Gold Digger – Story 31 – THE DOOR
I hadn’t seen D in six weeks.
Not properly.
Not accidentally.
Not through a window or an Instagram story or a family photo caption that caused several operational difficulties.
Six weeks.
Which sounds like a reasonable amount of time when you say it quickly.
Adam dropped me home.
It was raining.
Not normal rain.
The kind that turns streets into reflections and makes everything look like somewhere else.
We sat in the car for a minute.
He kissed me.
Slow. Easy. The way things have become with Adam – no uncertainty, just goodnight like it’s a word that belongs to us now.
“Text me when you’re in,” he said.
“I will,” I said.
I got out.
Ran to the building.
Unlocked the door.
Pushed it open.
Started to close it behind me.
A hand caught it.
Above my head.
The door stopped.
I looked up.
D.
He was soaked.
Not damp.
Not caught-in-the-rain soaked.
Walked-through-it-on-purpose soaked.
Hair dripping. Jacket black with water. Rain running off him onto the floor of my building like he’d been standing in it for a long time and hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared.
For a second I just stared.
Because my brain had filed D under a different part of my life now and wasn’t prepared for him to be standing here looking like this.
“D.”
He looked at me.
Didn’t answer.
“Jesus Christ.”
I grabbed his sleeve.
Cold.
Actually cold.
“What are you doing here?”
Nothing.
Just looking at me with an expression I couldn’t name and hadn’t seen before.
Then I smelled whiskey.
Not a lot.
Enough.
Enough to explain the silence.
Not enough to explain the expression.
“D.”
Finally:
“Can I come in?”
I should have said no.
That’s the honest version.
Everything about the last six weeks said no.
Adam’s car was probably still at the end of the street.
Everything said no.
I stepped aside.
He came in.
Water immediately hitting the floor.
I shut the door.
Locked it.
Turned around.
D was standing in the middle of my hallway.
Dripping.
Looking at me like he’d forgotten why he’d come.
Or like he hadn’t forgotten at all.
I looked at the puddle forming around his boots.
Then at him.
Then the puddle.
“D.”
“What?”
“You look terrible.”
Something crossed his face.
Not quite a smile.
The smallest version of one.
Then it was gone.
He was just standing there.
Soaked.
In my hallway.
At almost midnight.
And I understood suddenly that whatever had brought him here in the rain had been sitting in him for longer than tonight.
Longer than six weeks.
“How long have you been outside?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
Which was its own kind of answer.
“D.”
He looked at me.
Just looked at me.
The way he looked at me in his kitchen doorway the first time.
Like I’d arrived somewhere I’d been expected.
Except this time he was the one who’d arrived.
And something in his face said he wasn’t sure he should have.
Spreadsheet status:
Adam → dropped me home. kissed me goodnight. his car left.
D → standing in my hallway. soaked.something is wrong.
I don’t think it’s the rain. – Mila