Not in Love

RUE

On Tuesday morning I called in, saying that I didn’t feel well and I’d work from home.

Tisha texted me at 9:00 a.m. (You okay? Also, did I lose Diego’s house keys in your car?) and I replied, Yes, and yes.

Florence texted me at noon (Hope you feel better soon), and I did not reply at all.

She was my friend, and I wasn’t going to write her off for lying to me. After all, I was a liar, too. I’d lied to Florence about Eli for weeks, even after she’d given me multiple opportunities to come clean, and I’d felt like shit every time. I’d had my reasons, and it was entirely possible that Florence had hers.

But I needed to understand what exactly she’d lied about. And it was obvious that both she and Eli had withheld the truth from me, and that neither of them could be trusted on this matter. It left me with limited options.

I decided not to bring Tisha into this until I had a complete picture, which meant that it would have to live exclusively in my head for a while. I had breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Wrote what felt like thousands of work emails. Worked on my patent’s paperwork. Noticed that some of my seedlings had germinated, and transplanted them into the hydroponic system, taking care to submerge the fragile roots with nutrients.

Then, around 7:00 p.m., there was a knock at the door. The super, I thought, checking on my AC vents like I’d asked. But a last-minute instinct prodded me to look through the peephole.

My brother was pacing outside my door, a stack of papers rolled up in his hand.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped back as quietly as possible, ready to pretend not to be home.

“Goddammit, Rue, open the door. I know you’re in there.”

I covered my mouth and sank into a chair.

It was okay. The security chain was on. He was going to leave soon.

“Your new doorman told me you’re home.”

Shit. A new doorman. Had I known about him? No. I remembered no notices.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

“We can make this as easy or as hard as you want, Rue, but I am going to be here until you agree to do this.”

I pushed the heels of my hands into my eyes, determined to stay quiet. But when Vince spoke again, his tone was much softer. Suddenly I was ten again, and he was seven. We hadn’t seen Mom in days. He’d been crying for hours, and all I wanted was to make him feel better.

“Rue, please. You know I love you and I don’t want to be doing this. But you’re being unreasonable. The money from this sale would be life-changing for me. The Indiana Realtor called yesterday—they have a buyer who’ll take the cabin as is, in cash. I get it that you want to know more about Dad, but how does that come before my financial security? You have your fancy job, but I didn’t get to go to college. I didn’t get tons of things.”

I wasn’t softhearted, but the least hardened spot in my heart belonged to my brother. It had taken me years and lots of therapy to stop myself from bailing him out every time he put himself in some shitty situation. I wasn’t going to start again, but the feeling that I owed him an explanation remained.

So I said through the door, “I’ve been looking for a lawyer who can help us figure this out. I don’t want to leave you in the lurch. My plan is to buy your half, but we’ll need to work out—”

“I knew you were in there.” Vince’s voice harshened. “Open up!”

“No.” I took a step back from the door and tried to sound stern. “I’m not going to let you in my apartment when you are being aggressive—”

“I’ll fucking give you aggressive—” The door shook within its frame. I leaped back.

What the hell—?

Another heavy thud. Vince was kicking my door.

“Vince.” My heart pounded. “You need to stop.”

“Not until you let me in.” He punctuated the words with another heavy blow.

Fuck.

I took a deep breath, trying to get my bearings. My door was sturdy, and he was unlikely to get in. But it wasn’t me that I worried about: if he continued, one of the neighbors would call the police. I should call the police, but as fucked up as it sounded, I was never going to do it. Vince had once stolen a box of Oreos from H-E-B just for my birthday, back when he was barely able to read and write. It had been the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me.

No police. No Tisha, who despised Vince and would probably show up with a kitchen knife and stab him. No other options.

A real “take stock of your shitty, solitary life” kind of moment.

The door groaned under another blow. A drop of sweat ran down my spine as my alternatives narrowed, then shrank to a single one.

My phone was on the couch. I picked it up and tapped on an unsaved number. Waited two, three rings. And when the person on the other side of the line picked up, I didn’t wait for them to talk before whispering, “I’m sorry to do this, but I really need your help.”