Page 80 of Love Out Loud

Chapter 28

Lennon

Lark is gone.

She was here one minute and gone the next. But standing in the hallway, my feet fixed to the floor as I try to push down the anxiety fighting its way out of my chest, she’s still everywhere. She’s in the two mugs sitting clean and overturned on the drying rack next to the sink. She’s in the light that’s still on in the hallway bathroom. She’s on my lips, the taste of her lingering even a half hour after she’s left. She’s in the fucking air, her citrus-and-sunshine scent still swirling around me.

I squeeze my eyes shut so hard I see stars on my eyelids and press my thumb and forefinger into them. It’s futile to hope that she’ll magically reappear when I reopen them, but I take in a breath to the count of four, hold it, let it out the same way, and open them anyway.

She’s not there. Because she left.

I’m ashamed to admit I don’t know what to do. When my parents would vanish, she was always the one to save me from my anxiety getting really bad. Even when they’d stop by and leave just as suddenly like they did a few weeks ago, I’d always end up calling her. But now, who am I supposed to turn to?

When I promised her we’d remain friends no matter what happened, it didn’t even occur to me that we’d ever be apart again. We’d figure out where to live, and everything would be fine. I never, ever thought we’d be physically separated. Which, in retrospect, was likely the result of not thinking at all rather than having come to any kind of conclusion about it.

But it’s going to work out. She’ll see that once she realizes Devin is okay. We’ll talk. She’ll land in New York, she’ll call me, we’ll hash out some details, and everything will be fine.

Don’t make me choose.

I run a frustrated hand through my hair, tugging at it as my breathing quickens. I hadn’t meant to suggest it was Devin or me. I’m not delusional enough to think I’d ever come out on top in that scenario, nor would I want to. My parents were shitty. They never chose me. I don’t wish that on another person.

But Lark is reasonable. Steadfast. Rational. If that’s how she read what I was saying to her, I must have fucked something up in the delivery. Or her fear for Devin clouded her ability to take what I was saying for what it was—a reassurance that everything would be fine. That we’d wait it out and go together if we had to.

Either way, this is all my fault. My therapist would probably say that thinking about it that way is destructive and not at all correct, but I don’t see any way to share blame for this. I selfishly wanted her with me. I tried to hold her here instead of letting her go when she felt she needed to. Which, ironically, is exactly what I had been avoiding doing these past few weeks.

I dimly realize I can’t stand in the hallway forever. She’s not coming back, and I need to go through some motions to keep the anxiety at bay at least until I can talk to her again. Her flight probably leaves at five-thirty or six if she’s on one of the first ones out. She won’t land until eleven or noon. That’s six or so hours. In the meantime, I can make coffee, shower, get ready, go to the studio, and explain to Noah what’s going on.

Having a plan of small things to do helps calm me a bit, but when I glance at the sink and see our two mugs there again, I decide I can’t face it. Instead, I turn right around and climb back into bed, pulling the covers up over my head and breathing in the scent of her that’s still on my pillow.

***

Bang, bang, bang.

When I blink open my eyes, I immediately close them again as what must be late-afternoon sunlight streams through my open window. Lark and I had opened it last night to let the cool breeze in, and the loud sound of traffic floats through. It’s also hot. And bright.

Bang, bang, bang.

And why is there banging?

I scrub a hand over my face to try to rub some life back into it. It’s unsuccessful. But I have a dim awareness that the banging is coming from my front door, and if I don’t stop it soon, someone on this floor is going to be pissed.

Grumbling expletives to myself, I throw on a shirt as I shuffle to the door. When I pull it open, Noah is standing there with his fist raised, ready to pound on it again. From the set of his jaw when he sees me, it looks like he might follow through anyway and bang my face in to knock some sense into me. I kind of wish he would.

“Oh, good. You’re alive.” He doesn’t sound at all happy to have found me among the living, but I step aside to let him into my apartment anyway.

“What are you doing here?”

The hoarseness of my voices must surprise Noah because he halts on his way into my kitchen and gapes at me. “What the fuck happened to you?” He wrinkles his nose and takes a step backward. “You sound like shit, and you stink.”

I lift the collar of my shirt over my nose and take a whiff. He’s not wrong. I shrug and pass by him toward my coffee machine, forcing myself to swallow the lump in my throat at the sight of the two mugs next to the sink. “The window’s been open in my bedroom, and it got hot. I must have been sweating.”

“Lark lets you walk around smelling up the place like that?”

Nothing to do but state the obvious, I guess. “Lark’s not here.”

Noah looks around as if he’s just noticing her absence, which is funny considering the lack of her is so big to me that it’s practically squeezing all the air out of the room. “Where is she?” Each word is careful, deliberate.

“Gone.”