As if I’m a stranger.

I didn’t want any of this, Becca, I want to tell her.

But I can’t.

So I don’t.

I ask, “What’s the money for?”

She points to the back of the check and I flip it over.

Ambulance.

I look back up at her. “I see you’ve gone back to not talking… even to me?”

She shrugs.

I sigh. “Becca, I didn’t mean what I said. I was just upset… how did you even get this much money?”

Her gaze drops again, and just when I think I’m not going to get an answer, I see her hand move, almost like she doesn’t realize she’s doing it. Her thumb spins against the ring on her index finger—the ring I gave her.

Both my hands grip my hair when realization sets in. “Holy shit, Becca. Please don’t tell me you sold your camera?”

She looks up now, her tear soaked eyes pinning me to my spot. She blinks twice, the tears fall, and I reach out to wipe them away.

But she flinches.

She flinches away from my touch.

Then she sniffs, the only sound I’ve heard from her in days, and closes the door in my face.

And I hate everyone and everything and most of all, I hate myself.

★★★

Thanksgiving comes. I drop by my parent’s house. Dad doesn’t acknowledge me when I enter and the rest of the time is spent with him staring at the wall and me staring out the window.

We don’t talk.

We never do.

Natalie has made herself nice and comfortable, decorating and rearranging furniture exactly the way she likes it. She likes owls, apparently. I didn’t realize how much I hated them until my house was filled with them. But she cooks and cleans and she does everything a mother’s supposed to do and Tommy—he loves having her around.

I kick the dust off my work shoes and slip them off at the front door before I enter my house—or at least what used to be my house. The aroma of whatever Natalie’s cooking floods my senses the second I walk in. “Hey Momma!” Tommy says, running toward her. I hate that he calls her Momma—that it took me almost a year to get him to say Daddy and she just gets to be called that. Apart from the seven hours in labor, she hasn’t earned the name. Not even a little bit.

From the kitchen, Natalie looks at me and smiles; her blonde hair up in a bun, wearing her stupid owl-patterned apron.

“What are you making?” I ask.

She answers with something I’ve never heard of and I tell her I’m taking a shower.

She cooks a lot—something different every night.

She can’t cook for shit.

I don’t tell her that though. I sit at the table and eat the damn food because I don’t care about it enough to start something.

I don’t care about her stupid food or her stupid owls and right now I’m pretty sure I don’t care about much of anything.

I get out of the shower, make my way to the bedroom and open the only drawer that Natalie’s left untouched. I get dressed and sit on the edge of the bed, and that’s when I see it—a skateboard in the closet underneath a bunch of Natalie’s clothes. I get up and walk over to it, getting down on one knee so I can pull it out and look at it closer. And then all the air, along with any sense of hope I’ve had, leaves me.

I carry the skateboard to the kitchen. “What’s this?” I ask Natalie.

She looks up at me and smiles. “You weren’t supposed to see it! That Becca girl dropped it off a few days ago with a note that said she was working on it with Tommy as a Christmas present for you. It’s only half done so she gave it to me and said I could finish it with him if I wanted.” She shrugs and walks over to me, ruffling my hair. “She’s got a whole shoebox full of pictures of you and Tommy. Looks like someone has a borderline obsession with you. I’d be careful of that one.”

I look down at the board again.

“Are you going to eat?” she asks.

I lift my gaze. “Maybe later.”

There are cars parked in our street and I can hear a bunch of old ladies laughing from inside their house, but it doesn’t deter me. I raise my fist, hesitating only for a moment, before knocking on their door. I have no plan of what I’m going to say and absolutely no expectations of her reaction. The door opens and there she is, her hair down and her eyes wide and clear and emerald and perfect. God, she’s so perfect.

She inhales sharply and drops her gaze and only then do I get enough strength to look away from her face and down her body and the dress she’s wearing, modest but hot. Like always. Her chest heaves, matching my breaths—breaths that seem so loud in my head and before she has time to shut the door in my face, I tell her, “You look beautiful.” And I know it’s dumb to say that, but I don’t want her to ask what I’m doing and why I’m looking at her the way I am.

She looks down at her hands, now patting down her dress and then back at me, and her eyes…

Her.

Eyes.

God, I miss those eyes.

She points to the skateboard still in my hand.

I blink, pulling me out of my trance. “Natalie said that you came over and—”

She nods.

“You can finish it with Tommy. He’d like that.”

She shakes her head and pushes the door forward, her face half hidden behind it.

“Who is it, sweetheart?” Chaz calls out from behind her.

Becca opens the door wider and drops her gaze just as Chazarae stands next to her. Chaz doesn’t smile at me like she always does. She guides Becca out of the way, as if I’m here to hurt her in some way. And for the first time since shit went down with us, I wonder how much Chazarae knows and I wonder what she sees that I don’t. And worst of all, I wonder what she thinks about me. “Can I help you, Joshua?”