NICK
The grocery bags hit the floor. I did not place them down with my usual care.
I simply opened my hands and let them go.
The sound of plastic hitting the wood was dull and final. I stood there in the center of the room, my own room, which looked exactly the same as it had forty-eight hours ago. It was ordered. It was quiet. It was mine.
My mind tried to fix the image in front of me. I looked at the couch and expected to see a flash of pink against the gray fabric.
He is here, I told myself. He has to be here. You missed him in the dark. Look again.
I looked again. I walked into the kitchen and then the bathroom. I saw the empty space where a person had been living.
The checking was done, and the result was the same as it had been five minutes ago.
He was gone.
Something inside me fractured. The irritation that had been a low hum in my blood all day suddenly sharpened into something else.
