“My sheets don’t smell like you anymore.” He says. “And it breaks my heart to crawl into bed and only smell my own d*mn soap. And that breaks my heart too, because for the longest time, you used my soap and it mixed with your green apple shampoo and it turned me on because in some way, that meant you were mine.”
She glances at him, tries to ignore him. “Please just shut up.”
“No. I miss the way my clothes fold – our deal, remember? You’d do the laundry and I had to clean the bathroom because I turned my clothes pink and you could not have a pink boyfriend. And the way you fold the clothes, neatly in a stack on the foot of my bed so they’re never wrinkled, not ever.”
“Stop.”
“My car liked you. She was my girl, my baby, and I think I neglected her for you – you were my girl, but she didn’t mind. She liked you. The way you’d wash her on warm days, the way you’d run your fingers over her sleek side and how I taught you to drive stick-shift and you nearly crashed us, but that’s okay because my car liked you.”
“I suppose she misses me too.”
“The books on my bedside table,” he continued, ignoring her. “I remember the way you left them, always face down with a bookmark in the wrong place just before you turned out the light and the pen always diagonal across the top because you stay up late every night reading the same books over and over and over and you chuckle at the same exact parts and twirl your pen because you can’t underline the part you like again but you want to. There’s a place there, clean and undusty because there’s always a book there and there isn’t anymore.”
“And if I let you go on, you’ll tell me you miss my cooking and my jewelry.”
“I miss the way you cook and I get underfoot and the pizza I order in will never taste as good as yours. I miss the way I set the table because I can’t cook and then I do the dishes because it’s so worth it for the meal. I would kill to have you make something that would take an hours’ worth of scrubbing to get clean because in the end, it’s always worth it. Always.”
She locked her gaze on him, letting him know she got his analogy. That when he was talking about talking time because it was worth, he meant her. That he would always give her more time than she needed, because she was so worth it.
“I want to be able to call you baby again. I want to talk to you about my kid brother and how I worry and tell you I’m taking him to a baseball game. My curtains haven’t been open since the last time you were there, my shirts are all in the same place because you don’t pick them up and wear them around. No one blows straws at me in restaurants, no one plays yellow car. No one else would ever tolerate those texts I make you send the second you’re parked in your driveway, safe and home, and you do it because I worry, and I never want anyone else’s purple toothbrush on the counter because you never put it up in the holder. ”