Coming Home To You. Liesel Schmidt

I wish I could erase it all so you never had to go through any of this. But I can’t. All I can do is say that I’m sorry, and I love you, and I want what’s best for you.”

      Her sad eyes were piercing mine, searching for some hint that she was getting through to me.

      “This can only destroy you if you let it, Zoë. Please don’t let it.” She looked on the verge of tears. “Please,” she said again.

      I felt gripped by fear.

      Where would I go if I didn’t live here?

      I pulled away from her and turned to look out the window.

      My window.

      The window I rimmed in Christmas lights every year.

      The window I always looked through to see if Paul’s truck was in its spot.

      I didn’t think I could survive the process of finding somewhere new, sorting through all of the things in my apartment—all of the memories—and boxing them up.

      Not yet. I wasn’t ready for that yet. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be ready for that.

      “I’d tell you to move in with me, but I don’t even have a place. I’m staying with my parents until it’s time for—” She stopped abruptly.

      “Time for what, Kate?” I asked, whirling around to look at her.

      I felt a knot form in my stomach at the sight of her pained expression, and I knew I wasn’t going to like what she had to say.

      “I really didn’t want to have to tell you this yet. I wanted to have some time with you, to talk and catch up, let things settle. But I guess I’m going to have to say it now,” she sighed. “I’m taking a job in Atlanta next month. There’s a company up there that works closely with relief efforts in third world countries, and they’ve tapped me to be their director of research.”

      It was something she’d always wanted to do, what she’d worked for as long as I could remember. But right now any happiness I felt for her was overshadowed by the feeling of absolute abandonment.

      It was like a sucker-punch.

      “What? A month?” I knew my voice was registering my displeasure, but I couldn’t help it.

      She had just gotten here, and now she was telling me that she was leaving? How was I supposed to react to that? What had happened to being there for each other?

      “I know, it’s very soon, but they needed me right away. They’re trying to get moving on some really big projects, and the research that I do is pivotal to their being able to get the funds they need.”

      She looked excited, then seemed to remember that it meant leaving me.

      Again.

      I closed my eyes to keep the room from spinning out of control.

      “I want to be happy for you, Kate. I really do,” I whispered, my eyes still closed. “But I can’t.” I felt the sting of tears that I didn’t want, felt my nose burn. “I feel so alone. And even though you’re here now, you’re not.”

      There was nothing she could say to that, because she knew that it was true.

       Chapter 3

      It was late afternoon, a time seemingly shared by all citizens of the universe in their primal need for caffeine, and a typical Sunday in the city was no exception. The coffee house down the street from my apartment was packed to bursting, its clientele running the gamut from coffee house junkies to those whose relationship with coffee was a mere dalliance.

      I would have fallen into the category of junkie, though my need was not so much to feed a caffeine addiction as it was for a haven.

      Buzzing Beans had opened six months ago, three months after I’d lost Paul. It had become a place I could go without fear of remembering some conversation we’d had there or regular appearances together that made these people realize that I was only half of a pair.

      Here, there was no Paul and Zoë.

      There was simply Zoë, the sad looking woman with curly brown hair who came in practically every day and always ordered the same thing.

      Zoë, who always seemed as though she only vaguely remembered what happy used to feel like.

      Here, within the walls of Buzzing Beans, I had found a second home. Ray, proud owner and head bean-pusher, had even become a brotherly presence in my life. He watched over me without ever prying for details I wasn’t ready to give, offering me his own brand of comfort with each cup of coffee he served. My drink was always ready for me by the time I walked up to the register, and Ray always refused payment. Suffice it to say, his tip jar reaped the benefits.

      I took Kate there that afternoon in an attempt to escape my apartment and the tension I felt so thickly gathered there. Since her arrival on my doorstep the day before, she’d spent practically every moment glued to my side, with the exception of a quick trip back to her parents’ house to drop off all her things and visit for a few hours. I knew that this was just her initial knee-jerk reaction to having been gone so long and her fear that I really was as fragile as everyone seemed to think.

      I would have thought my best friend knew me better than that, that she would have had confidence enough in my survival skills to know that I would eventually get through this a much stronger, self-reliant woman.

      But not even I had that confidence.

      How could I, when I felt so broken?

      In moments of clarity, I could recognize the fact that I had allowed myself to slip into a deep depression, that I needed to find some way out of it. But I had no idea how, other than spilling my guts in a therapist’s office for an hour every week or shoveling pills down my throat. Neither option was something I really wanted to have to explore.

      “Hey, Zoë, who’s the pretty lady?” Ray asked, bouncing up on his toes as he stood behind the counter.

      “Nice greeting,” I replied with a light edge of scolding. “This is my best friend, Kate. Kate, this is Ray.”

      “Nice to meet you, Ray,” she said, offering him a sweet smile. “Zoë’s been singing your praises all day. And I can’t thank you enough for watching out for her while I was away.”

      Kate’s smile, I noticed, seemed to grow even wider as she spoke. I hadn’t really been giving him nearly as many accolades as she was implying. True, I’d told her how great he’d been to me over the past few months and that he had become a self-appointed watchdog of sorts, but…

      I flushed with embarrassment, hoping Ray wasn’t getting the wrong impression.

      “No problem,” Ray replied, waving away Kate’s thanks. “I’ve heard a lot about you, too, Kate. It’s nice to finally have a face to put with the name, and hopefully I’ll see more of you before you leave…” He trailed off, looking at me.

      “So, um, Ray,” Kate began, clearing her throat. “What’s good here?”

      “Good?” he repeated, shaking his head in mock disgust. “We don’t do good here. Good is for sub-par, nameless-faceless-on-every-street-corner-in-the-world coffee shops.” He paused for dramatic effect. And possibly to catch his breath. “We do excellent.”

      The rest of the exchange was a blur of drowned-out words and movements, an event I was only physically part of. It was the same way I lived most moments of my life lately, like being underwater in a pool and looking up at the people standing at the edge of it. You can hear talking and see images, but nothing makes complete sense.

      “Zoë, did you hear that?”

      I blinked rapidly, breaking through the surface of the water.

      “What? I’m sorry,” I said, thinking