A Life That Fits

A Life That Fits

Heather Wardell

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Heather Wardell

http://www.heatherwardell.com

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/HeatherWardell

Also by Heather Wardell at
Smashwords.com:

Stir Until Thoroughly
Confused

Planning to
Live

Seven Exes Are Eight
Too Many

Go Small or Go
Home

Life, Love, and a
Polar Bear Tattoo
(free download!)

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I shoved my suitcase into the apartment with
my foot and called, "Alex, come help me!" Hearing the barely
suppressed annoyance in my voice, I forced away my disappointment
that he hadn't met me at the door even though I'd called to let him
know I was on my way and added, "Please? I've missed you," making
my tone sweet so I wouldn't ruin the moment I knew was coming.

My soon-to-be-fiancé appeared and took the
tray of cups and cookies from my hand, and I set down my carry-on
bag and stood drinking him in like I'd been thirsting for years.
I'd only been away two weeks, but we'd never been apart that long
before and I'd missed him beyond anything I could have imagined.
With his lean-bordering-on-skinny body dressed in jeans and a black
t-shirt, and his blond hair cut in a new style that no longer hung
over those brown eyes I'd written terrible poetry about in high
school, he looked perfect to me.

Or at least, he would have if he hadn't
clearly been awkward and uncomfortable.

My heart melted. Of course he was. I felt the
same way. We'd been dancing around the 'will we get married?'
question for ages. I'd brought it up a few weeks before my trip and
he'd said he still wasn't sure, but his nervousness when we'd
talked on the phone during my absence had told me he'd decided. He
knew I'd say yes, of course, but still, proposing had to be
nerve-wracking.

He held the tray before him like he was
offering it to me, but I didn't want my coffee yet, and I didn't
want him drinking his iced coffee, a drink he'd never asked me to
buy for him before, either. I wanted him to propose so I could say
yes and cry a little and then we could snuggle on the couch and
make giddy plans for our future.

But he didn't seem about to get down on one
knee in the hallway, so I said, "Should we go sit in the living
room? Oh, and I like your hair."

He turned away. "Thanks," he said over his
shoulder. "How was your flight?"

I followed him into the living room and said,
"Fine," saving the stories of my seat-mate who'd apparently bathed
in a vat of spoiled milk and my 'fruit platter' snack which had
been nothing but a blackened banana to tell him later when we'd
exhausted the wedding discussion. "The conference went great. Anna
and Gary should be thrilled. Tons of new business. And my parents
say hi." Since the conference had been held in Vancouver, not far
from where my parents had moved when Dad retired, I'd taken a week
of vacation to visit them before returning to Toronto and Alex.

He sat and plucked his drink from the tray,
and I sat next to him and waited. He didn't speak, though; instead
he clutched his drink so tightly the lid popped off and iced coffee
splashed over his stomach.

I leaped up and grabbed the paper towel roll
from the kitchen, and he took it from my hand and said, "I'll clean
up in the bedroom."

He disappeared, and I sank onto the couch
again and shook my head, unable to hold back a smile since he
wouldn't see. The poor guy, so adorably nervous.

As I waited for his return, I looked around
the apartment and noticed the bookcases that flanked the TV. Not a
single book or DVD out of place on the usually cluttered shelves,
and somehow he'd managed to organize them so they looked far less
crowded. True, he'd left a few empty spots that didn't look the
best, but he'd obviously tried. He must have spent the entire two
weeks cleaning. What a sweetheart.

He reappeared, wearing a fresh shirt I hadn't
seen before, and I smiled at him and said, "You really cleaned up
this place, didn't you? Thanks."

Instead of the cheerful "you noticed" I'd
have expected, his face turned red and then pale.

My excitement about his upcoming proposal and
exhaustion after the long day traveling gave way to confusion. He
wasn't acting like himself at all. I took a more focused look at
the bookshelves and realized something. "You didn't just clean up.
You got rid of a lot of stuff. Those shelves look..."

I'd been going to say they looked amazing,
but I trailed off when I saw they actually looked empty of anything
that wasn't mine. Alex's collection of Stephen King novels, his
Star Wars and Star Trek DVDs, even the picture frame with shots of
him and his buddies on various camping trips... everything that
belonged to him was gone.

I turned toward him, but before I could speak
he sighed. "I didn't want to tell you right away. I was going to
let you rest first."

Six weeks ago we'd celebrated my
twenty-eighth birthday and our 'we've been dating half your life'
anniversary on the same day. He was as familiar to me as my own
face in the mirror. But as I stared at him I saw a stranger. "Tell
me what?"

He took a long drink of his remaining iced
coffee, then set the cup down on the coffee table.
My
coffee
table, from my parents' old place.

He picked up the cup again without speaking
and I looked around at the other furniture, terrified of what I'd
see. Sure enough, anything that could reasonably be considered
'mine' was still there, and everything else was gone.

New haircut, new shirt, even a new choice of
coffee... his stuff removed from our apartment... he hadn't even
hugged me... the tray of drinks held in front of him so I couldn't
hug him...

I turned back, to see him still sucking down
his drink as if his life depended on it, and I knew. I could barely
breathe, like he'd taken the oxygen from the room along with his
belongings, as stunned as if he'd thrown a million iced coffees in
my face, but I knew.

I managed to say, "You're..." but couldn't
finish. I had to be wrong. He couldn't be leaving me. We hadn't
been sure about marriage but we'd been so sure about us. We'd been
together forever and we were staying together for another forever.
That was the plan.

Apparently the plan had changed, because he
set his empty cup down on the table and stared into it then said,
"I have to go."

No part of his voice or demeanor suggested a
temporary departure, but I clung to that possibility anyhow. "For a
little while? For work, or..."

He raised his face and looked at me, and his
expression held something I'd never seen from him before. Pity.
"Andrea. Forever."

I had a necklace in my jewelry box with those
exact words engraved on it, his gift on my eighteenth birthday. He
seemed to have forgotten. I had to remind him. "But I love you. And
you love me. We're going to get
married.
Don't go.
Please."

He looked at me without speaking, but his
eyes said far more than I could stand. We weren't getting married.
Not even close. I loved him, yes, but he... he was leaving, and
nothing I could say would stop him. He'd always given me everything
I wanted, and I'd thought I did the same for him. He'd said I did.
We'd been perfect for each other. I couldn't understand, so I said,
"Tell me
why
," in a voice that sounded nothing like
mine.

He did.

Then he left.

And I didn't leave the apartment for the next
three weeks.

I spent hours that first evening, my first
night as a single girl since I really was just a girl, huddled on
the couch I'd bought us with my first real pay check. 'Us'. There
was no 'us' any more.

No tears. I was too numb, and too busy
replaying everything he'd said, using the few details he'd given me
to guess at all the ones I masochistically wanted to know, and
struggling with all the questions I hadn't asked.

Where did you meet her?

What does she look like?

You're really leaving me for someone you've
known for three months?

Why is she better than me?

Don't you love me?

Actually, it was probably just as well I
hadn't asked that last one. I was horribly afraid I knew the
answer. He'd basically
given
me the answer, when he'd
dropped that so awful "I love you but I'm not in love with you any
more" line on me like a bomb. What the hell did that even mean?
Other than that he didn't love me like I loved him.

He'd stood up to go after saying it, and the
terror that flooded me made me grasp for something, anything, to
make him stay. "But what if you sleep with her and it's terrible?"
I spoke without thinking but as I did I realized this whole thing
could be nothing more than his need to sow a few wild oats since I
was the only field he'd ever plowed so I kept going, words tumbling
from me. "Then you'll come back, right? I'll take you back, I will,
Alex, just come back."

Until his face turned pale and his eyes
shifted away from mine like I was physically repelling him, it
hadn't crossed my mind that he might have cheated on me. His
reaction hit me like an airplane landing on my chest, and I
whispered, "You have. You already... Right?"

He launched into the textbook "I'm so sorry,
I never meant for this to happen" crap.

I barely heard him over the buzzing horror
slinking through me. He'd slept with someone else. I'd never have
thought him capable even of kissing another woman and he'd gone so
much further. I didn't know him at all. Fourteen years with him and
I knew nothing. Knew nothing, had nothing, was nothing. When I
couldn't cope another second, I said, "Just go. Get out."

"Will you be okay?"

I laughed, again using someone else's voice.
Someone frozen and stunned and not remotely amused. "Like you care.
Go."

He closed his eyes and turned away, then left
without a backward glance or a single word, not even needing to
take a bag with him since my business trip had given him the
perfect two-week packing period. In that two weeks, he'd ripped my
life to shreds.

I'd stood frozen until I couldn't hear his
footsteps any more then dropped onto the couch. I hadn't moved for
hours, and still didn't want to, but my bladder would be ignored no
longer.

I pushed my exhausted body to its feet,
feeling like I was riding around in the body instead of it being
mine, and dragged myself to the bathroom. As I washed my hands,
noticing dimly the absence of Alex's toiletries, I also noticed the
presence of something new.

A black ponytail elastic sat on the sink's
edge.

I only used gold ones because they blended
better with my hair.

She'd been here.

Rage blew away my numbness, and I grabbed the
cleaning supplies from under the sink and scrubbed the bathroom to
within an inch of its life and mine. Using enough caustic chemicals
to clean an airplane's toilet to eat-off-the-seat condition, I
scrubbed and sweated and swore until not a single corner or grout
line remained unmolested.

It didn't help, though: I still blazed with
fury and disgust. He'd brought her here. We'd picked the place
together, and every item in it had, I'd thought anyhow, been about
us. About our relationship. And he'd brought her here. That bitch
had been in my apartment.