The street remained quiet. A minor miracle given that Calvin wasn’t sure how long he had been standing on Clara’s step. In fact, it almost felt like the rest of the world had been waiting for him to return to this moment. It snapped back into motion with the sound of his knock on the door. No turning back now.

Those three quick knocks felt like a starting gun going off, and the rest of the world breathed out at once. Things started to move again, but they were moving too fast, the ambient noise of cicadas and traffic came back with a roar. Before he could gather his thoughts, he was aware that whatever would happen had been set in motion.

He was still processing the very fact that he had knocked on the door when it opened, and she was standing in front of him, wearing a faded, oversized t-shirt and shorts. He wondered if he had woken her up.

“Calvin? What the hell are you doing here?”

For a moment longer he stood, saying nothing caught in a moment of fight or flight. He teetered on that door step, wondering if running away, again, would be best for both of them. “I know I have no right to ask this, but could I come in?

Her face was unreadable, but her arm that hung across the doorway, showed her initial feelings towards this unsolicited visitation. Slowly, she dropped her arm. Calvin gave her an awkward half-bow before he slipped past her into the entryway.

Her space was much larger now than the one that had existed behind that orange door, but traces of that small studio could still be seen like long hairs woven into the weave of a blanket. These random objects jumped out at him like old friends in a crowd of strangers. A worn coffee table, a teal porcelain lamp. The slightly threadbare rug having lost a little more of it’s color.

She closed the door and Calvin turned to face her. He felt a dam collapse within him, and he was swept away by the wall of memories. Not only the memory that he had just unearthed in his own mind, but the sheer volume of memories that they had together. Moments that he had taken for granted, hours spent lazily in each other’s company, something that he would yearn for when he felt the empty space in his bed.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I should have called first.”

“Yeah, you might have saved yourself a trip.”

Calvin took a half step back, as if her words had knocked him off balance. “Look, if you want me to leave, just tell me and I—”

“Christ, Calvin, you’re already in my house. Just tell me what you want.”

“Right. It’s sort of hard to explain. I’m realizing now that the reason I drove here isn’t the reason I knocked on your door.”

She brought a hand to her eyes and rubbed them as if she were hoping the situation could be wiped away from her retinas and she could once again be living an ordinary night. “What does that mean, Calvin?”

“It means that I didn’t come here for the right reason, but now that I’m here, I want to try to make things right.”

“Things were right. You might find this hard to believe, but my life didn’t stop when the two of us broke up.”

“Of course not, and you’re right. Probably the best thing I could have done was to leave you alone, but I’m here, and I figured I would try to say this.”

She let out a long sigh, and her gaze showed resignation. “What? What do you need to say?”

Calvin was quiet. Not because he didn’t know what to say, but because he knew that this was it. The door between them had been closed before, but he had always thought he had the chance to open it if he chose to knock. Perhaps that had been one of his many delusions. What he knew now was that he had no right to hang around here anymore.

“I’m sorry that I loved you unfairly. And for so long. I realize that coming here still might be a selfish act, and if it is, I promise that it will be the last.”

“Calvin, I uh… Listen, you don’t—”

Calvin shook his head, and Clara understood. He wasn’t saying this to prompt words of absolution from her. It was a shot in the dark, a final attempt to attempt to lift any of the burden he had left her with.

“I never could love you more than I worried about myself. I’m sorry it took me this long to realize that, and I’m sorry that I needed to tell you.”

There was a moment longer between them, prolonged by Calvin suddenly wishing he could stay and make things work. But that wasn’t why he was here. He nodded awkwardly, and made his way out the door, the soft click as the door shut made him feel like he had left something of himself behind.