"I guess they really got the best of us,

didn't they?

They said that love was enough,

but it wasn't"

✦

Harry and I went home at night having spent the day together. I helped him set up his thrift store but we mostly goofed off and talked.

We had walked home and now stood in between our houses, the place where our paths diverge.

"Evdoxia?" He said as we began to separate.

"Harry."

"I missed you."

Like always, he was absorbing every drop of light dripping from the moon, his skin illuminated, shining like a jewel in a pile of rocks.

I backtracked on my steps so I'd be on his half of the yard right in front of him. His eyes clashed greatly with Matthew's. Green versus brown: life versus death. Matthew contrasted as greatly with Harry as I did.

I didn't answer him for I honestly didn't think about him much in the past week. Wrapping my arms around his waist, I rested my head on his chest on a sparrow. The rap of his heart mimicked its wings' flutter.

After a second he responded, bringing his arms around my upper back and squeezing me tight to him. We both let out small breaths of relief at the embrace.

He wasn't warm but he wasn't hot, he was right in between. The kind of heat that you achieve on a winter's night cocooned in layers of wool. You're not sweating but you're more than comfortably warm. However, you treasure the discomfort when you'd previously been numb. The contrast between the subzero temperature you'd been in before and the heat is stark, and that's why you seek it. It defrosts you and melts the ice.

"Harry!" Yelled a feminine voice.

He hadn't released me so I moved to peer over his shoulder, descrying Rose stood in the open front door of his house.

"It's Rose," I muffled into his shoulder.

His fingers gripped my shirt tighter before he let go and we bid each other goodbye.

When I walked into my house I spotted Matthew on the sofa in the living room. In front of him on the table was a puzzle.

"Ev," he whispered as if I was an apparition. Ev, Ev, Ev.

He was wearing the whoopsie-daisy! shirt. It'd never fit him better, he really grew into it.

"It's late," I said. Why isn't he asleep? With Melly? Why hasn't he left?

"I waited for you."

He played around with his fingers, diverting my attention. He was wearing the ring.

"Why?" I hadn't stopped staring at it. Silver. Dull. Second place.

"So we can talk." I don't want to talk. I don't want to know.

I walked into the room and sat on the floor across the couch. The coffee table sat between us, the unsolved puzzle splayed across it.

The house was completely silent aside from the pucker of puzzle pieces off and on the wood. I couldn't think though, I was fruitlessly attempting to find a match between pieces. I wasn't even sure what picture it was supposed to depict.

The ring, the ring, the ring. Silver. Dull. Second Place. He's wearing it.

We both used our right hands in the poor assemblage. Our left hands laid in our laps.

"Ev?"

My grip tightened on the thin cardboard shape.

"Ev?" Matt and Ev. Matt and Melly.

"Stop calling me that," I seethed, my jaw clenched.

His face flushed with confusion. "But... I always call you that."

I dropped the piece. "No you don't. You haven't since a week ago."

He his eyes were downcast. "Can we talk?"

"I'm right here!" I shouted, getting on my feet. "What are you waiting for—talk!"

I'm not sure why I was even shouting. My whole body felt like tightly taut wire Matthew held between either hand. Electricity zapped through it as he pulled the wire tighter and tighter, stretching it till it was on the brink of snapping in half. It would thin and thin until it fractured.

When he looked up his eyes were gleaming. Brown and itchy and cold.

"I'm sorry," he croaked. "I'm so sorry."

He was sobbing into his palms, into the ring, and it reminded me of that catastrophic Monday rain. Though it wasn't as loud.

I stood still. I didn't know what to do. "Okay."

Composing himself, he questioned, "okay?"

He looked like a wreck. The scruff on his jaw and chin was overgrown and the lines on his forehead seemed to be stuffed with soot, darker and deeper. I missed him. I missed Matt. Who's sitting in front of me?

"Say it," I demanded, my voice wobbly.

"Say what?"

"What you did. Say it." Remind me.

My nails were digging into my palms as my fists clenched.

He shook his head like a child begging me, please don't make me!

"Matthew, say it," I gritted between my teeth.

"I can't," don't make me, he cried.

"Bullshit," I rasped, fighting back the film over my eyes. He needed to remind me. Remind me why I shouldn't give in. Why I can't think anymore. "Say it!"

"I slept with her!" He wailed.

"Who Matthew? Who?" My words were as unidentifiable as his own, torn and scraped at by snot and tears.

"With Melly!" Matt and Melly. Matt and Melly.

My knees buckled and I sunk back to the floor, burying my profusely crying face into my arms. I was propped up on my feet, my butt hovering, making my shins ache.

"Forgive me!" He implored. Second chances, second chances, second chances.

My senses became overwhelmed with heat from burying my face into my arms, my breath incased by my crumbled stance.

Unexpectedly, my body was pushed into another's. Matthew's. The ring was cold against my wrist as he pried them both off my swelling eyes.

"Get off! Get off! Get off me!" I bawled, relentlessly pulling my arms from him with my debilitated strength. My eyes were crammed closed, tears squeezing themselves out.

It felt like I had broken out in a rash, my skin overcome with fire. Melly, Melly, Melly-mellifluous.

After an unfair wrestle, my whole body slumped down into Matthew's in exhaustion. I can't keep fighting.

He rocked me back and forth in his arms, his own tears splatting on my thoroughly saturated face. Shaky hushes slipped through his lips as he tried to calm me down.

I couldn't keep resisting. I was tired and I missed him. Matt, Matt, Matt.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

I woke up to the sun beating on my face through the open curtains. My cheek was on Matthew's hard chest, my whole body draped on his. I was cold where we touched, cold where we didn't. It kind of felt like home but if the roof had fallen in.

My eyes were bone dry along with the rest of my face and I could feel the puff of my eyelids. I didn't remember falling asleep, I just remember giving up. Giving in.

I hadn't been this physically close to Matthew to where you couldn't wedge a slice of paper between us in months. But everything was just sore. As quietly as possible, I rolled off him. I couldn't speak to him yet.

I went to the bathroom, gauging my appearance. My eyes were swollen like I had an allergic reaction. Fragments of skin were peeling off in some patches of my face. My bottom lip was rusted in a bit of dried blood.

Wincing as I opened my mouth, the chapped surface of my lips tore apart. I carried water from the tap with my hand to soothe my scratchy throat.

I didn't know whether to wait for Matthew to wake up or to flee while he was still unconscious.

He admitted it. His infidelity. But now what?

I creeped up the stairs and quickly changed. Passing by the living room on my way out, I peaked at the completely unfinished puzzle on the table. We'd made zero significant progress in its completion.

I texted him as I walked down the driveway. Meet me at Lenny's Car Wash.

Sometimes when it rains the night prior, the world looks post apocalyptic. I hadn't realized the precipitation of last night until I stepped outside and everything was damp and the sky had an odd yellow hue during daybreak.

I didn't mind the walk it took to get to the place as I wasn't sure when Matthew would wake up anyways. The building was in town but pretty much on the other side, roughly an hour away by foot.

Despite the fact that I had known the car wash had been closed for years, arriving to the run down shop was entirely melancholy. The bright dashes of blue painted across the grey building looked somber and dirtied. The large logo that'd light up on the front of it was in no better condition.

I sat down inside the building in the lane cars would go inside to be washed. Scrubbers and buffering tools of the sort still lined the walls of the enclosure.

Headlights approaching from the distance pulled me from my limbo. I stood up to get a better view of the car as it pulled into the lot. It was Matthew.

It seemed as if his car hadn't even turned off before he jumped out of it. He immediately neared me, entering the tunnel as well.

The crinkled whoopsie-daisy! shirt and ruffled state of his short dirty blonde hair clued to the fact he had drove here as soon as he woke up.

"Did you walk here?" He asked out of concern.

"Yeah," I shrugged.

He frowned. "You should've taken the car."

"Whatever." He probably didn't really care.

I got back down onto the flat cement, laying down.

"Why are you laying down?"

I didn't answer, focusing instead on the pressure of my bones against the hard surface. It sort of hurt, especially on the back of my head.

He sighed and sat with his legs crossed next to me. It felt like he was staring at me but I couldn't tell, my eyes were closed.

I pictured the whir of engines and machines as cars were scrubbed of dirt and bird poop. The tools would plod against the car so loud but it was comforting in a way. When you're going through the wash and surrounded by obnoxiously sounding devices sponging and scouring and drying your vehicle in the shade with occasional peaks of light, it makes you feel so small. It's like your under attack but completely protected, invincible to the bustle outside.

Matthew rested his hand in mine that was laid palm up. It was my left hand and his right. When his touched the ring I had the urge to lift my head and slam it down as hard as possible.

"You're so tense," he mumbled sadly like he meant to just think it. Afterwards, he lifted his hand from mine.

"Ev, I love you," he said hoarsely. "I meant it the first time I said it right here and I mean it now." He remembered.

I love you, I love you, I love you. I was too busy sculpting the coordination of sound into my ears so I'd never forget again to think of a reply.

"You know that right?" By his voice, it was obvious he was crying again.

I shook my head, continuing my blissful imaginative escape to when this place was still hustling with the tune of I love you, I love you, I love you playing on the radio as our truck was washed.

"Ev? Please tell me you know that I love you," he begged, harshly sniffling.

"I'd have to ask Melly," I softly deadpanned.

His sobbing only increased in intensity. Matthew was never much of a crier so it was strange to keep hearing and witnessing it. He had always been the stronger one, but now it felt like we were on level playing field.

"I don't love her—I used her because I'm a dickhead, Ev, I'm a piece of shit." Who is he trying to convince?

I sighed, not knowing what to say or how to say it loud enough over his strangled wailing. Or the thunder too, which begun to grumble in the distance.

"I hate myself. I'll do anything for you to forgive me... for you to trust me again," he rambled.

"Stop," I ordered.

"What?"

"I don't know what to do, Matthew," I began, finally opening my eyes and leaning up on my arms. "I don't know what to think."

I noticed then the low patter of drizzle falling outside.

"Know that I love you."

I sat up to fully face him with an incredulous look on my face, practically scowling.

"Then you wouldn't have done it," I disagreed. "You wouldn't have had sex with Melly." Or possibly fallen in love with her.

His eyes gleamed over. Thin and itchy and cold. A heavy wet blanket.

"But things were different," he contended, sighing into his hands, "you were different."

I bit my lip and gnawed straight at a scab. "How?"

I knew I stopped being enough. But I didn't think it was because I changed, I thought it was because he met someone who raised his expectations. He met gold and realized silver was dull. Silver was second place.

"In August, you... were just gone," he explained carefully. "You stopped painting and doing puzzles and watering your plants and nagging me about staining mugs with my coffee and you stopped being you... my love."

I let his words sink in, thinking back to a few months ago. Was this all my fault? "But I do love you."

"I know, Ev. But you weren't doing anything, you stayed home and besides sleeping in the same bed we didn't interact. For weeks and weeks."

Tears slowly surmounted the curves of my cheeks. "I'm sorry."

His eyebrows furrowed. "Don't apologize. I don't mean to use this as an excuse for what I did because it's not. I should've been there for you."

"But I wouldn't let you," I cried. "I messed it up. If—if I wouldn't have changed, you would have stayed? You would have stayed right?"

"Ev, I should've stayed regardless. Please, baby, don't put this on yourself. You did nothing wrong," he urged, eyes bouncing between mine. I couldn't even process his pet names.

I was sobbing and it was pouring and it was all too loud again. "I... I..." I couldn't think.

Matthew's finger pulled my chin up. "You did nothing wrong."

"But—you just said—"

"Ev, you had every right to react the way you did in August. Your mom died."

As soon as the stressed words left his mouth my sobs escalated to scream wails. My face was smushed into a big mush and my body rocked forward and back as I fought to breathe. My head shook rapidly side to side as I attempted to choke out, "no, no, no!"

He wrapped his arms around me so I could use his shirt as a makeshift tissue. My body maneuvered onto his lap, my face buried into his collar. My sobbing was loud and the downpour was loud and his heartbeat was loud.

When I could, I said, "Leonora isn't my mom." How could he call her that?

"She was for 15 years," he countered.

I pushed off his chest, pointing an accusing finger at him. "How could you! How could you say that!"

He reached for my hands, successfully grasping them tightly. "Ev, she is your mother. You can't keep blocking that away. You need to accept it!"

"Fuck you!" I spat, speeding past him into the rain and past his car.

He grabbed my wrist, spinning me around. "If Leonora's not your mother, who is she?!"

Water was running down our faces, mixing with our tears and spewing from our tongues.

"She's a person! A person who left her fucking kid!" I shrieked, pulling sopping black hair from my face. My voice was gruff but calm as I continued, "but I get it." I'm still not enough.

Before he could speak, I decided in defeat, "Leave Matthew. I get it." Shrugging sporadically, I added, "it's who I am." Silver, silver, silver.

"That's not true!" He argued, grabbing my arms to prevent me from moving. "You are so—god damnit! I can't even articulate it!"

He took a ragged breath, fuming in frustration.

"Ev, your mother was a shitty person. She couldn't love you because her own psychological reasons. She was always inebriated, she was an alcoholic, you told me this yourself. All those chemicals and stuff jacked her brain, baby. It wasn't—it wasn't you. She would have left any child she had because wasn't mentally fit to love anyone, not even herself. It wasn't you."

I listened to him, trying to believe he was telling the truth, but I couldn't. Not when he left too without alcohol involved. "You're not an alcoholic though."

"I know, Ev, I know," he dropped his neck and pulled my hands to his face. "And I'm sorry. I gave up on you. You had every right to be hurt and to mourn her loss that way, especially with what happened."

He swiped away the water from under my cheeks but it wasn't necessary with the rain replacing it immediately.

"Why? I... I thought we... I thought you loved me." I took a step back, my head ache intensifying the more I tried to come to conclusions. "Your being a hypocrite? Right? You went to Melly because of me. If I hadn't changed you wouldn't have needed to—that's what you said."

"No, Ev. I didn't need to. Your mother walked out because of who she was. I did what I did because of who I am too."

"Would you have done it though? If I wasn't all mute and shit? If I was who I was before she died?"

He frowned, unsure how to answer.

"That doesn't matter," he attempted to dismiss.

"Exactly!" I yelped and grasped his wet shirt in my hand, twisting whoopsie-daisy! so it was distorted and oozed water. "You wouldn't have! I could've prevented this, Matthew!"

He let out an exasperated sigh, beginning to talk at a normal volume. "What happened? I thought you had moved on from that all?"

For a while I had surpassed the treacherous stage of mourning the loss of the living. Matthew helped me after Leonora Papilio walked out of her daughter's life for a man. For alcohol. But then she died.

"I don't know." I bit my lip. "I don't know... maybe I still hoped we'd reconnect?"

I hadn't communicated with Leonora for seven years, but I'd never lost that minuscule wisp of hope that it wasn't over for us.

Matthew dragged us into his car, opening the passenger side and helping me in. He got in himself and turned the heater on high. I hadn't realized how bad I was shivering until then. I twisted the ring around in circles as we dried off.

"You never told me that," he said. "That you thought you may see her again."

Tears still slid from my eyes. "I wanted a mom. It doesn't matter how long it's been." I looked out the window to my side to watch the rain splat against the ground.

What was it like to have a mom to come home to and comfort you and love you and want you? I wanted to know.

"And you had and have every right to," he assured, nudging my shoulder.

I looked back to him and at the drop hanging from his chin, managing to suction on so it wouldn't fall and separate into a million molecules.

"I feel like I could've done something. Maybe if I reached out and tried harder to get her help and into rehab she'd still be alive. Maybe I'd have a mom."

"That was her responsibility though. She would've stopped drinking if she wanted to but she didn't."

"I could've tried," I relented.

"What would you do if I told you to leave me right now?"

My eyebrows furrowed and I shook my head.

"You wouldn't, Ev. I can't force you to leave as much as you can't force another person to stay."

I turned forward to see the car wash again and the blurry blue Lenny's Car Wash sign that was a harsh blow of wind away from unhinging and falling.