“Yeah.” I swallow hard. “It's...Just something I forgot about. No big deal. Thanks for sending it. I gotta go.” My words trip over themselves as I rush to hang up .

My name, in David's precise hand, is the only word on the front of the card sitting on top of the mystery package's wrapped contents.

I've never hated the look of my own name more.

A slight tremor moves through me as I open the card.

Stop being so dramatic, I chastise myself. It’s just a package. Not a threat. Not something to cause me to freak out.

Toni,

I was cleaning and found some little things that were yours or made me think of you and wanted you to have them.

I hope they remind you of all the good parts of us, all the parts I know I don't want to lose forever.

Love,

David

It may not be a cause to freak out, but anger seems reasonable. The fury doesn't have time to sink in before Lucy texts me, letting me know she’s here.

Fuck. I swallow hard, trying to force a deep breath and failing.

I had been looking forward to this girls’ night with Lucy all week—shopping, dinner, drinks, and a screening of Romeo + Juliet at the indie theatre. The absolute last person I was willing to let ruin this was David. And yet...my mouth goes dry.

After a few minutes without a response, Lucy calls me, pulling me from my frozen state.

If I don't answer, she's likely going to knock. If she knocks, she may ask to come inside. If she asks to come in, I'd have to find a better reason to tell her no than my place being a disaster zone.

I wish the box had been anthrax.

“Hey.” I grimace at the way my voice cracks.

“Hey . . . You ok?”

I softly clear my throat. “Yeah. Dehydrated.” My light tone sounds like such bullshit. “I'll be right out.”

Tossing the box aside, I slip into my sneakers while trying to physically shake the tension out of my shoulders. The box could be future me's problem. Current me was going to have a fun night.

“What's weighing on you?” Lucy asks as she inspects a deck of tarot cards at the bookstore.

The question catches me off guard. “Nothing,” I answer reflexively. I thought I'd been putting on a pretty good front so far. Lucy side-eyes me so hard it's a wonder I don't fall over.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she leans against the wall.

“Let's get this out of the way: My two best and oldest friends are reformed Catholic boys, and one had the audacity to become a Marine. I can clock emotional suppression at 100 paces.” She slides a pointed nail under the plastic covering the cards. “So either tell me or...”

With a Cheshire-like grin, she pulls the deck free, shuffling it with long, agile fingers. “The cards can tell me for you.”

I can't help but laugh. “Did you just commit to buying those purely for the bit?”

“Maybe.” She winks, continuing to shuffle. “Seriously. Something is up.”

I lean against the wall beside her and sigh as I slide to the floor. Lucy does the same, shoulder pressed against mine.

“My ex sent me a box of—I don't actually know what any of it is. I opened it right before you got to my place, and I didn't look.”

“I take it you're not exactly on good terms with this ex?”

“God, no. We're supposed to be no contact...until December anyway. But he keeps fucking finding ways around that.” I pick at the distressing on my jeans. “Like this package. The card said he hoped the contents would help me remember the good times or something.”

“Fuck that!” Lucy stands so fast I'm almost startled. “Come on. Change of plans.” I take her offered hand and let her lead me to the counter.

“Change to what exactly?”

“I'm buying these,” she holds up the cards, “and we're going back to your place and?—”

“We can't go to my place,” I blurt.

“That's not suspicious at all.”

“It's . . .I haven't finished unpacking and?—”

“Oh, that's fine,” Lucy waves me off and buys the cards. “You just need to get that box.”

Despite my best efforts, including bribery, Lucy refuses to tell me what this mysterious new plan for our evening is. I finally accept not knowing until we pull into a dimly lit industrial park.

“Are we about to commit a crime?” I ask only half kidding.

She laughs, getting out of the car. “Nope. But we are going to play with fire.”

Sure, you should likely question something like that, but to be honest, setting some shit on fire sounds kind of amazing at the moment. I follow her to a large padlocked metal garage door without any further questions.

“Welcome to my lair,” she says, lifting the door with a clatter.

Lucy's metalworking studio gives equal parts biker femme and medieval blacksmith.

Pallets covered in rugs, blankets, and pillows fill one corner to form a sort of DIY sectional next to a well-loved drum set.

On the other side of the space, three motorcycles sit uncovered.

The back half is all business, with anvils and kilns and tools for her to work her magic.

She tosses her bag onto the pallet-couch and pulls two ciders from the mini fridge. “What's your favorite comfort food?” She asks, passing me one.

“Mexican,” I say, taking a deep drink.

She nods, looking at her phone. “Food allergies?”

“None?”

“Fab.” Her fingers fly across the screen. “Food will be here in thirty which is enough time for us to get started.”

“Doing what?”

She tosses a pair of thick black gloves at me. I barely catch them without dropping my drink. “Purging.”

When the tacos arrive, the delivery driver looks at us with more than a little suspicion. In his defense, it is a valid reaction to seeing two women around a metal barrel in an empty industrial park at sundown.

“That man thinks we're dumping a body,” I laugh as I pull the gloves off.

“We are.” She begins pulling out food containers, setting them on one of the rugs we dragged out.

“The corpse of your relationship with this asshole.” She holds up the card, sneering at it for at least the third time.

“' I hope they remind you of all the good parts,'“ she mocks. “Who writes shit like this?”

“Fucking David.” I take a bite of a swoon-worthy pupusa and pull out a small rectangle wrapped in black tissue paper.

“How long were you together?” Lucy asks.

“Almost three years.”

“What made you end it?”

I turn the rectangle over in my hands. “We were on the same page about kids and marriage for a bit at the beginning. But when our—or rather his —friends started doing those things, he changed his mind. I didn't.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.” Once again, I feel something in me freeze over, the wrapped package feeling impossibly heavy.

“Here's what we're gonna do.” Lucy takes the package from me, replacing it with a taco. “You're gonna eat. I'm gonna unwrap this shit. And you can tell me why he's a dick for sending each one of them.”

“He's not some kind of monster. Just...” I shrug. “Maybe he actually thought I'd want these things.”

Lucy gives me an understanding look. “Anyone who ignores your boundaries like this isn't doing it for you. They're doing it for them. He might not be a monster, but he's making it very clear he doesn't respect you.”

Was that it?

“What's the story behind this?” She unwraps the rectangle, revealing a journal he'd bought me when we first started dating. He was always mad I didn't use it for my 'doodles', but I explained that while it was lovely, its thin paper and rigid spine made it hard to sketch in.

Venting to Lucy is far more cathartic than I could have anticipated.

And as it turns out, she isn't wrong, damn near every single item David sent feels centered around him more than us .

Like the framed photo from our trip to Mexico with his family.

In it, we're smiling and sun kissed, but I remember crying in the shower because he'd let his mom fat shame me the whole trip, justifying her behavior as concern.

When the fire turns the photo and frame into a pile of goo and ash, it feels like letting go of all those pesky pounds she was so concerned about.

“In front of everyone?” Lucy asks, shocked and clearly disgusted, when I tell her about David's misguided proposal.

“Everyone. And they all let me know I was the would-be- fiancée who stole Christmas.” She hands me a small jewelry box, one of the few things I had from my very unhappy childhood.

In the barrel it goes; watching the wood catch fire feels deliriously good.

“His mother actually called me crying about it.”

“Oh, for fuck's sake!” She grabs a cookbook.

I didn't hate cooking, but it wasn't my favorite thing, and he'd made it clear that the expectation was for me to use it when he “gifted” it to me.

Lucy hands it to me. “Here's to leaving that toxic shit in the past.”

My heart twists. “Again. He wasn't some abusive fuck. I never would have stayed if he were.” My dad gave me very little, but he did leave me with that lesson. “We were just incompatible people who tried too hard to make it work.”

She sighs, plopping down on the rug. “Someone doesn't have to lay hands on you to be an abusive fuck.”

I know that. Had said nearly the same to others before. So why did her saying it knock the wind out of me?

A million tiny moments play through my mind as I watch the paper curl in the fire.

“Sorry, that was . . . Sometimes my mouth moves faster than my brain.”

“No.” I shake my head, pulling my focus from the flames to join her on the rug. “I think I needed to hear that.”

Lucy settles one gloved hand over mine, and we appreciate the glow from the fire in comfortable silence until her phone pings.

“Shit,” she says, one finger from her glove between her teeth.

“Everything ok?” I ask, nudging my hair from my face.

She grimaces. “Not really. It's an SOS from Cillian.”

“What?” My pulse rockets.

“Oh, he's fine, technically, just the bar is short- staffed and they're slammed.” She picks up the fire extinguisher. “Would you be too mad if we continue the ritual later? He never calls me and Oliver in to help, so it's gotta be wicked busy.”

Relief renders me practically giddy. “A rain check is absolutely fine.” I tug the gloves off and gather our trash as she gives the embers of my past a good dousing. “Think they could use an extra body?”

Lucy looks at me, surprise evident on her face. “Are you offering?”

“Yeah?” I help her roll the rug up and carry it inside. “I know my way around a POS, and I’m an excellent busser.”

“You're hired.”