Page 44 of Unreasonably Yours

Toni

Hours later, I’m tired, hungry, and the certainty I’d barely grasped over the last several months—hell, the last few days—was beginning to fog over.

David takes my hand in his from across the coffee table. The coffee table Cillian assembled for me. My heart gives a squeeze.

“I want you to be happy, Toni.”

“And if that means staying here?” I ask. We’d been dancing around this for the last hour, and I was sick of it.

He barely hides his grimace. “I mean . . .”

“Would you come here? If that’s what it took to try again?” I don’t know what I want him to say.

“We could certainly consider it.”

“I asked if you would move. Not we.”

His posture stiffens ever so slightly, and I feel my own body tense reflexively. “Well, if we’re trying to rebuild, we want to do it sustainably, right? And you may be able to make some extra money from your paintings, but not enough to make up the cost-of-living difference.”

I’d actually sold a number of my pieces from the coffee shop show, but I don’t feel compelled to tell him that. “How would you know?”

“Toni.” He says my name like he’s speaking to a child. I pull my hand back, recoiling. “Don’t be like that. Besides, our friends?—”

“Your friends,” I correct him

“They're your friends, too. I told you everyone misses?—”

“Yes. You told me that. But you know who hasn't? Who I haven't heard anything from in almost a year?”

He makes a dismissive gesture. “That's not abnormal. People don't know how to navigate this kind of thing. And, I mean, you did leave.”

“I left?—”

He continues as though I hadn’t begun speaking. “Watch, once you’re back, things will go back to normal.”

Normal. His normal.

I’d traded vinyl for a shuffled playlist, not willing to have this ‘conversation’ without some kind of background noise. Like a goddamn lifeline, a Taylor Swift song, one Cillian and I had sung along to before everything went to shit, starts.

David groans like he's been injured and demands the smart speaker skip to the next song.

“Seriously?” I blurt.

“You know I can't stand that shit.”

“So sorry not everything can be fucking lo-fi.”

“What's with the attitude?”

“Is disagreeing with you considered attitude now?”

A knock at the door prevents him from answering.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he grouches. “I said they could just leave it on the porch. How hard is it to read the delivery instructions?”

I let him get up, silently apologizing to the delivery person for any attitude they may receive for the sin of knocking .

“Leave it by the door,” David says loudly in the entry, over annunciating the syllables. “Thank you.”

“Toni?” A muffled, yet all too familiar, voice reaches me.

My heart leaps into my throat.

David opens the door in a huff, “I said—Oh, you don’t look like a Vicki.”

“Not on most days,” Cillian replies. “Is Toni here?”

I scramble to my feet, my brain, heart, and body buzzing with terror and excitement...and dread.

“And who are you?” David asks.

“I could ask?—”

“Cillian,” I say his name on a breath.

His smile is immediate, warm, and welcoming like the sun breaking through the clouds. I want to hurl myself toward it.

“Excuse me,” a woman’s voice from behind Cillian draws all of our attention. “Sorry, order for David?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” David reaches past Cillian to accept the bag, immediately turning to bring it inside. Embarrassment heats my cheeks.

“Thank you,” I say to the delivery person before she heads down the stairs.

“We have food to get to so—” David begins.

“Give us a minute,” I cut him off.

David looks Cillian up and down, while I can’t bring myself to look at him at all, no matter how much I want to. “Sure.”

I step out onto the porch, letting the door quietly close behind me.

“So that’s David,” Cillian says, unimpressed.

“I . . . It’s…” I shake my head, trying to find the words.

“You don’t have to explain.”

I finally look up at him.

God, I missed him. Seeing him made me realize just how much. This was not the bittersweet nostalgia I’d felt when David arrived—a nostalgia that was quickly souring the longer we were in each other’s presence. Instead, this felt elemental, a longing for something vital.

“Cillian—”

“It’s okay.” His smile doesn’t touch his eyes. “I just wanted to give you this,” he holds out a plain gift bag, “and let you know I intend to hold up my end of our bargain. Just let me know when.”

Before I can tell him he has it all wrong, David opens the door. “You said you were hungry.”

Cillian looks at David in a way I can’t entirely describe. Cold, furious, and honestly a bit terrifying. David doesn’t miss it either, taking a half step back.

“Enjoy your dinner,” Cillian says, voice barely above a growl.

Before I can say another word, he’s walking back toward his car.

Back inside, David drones on about our food order. Something regarding the lack of utensils. I hardly register a word.

“What was with that guy, anyway?” He asks.

“Huh?”

“Rude. Tattoos. Knuckles all fucked up.”

I noticed Cillian’s knuckles when he handed me the bag. His beautiful hands were bruised and scabbed.

“Looked like a real?—”

“Don’t.” My voice is calm but resonant. “Whatever you were going to say. Keep it to yourself.”

“Forgot how touchy you get when you’re hungry.”

The paper from the bag crinkles as my hand flexes. I realize I haven’t even looked inside .

Tears sting the back of my eyes.

Cream silk. A peacock pattern. I didn’t have to touch it to know it would feel like cool water between my fingers. Didn’t have to smell it to know it would smell like Cillian.

What the fuck was I doing?

“I don't want this,” I say, mostly to myself.

David sets the plate I hadn’t realized he’d be holding down with a thud. “Well, you should have said something before I?—”

“I don't mean the fucking food!” I snap. “I don't want this.” I gesture between us. “And you don't either.”

“How can you say that? I flew across the country to fix this.”

“No.” I shake my head. “You don’t want me. You don’t want to fix this. You flew across the country to corner me, so you’d have the upper hand.”

“Come off it.”

“Just like emailing me, and sending me packages, and flowers, and calling me. You did all of it for yourself. To prove you were the one in charge.”

“Toni, I think you’re being a bit?—”

“Unreasonable?”

“Yes!” he barks, slamming his hand on the counter.

All my internal alarms, the ones that protected me throughout my childhood and had usually served me well as an adult, begin screaming.

I realize, with a touch of shame, they’d been screaming for years.

I just ignored them. Buried them, dampened the sound under reassurances from friends, justifications that he was a nice guy.

He never lifted a hand to me. He was the safe choice.

Now? Now, they are impossible to ignore.

“Get out,” I say, void of emotion.

“What?” he hisses.

“This is done. We are done. ”

“Antoinette. Let’s take a breath.” The calm in his voice is so at odds with his body language that it’s unsettling. “Throwing away three years of our lives isn’t a reasonable decision.”

“David, I’d trade the three years we spent together—three years you spent berating me, belittling me, trying to make me something less than what I am so you could feel like more—for this last year without you in a fucking heartbeat.”

He stares at me in shock.

I walk the short distance to the living room and scoop up his duffel. He grabs my arm with enough force that I know there will be bruises tomorrow.

In this moment—with him staring down at me, nothing but vitriol and the threat of violence in his eyes—I see the kind of man he is for the first time. The pristine packaging finally cracking to expose the rot beneath.

“You don’t get to throw me out.” He says it like his words are law. Like they mean anything at all.

Pathetic.

“If you don’t get your hand off of me, David, I’ll feed you your fucking teeth.” My tone is measured, but something in my expression must’ve reminded him that I was a force of nature, while he was nothing more than a sad little boy.

He lets go of me, recoiling like he’s been burned, and rips the bag from my hands. “Don’t come crawling back to me when Hurricane Toni inevitably fucks everything up.”

I can’t help but laugh. A loud, big, echoing laugh. The laugh he always hated. Too much. Too boisterous. Too me. Too bad for him, it was the last time he’d be lucky enough to hear it.

“Get the fuck out of my house, David. And have the life you deserve.”

Slamming the door behind him feels like finally closing a chapter.