Chapter 36: One Last Time
The moonlight was a slow river across the bed, painting Simone’s skin in silver and shadow. Eli watched the rise and fall of her chest, the tremble of her lashes against her cheeks in sleep.Her fingers were still loosely curled in his hair. The scent of her—jasmine and sleep and the faint, musky trace of their joining—clung to him, a tangible memory already turning to ghost.His jaw ached where Danny’s fist had landed. A deeper, more profound ache had taken root behind his sternum. One last time, she had said.He had said anything for you. And he had meant it, even as he felt the terrible truth of it curdle in his gut.This wasn’t a renewal. It was a funeral pyre, beautiful and devastating, burning up the last dry tinder of what they had been.
He slipped out from under her arm with the care of a thief. The cool air of the room raised goosebumps on his sweat-damp skin. He found his boxers on the floor and stepped into them, then stood at the foot of the bed, watching her sleep. In the monochrome light, she looked younger, unburdened. The fierce determination that usually pinched her brow was smoothed away.She was just a girl in a rumpled bed.He had done this. He had reduced them to this delicate, broken peace.He padded out to the living room. The silence here was different, vacant. He sat on the couch, the same couch where Danny had thrown his truth like a grenade. He could almost smell the bitter tea from Aaliyah’s place, see the angry hurt on his best friend’s face.A human fucking dildo. The words were branded into the back of his eyelids. He dropped his head into his hands, the pressure on his temples a feeble counter to the storm inside.A soft sound made him look up. Simone stood in the doorway, wrapped in her blue robe. Her eyes were clear, awake, already assessing the day though it was barely dawn.“You’re up,” she said, her voice rough with sleep.
“Couldn’t stay down,” he replied.She nodded as if she’d expected it. She moved to the kitchen, not with her usual brisk efficiency, but with a slow, heavy grace.He heard the click of the kettle, the clatter of a mug. She returned with two cups of tea, handing him one before sitting at the other end of the couch. The space between them was a canyon.
“Last night was…” she began, then shook her head, sipping her tea.“It was goodbye, Eli. We both know it.”
He wanted to argue, to protest, but the words were ash.He just nodded, the steam from his mug warming his chin.
“I meant what I said,” she continued, looking straight ahead at the blank television screen. “We parent together.In this house.But we’re not together. You get the guest room.We… we figure out how to be friends.Maybe. Eventually.”
“Simone, I—” he started, but she held up a hand.
“Don’t.” The word was quiet but final.“Don’t apologize again.Don’t promise to change. Just do it.Live it.Be the father Micah needs. Be… be whatever you’re going to be.But don’t do it for me. Not anymore.”
The finality of it was a clean, cold slice.It hurt more than Danny’s punch, more than any screaming fight. It was the sound of a door closing, not with a slam, but with a soft, irrevocable click.“Okay,” he breathed.They drank their tea in the greying light. The ordinary sounds of the waking world began to filter in—a distant car alarm, the hum of the refrigerator, the rustle of the tree outside the window.Their shared life was dissolving into components, into logistics.
“I have a clinical rotation all day,” Simone said, setting her mug down. “Then I’m studying at the library until nine. Can you handle Micah?”
“Of course,” he said, the “yes, dear” instinct still there, now devoid of its intimacy.
“His schedule is on the fridge.Bottles are prepped.Just… follow the schedule.”
He nodded. A transaction.A transfer of duties.
She stood and walked back toward the bedroom, pausing in the doorway.She didn’t look back. “The sheets,” she said, her voice barely audible.“Strip the bed.Wash them.Please.”
Then she was gone. The instruction hung in the air, mundane and utterly brutal.Erase the evidence.Wash away the last time.
He sat until he heard the shower start.Then he moved like an automaton. He went into the bedroom, now flooded with sterile morning light. The room still held the warmth of their bodies, the intimate scent of sex and sorrow.He avoided looking at the tangle of sheets. He gathered his clothes from the floor—his jeans, his shirt, the hoodie she had once stolen and never returned. He took them to the guest room, a small, neat space that smelled of dust and disuse.He placed his things in the empty dresser.It took two trips.
Returning to the main bedroom, he faced the bed.The imprint of their bodies was still clear. He took a corner of the top sheet and pulled. The fabric resisted, then yielded, sloughing onto the floor in a linen pool.The bottom sheet followed. He bundled them up, along with the pillowcases, arms full of the crumpled, scent-heavy cotton. He carried the bundle to the laundry closet, shoved it into the washing machine, poured in too much detergent, and started the cycle. The aggressive churning of water began, a mechanical roar drowning out memory.
He stood there, leaning against the humming machine, and finally let the tears come. They were silent, wrenching things that bent him double. He cried for Simone’s strength, for Danny’s broken trust, for Micah’s innocence, for Aaliyah’s devastating loneliness. He cried, mostly, for the person he had believed himself to be—the charismatic, loyal, ambitious Eli—and for the hollowed-out stranger he had become.The wash cycle shifted to a spin. The violent whirring seemed to shake the very foundation of the apartment. He wiped his face on the back of his hand, straightened up, and took a deep, ragged breath.
From down the hall, the baby monitor crackled to life.Not with a cry, but with a soft, exploratory coo. Micah was awake.The day was beginning.Eli walked to the nursery.The door was slightly ajar. Inside, in the crib washed with early sun, Micah waved a fist, his dark eyes wide and curious.He saw Eli and his face broke into a gummy, toothless smile.
“Hey, little man,” Eli whispered, his voice thick. He reached in and lifted his son, settling the warm, solid weight against his shoulder. Micah snuffled into his neck, a tiny, trusting sigh.He carried Micah to the kitchen, following the schedule on the fridge.Bottle. Burp.Playtime.The mechanics of care provided a gridwork over the abyss. As he sat in the quiet living room, feeding his son, the morning sun now blazing full and indifferent through the window, he understood the new shape of his life.It was a room next to hers. It was shared custody under one roof. It was silence where there had been conversation, coordination where there had been passion. It was a bed stripped bare, spinning in a machine, waiting to be made new again.
He looked down at Micah, whose eyes were drifting closed, mouth still working lazily at the nipple. “It’s just us now, kid,” he murmured, not sure if he meant just the two of them, or just himself, utterly and completely alone. The bottle empty, he shifted his son to his shoulder, patting the small back until a milky sigh of satisfaction whispered against his ear.He was anchor and adrift, all at once. The washing machine in the hall finished its final spin and fell silent.A new kind of quiet filled the house. He held onto his son, and waited for whatever came next.
The months that followed were built from routines as flimsy as scaffolding. Eli moved through them with a focused, mechanical precision.He attended every class, his notes meticulous. He ran every morning, the punishing slap of his sneakers on pavement emptying his mind. He lifted weights in the campus gym until his muscles burned and shuddered, replacing one kind of ache with another.At home, he adhered to the unspoken rules of their coexistence.The guest room became his cell, monastic and tidy. He interacted with Simone only in the shared spaces of parenting: the bathtub, the highchair, the living room floor during tummy time.A strange, cordial peace settled between them.It was thinner than air, brittle as old glass, but it held.Simone did seem lighter. She hummed in the kitchen while making Micah’s purees.She laughed more easily at his babbles, a sound Eli hadn't realized was absent until it returned, bright and unforced.She bought a new plant for the windowsill.She left her textbooks sprawled across the coffee table again, a sign of re-claimed comfort.
Their family time—a term Eli used only in his head—felt like a curated museum exhibit. Sundays were for shared walks to the park.They would take turns pushing the stroller, making polite observations about the weather or a new storefront.They were impeccable co-pilots, navigating the map of their son’s needs with cool proficiency.
Eli didn’t ask about her life outside the apartment.She never volunteered.He saw the looks sometimes, when she thought he wasn’t looking. Not of anger, but of assessment, as if she was confirming her decision daily.He buried himself in political theory, in sets of deadlifts, in the sheer exhaustion that guaranteed dreamless sleep.
One evening, the air in the apartment was particularly still.Micah was down for the night. Simone was on the couch, scrolling through her phone, a half-empty mug of tea beside her.Eli stood in the kitchen doorway, drying a bottle.“I’m gonna start dating,” she said.Her voice was casual, conversational, as if announcing she was going to try a new recipe.
The dish towel stopped moving in Eli’s hands.The world didn’t tilt, but it slowed, details sharpening: the frayed edge of the towel, the soft glow of her phone screen on her face, the faint, pulsing hum of the refrigerator.He forced his hand to start rubbing the bottle again.“Okay,” he said, the word coming out neutral, flat. “That sounds… great.You deserve that.”
She looked up from her phone, meeting his eyes. Her gaze was clear, almost compassionate.“You do too, Eli. Seriously.” She took a sip of her tea, her movements calm, resolved.“I’ll be transparent, obviously.If anything were to ever become serious. For Micah’s sake.Just so there’s no… surprise.”
“Yeah. No.Of course. Transparency is good.” The words felt like blocks of wood tumbling from his mouth.He hung the towel on its hook, the action absurdly deliberate.“I’m, uh… I’m gonna go for a run.Clear my head. I’ll be back.”
“It’s gonna rain,” she said, not unkindly.
“Good,” he replied, and was out the door before she could say anything else.
The night air was thick, charged.He started running immediately, no warm-up, his legs driving hard against the pavement.His breath sawed in and out, matching the rhythm of his feet.He didn’t think. He just ran, past the lit windows of other people’s lives, past the shuttered campus buildings, the burn in his lungs a welcome substitute for feeling.
The first fat drops of rain hit as he reached the edge of the campus green. It wasn’t a shower, but a sudden, passionate downpour.It soaked through his shirt in seconds, plastering it to his skin.He slowed to a jog, then a walk, head down, water streaming from his hair.He was just a man standing in the rain, utterly invisible.
“Eli?”
The voice cut through the drumming water.He turned, wiping his eyes.His breath caught.
Under the scant cover of a large oak tree, wrapped in a denim jacket, stood Aaliyah. Her curls were beaded with moisture, her face a mix of surprise and concern.The light from a distant streetlamp caught the gold in her eyes.She looked real, solid, in a world that had just become liquid.
“Li,” he said, the name a puff of steam in the cool rain.
“You’re gonna get struck by lightning,” she said, taking a step toward him.“Or catch pneumonia. What are you doing out here?”
He just shook his head, water flying from his temples.He had no answer that wouldn’t break him open right there on the sidewalk.He looked at her, this woman whose presence had unraveled his life, and in the drowning dark, she looked like the only anchor left.
He looked at her, this woman whose presence had unraveled his life, and in the drowning dark, she looked like the only anchor left."Come on," she said, her voice almost lost to the downpour. He moved under the tree, the thick branches a frail shield that still allowed a fine, cold mist to dust their skin.
They stood there for a moment, just listening to the relentless percussion on the leaves above.The air smelled of wet earth and ozone. "You look like hell," she finally said, a small, tentative smile touching her lips.
"Feel like it," he admitted, running a hand over his soaked head."Been better."Classes?" she asked, leaning her shoulder against the rough bark."Fine.Manageable. The reading’s endless but it’s... it’s something to focus on."He paused, water dripping from his chin. "How about you?Still liking the poetry seminar?"Loving it, actually. We’re dissecting contemporary stuff, really raw language."She pulled her jacket tighter. "It’s one of the few things that doesn’t feel like I’m just going through motions."
He nodded, understanding the sentiment completely.They lapsed into silence, the rain filling the space between them. A shiver ran through him, part cold, part residual adrenaline."And...Micah?" she asked, her tone softening."How’s all that?"Micah’s... he’s perfect. He’s the best part of every day."Eli found a real smile, brief but genuine. "It’s crazy hard, the sleeplessness, the constant worry. But you pick him up and he just... smiles at you.Like you hung the moon."
"He’s lucky to have you," she said quietly.The comment landed with a dull ache. "Trying to be someone he can be lucky to have," Eli murmured, looking out at the silver sheets of rain. The quiet stretched, comfortable yet charged.Aaliyah shifted her weight."And...Simone?"
He took a deep breath, the damp air filling his lungs."We’re not together anymore." The words were simple, factual.Saying them aloud to her felt like the final stamp on a document.
She blinked, her eyes widening slightly."What? Eli, I... I didn’t know.I’m sorry."Don’t be.It was...necessary." He shrugged, the movement stiff."We share the apartment.We parent.That’s the arrangement. It’s civil."Oh," she breathed out, her gaze searching his face. He could see the calculations happening behind her eyes, the re-mapping of his world. A silence fell, different from the last.It was thick, tangible. She reached out, her hand hovering before it lightly touched his wet forearm.The contact was electric against his chilled skin."That must be so hard. Every day."Her empathy was a gentle pressure on a bruise. He looked down at her hand, then up into her eyes.The gold flecks seemed to catch all the available light in the gloom. Her lips were slightly parted.He could feel the warmth of her breath in the cool air. They were close, so much closer than he’d realized.
A current passed between them, a live wire humming back to life.It was a pull as undeniable as gravity. He watched her gaze drop to his mouth.His own did the same.The rain faded to a dull roar. Every nerve in his body was tuned to the scant inch separating them.He leaned in.She leaned in.
Their foreheads were almost touching.He could smell the rain on her skin, something underneath like sage and vanilla.
He stopped.Eli stepped back, the movement sudden and decisive, breaking the fragile orbit. "I can't," he said, the words rasping from his throat."I'm not ready for that. Not yet."Aaliyah flinched as if physically pushed. A flush crept up her neck, her eyes flashing with a mix of hurt and immediate understanding. She crossed her arms, looking away into the rain."Right.Of course. Sorry, I just—"
"No, Li, don't apologize."He ran a hand over his face, pushing away water and frustration. "It's not you.God, it's not you at all.I would... I would like to. But I'm a mess.I'm still figuring out how to stand up straight." He made himself meet her eyes again, willing her to see the truth in his. "The last thing I want to do is grab onto you because I'm drowning. You deserve more than being someone's life raft."She studied him, her initial embarrassment softening into something sadder and wiser. She gave a slow, small nod."I get it.I do.The timing's all wrong."
"It really, really is," he said, his voice thick.She offered a weak smile. "Go get dry.Don't actually get pneumonia."Yeah." He lingered for one more second, imprinting the sight of her there under the tree, a portrait in silver and shadow. Then he turned and jogged back into the rain, the cold feeling clean this time, purposeful.
The apartment was quiet, save for the hum of the dishwasher.Light spilled from the living room. Simone was on the couch, a textbook open but ignored on her lap, her phone in her hand. She looked up as he dripped onto the entryway tile."Good run?" she asked, her tone carefully neutral."Good enough."He peeled off his soaked shoes."Ran into Aaliyah, actually. Under a tree by the quad."Simone’s eyebrows lifted a fraction. "Ooh," she said, a single, flat syllable. She looked back at her phone, her thumb scrolling absently.He saw her jaw tighten, just for a second. Then she pushed it down, that familiar, formidable composure settling back into place."How was that?"
"Wet," he said, walking toward the bathroom."We just talked.Caught up."
He closed the bathroom door, stripped off the cold, clinging clothes, and stepped into a shower so hot it turned his skin pink. The water beat the chill from his bones but did nothing for the low hum of restless energy left in his muscles.
Later, wrapped in a towel slung low on his hips, he stepped out into the hallway, rubbing another through his hair.Simone was filling a glass of water at the kitchen sink. She glanced over."Just talked, huh?" she said, turning to lean against the counter."Just talked," he confirmed, stopping in the hallway. The ambient light from the kitchen cut across the planes of his chest and shoulders. Months of punishing gym time had reshaped him, layering muscle over a frame that had been lean, now solid.
Her gaze, which had been scanning his face, drifted down. It stuck for a half-second on the defined line of his collarbone, the clear taper of his waist above the towel.Her eyes widened, almost imperceptibly. It wasn't attraction he saw, but a kind of startled recognition, the acknowledgment of a change she hadn't been close enough to witness.
She quickly averted her eyes, taking a swift sip of water."That's good," she said, her voice slightly hurried. "I'm glad it was...civil."She pushed off from the counter, not looking at him again. "I'm heading to bed.'Night, Eli."Goodnight, Simone," he said softly.
She walked quickly past him, down the hall to her room. Her door closed with a soft, definitive click. Eli stood in the silent hallway, the towel the only barrier against the quiet chill of the house, the ghost of Aaliyah's almost-kiss still warm on his lips, and the newly noticed distance in Simone's eyes stretching out before him like an unmarked road.