Guess Who's Back, Back Again

“Molly, go away.” I groaned.

The banging on my front door woke me up and I didn’t have the energy to face Molly on the other side. All of my friends looked at me with so much pity and kept insisting that I move on with my life. I just didn’t want to deal with it anymore, so I locked my door, buried my head under my pillow and ignored the world for a few days.

My time was up, though, because, sure enough, Molly showed up and started banging on my door.

Her banging went on for ten minutes before I finally got angry enough to drag myself out of bed.

“I said go AWA-”

Standing outside my door was Adam.

“Finally.” He said.

I stared at him for a few seconds before bursting into tears and throwing myself against him.

“I’m so glad you’re here.” I said sobbing.

He pulled me in for hug and held me to his chest.

“I’m so sorry about Mike, Faith. Molly told me what happened.”

I moved away from him and just stared at him. I couldn’t believe he was here and I had so many things I wanted to say and so many questions to ask but, for whatever reason, I couldn’t remember any of them. I invited him in so we could talk.

“Why are you here?” I asked after a while.

We were sitting on my couch.

“I…was going to be in town for a few days for some business-related errands when Molly called, so I just moved my trip up a little.”

I hugged him again.

“I’ve missed you.” I said into his neck.

He smelled so good and before I knew it I was kissing him. He pushed me away.

“Faith…I’m not here for that.” He said.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was…”

“I’m seeing someone.” He said.

I felt like a bomb had gone off in my stomach. I felt so embarrassed and stupid. Of course he’d moved on, I wasn’t thinking, instead, I was reverting back to my old behavior to avoid feeling emotional pain. In short, I was frustrated with myself and felt lousy for doing that to Adam.

“Oh. I’m really happy for you.” I said moving away from him on the couch.

It was awkward and all my fault.

“D-do I know her?” I asked to try and continue the conversation.

“You do, actually. But I want to talk about you. How are you doing? Is there anything I can do?”

“I’m…struggling.” I said looking for words, “I just miss Mike so much and the way he died? I…I would never have wished that on anyone. Occasionally I’ll remember something he used to say or find something he left here and I won’t be able to do anything else for the day. I don’t even know if it’s gotten easier with time.”

I stared at my hands and sighed.

“Most of the time I don’t even have the energy to cry anymore, I don’t want to feel anything.” I said.

Adam just listened. I talked to him about how it’s been without Mike and how I find it hard to do anything besides get myself to work while he held my hand. It was dark before I realized how long Adam had been here. He offered to make me dinner while I took a shower. When I came out I noticed he’d cleaned up a little bit and had a plate of pasts waiting for me. I sat down and started eating and realized just how hungry I was, I couldn’t remember when I’d eaten last.

“Slow down, Faith,” Adam laughed, “I can always make more.”

I smiled at him.

“How long are you going to be here?” I asked.

“Um…I’m not really sure.”

I looked down at my dinner and felt guilty.

“Adam, you didn’t come here just because of me, did you?”

“No, I told you, I had some errands to run that were work-related.”

“What do you mean? Don’t you work in Ohio?”

“Not exactly…I lost my job there due to cutbacks about a month ago and my girlfriend has been hassling me about moving in with her. She lives here and I compromised by telling her I’d look into moving back here and go on some apartment tours while I visited her.”

“You’re here to visit your girlfriend? Then, you should go, Adam! You shouldn’t be here with me.”

“Faith, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

I continued to protest but Adam deflected everything I said. Eventually he turned on rerun of Project Runway and we watched it together. I realized how much I missed having Adam as my friend and secretly hoped he ended up moving here permanently.