The Moonlight Cafe - Isaac

Chapter Two

I bought a dozen red roses after work on Saturday—despite the exorbitant Valentine's markup, it just didn't seem proper to go with something less iconic—and I got all the way home, flowers and therapy gift certificate in hand, before I got nervous.

This is it, I thought as I fumbled my keys out of my pocket in the hallway outside our apartment's front door. The next step I took would be toward making a change. I felt good about it. I was going to drop my anger—forgive and forget and just come to Tommy in a spirit of reconciliation. I was going to ask him to stop sleeping on the air mattress in the spare room and be a more permanent fixture in my life. I was going to commit and ask him to do the same. I already felt more relaxed inside. Peaceful, like the weight was already lifting.

I got the door open, and the first thing I saw in the hall was Tommy's suitcase, open and already full of his clothes.

"I know, Mum," his voice said from somewhere in the apartment—he was on the phone. "It's just not worth it. Like, I could try, but... oh, he's home. Let me know when you're here, okay? Bye."

I was frozen, staring at the suitcase, slowing realizing what was going on. Tommy poked his head out of the spare room slowly. God, I must have looked so pathetic—bouquet of dozen roses held in my limp hand, shoulders slumped.

"You're leaving," I said.

He nodded. "I'm going to live with my mom, at least for now. Um, I left my half of the rent in an envelope on the kitchen counter. I... felt bad."

I walked past him and into the kitchen, where I got down my grandma's old crystal vase. I filled it with water, unwrapped the bouqet, and arranged the roses all nice. They were in loose buds, about to fully open. Just a day or so. I leaned in to smell them but I couldn't pull in a proper breath. My chest was squeezing tight, my eyes filling with tears.

Tommy was leaning in the kitchen doorway. I could tell from the itch at the back of my neck that he was watching me.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but it's not like you're in love with me or anything."

"Why would you say that?"

He laughed. I listened for a note of bitterness, but didn't hear one.

"I'm basically just a roommate," he said. "Have been for a long time now. We had, like, two good months and then stopped trying."

"So why not start trying, instead of walking away and giving up?"

"Because I'm not what you want," Tommy said. "I know it. You know it, on some level. You just don't know what you do want. Frankly, I think you have problems you need to sort out first. And I don't think I can help you with that."

There was something else left off the end of that—I don't want to help you, either.

"I'm sorry," I said, for lack of anything else to say.

"I'm sorry, too." He glanced at his phone. "My mom's here now."

I nodded. Tommy grabbed the last of his things from the living room, bathroom, and the spare room, chucking them into his suitcase. He zipped it up and hesitated in the kitchen doorway again.

"There's half a cheesecake in the fridge from my dinner with Jackie last night," he said. "You can have it. I'll see you around, Isaac."

He popped up the handle on his suitcase and rolled it to the door. After a pause, I heard him hang up his key on the hook in the hallway. Then the door closed and he was gone.

The apartment was silent except for all those little sounds of modern conveniences that normally fade into the background. The hum of the fridge, the upstair's neighbour's footsteps, the tick of the clock in the living room. I took it all in, trying to feel disturbed by it, but I didn't feel much of anything.