Chương 1 - Đường Về Nhà Đầy Nước Mắt

By the time I got home, my jeans were soaked to the knees.

Chicago was under a flash-flood warning, the rain was coming down sideways, and I had just walked almost half a mile from a public garage because my best friend had parked across my space again.

When I opened the door to my condo, Megan was sitting at my kitchen table with my fiancé.

They were trying to decide what to order for dessert.

Ryan looked up first.

“Jesus, Claire.”

He stood, grabbed a towel from the laundry room, and handed it to me.

Megan twisted around in her chair.

“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

She made that little embarrassed face I’d seen a hundred times.

“I was trying not to get too close to Ryan’s car. You know how bad I am at parking.”

I stood there dripping on the hardwood.

Ryan rubbed my arm with the towel like I was a wet dog.

“Next time just use the public garage if you can’t get in. Don’t make Megan feel worse about it.”

I looked at him.

Then at her.

Megan had parked in stall 119.

Ryan’s car was in 120.

Mine was supposed to go in 118.

Except Megan had left almost three feet of empty space between her passenger side and Ryan’s car, which meant the rear end of her SUV was angled halfway across the line into my stall.

Again.

“I had to walk in that,” I said.

Ryan glanced toward the window.

“I know. That sucks.”

Megan leaned forward.

“I really am sorry. I scraped Ryan’s car that one time, and now I get nervous.”

The scrape had been eight months earlier.

A six-inch mark on Ryan’s passenger door.

He’d gotten it buffed out for less than two hundred dollars.

Since then, Megan had apparently decided Ryan’s vehicle needed a protective force field.

My vehicle did not.

Ryan squeezed my shoulder.

“Next time, Megan, park closer to me.”

Then he looked at me like the problem had been resolved.

“See? Fixed.”

I didn’t argue.

That was the part I’m embarrassed to admit.

I didn’t yell.

I didn’t ask Megan to go downstairs and move her car.

I didn’t ask Ryan why my inconvenience had somehow become the easiest solution every single time.

I just said, “I need a shower.”

Megan called after me.

“I made salmon. The kind you like.”

Of course she had.

Megan had been my closest friend since college.

We’d been roommates sophomore year. She’d held my hair when I had food poisoning. I’d driven six hours to pick her up after her first serious boyfriend dumped her.

When she moved back to Chicago after another bad breakup the previous year, I was the one who told her there was an apartment available in our building.

Three months later, Ryan helped her get an interview at his company.

Six months after that, she was working as a project coordinator on his operations team.

And somewhere along the way, Megan stopped feeling like my friend who happened to know my fiancé.

She became part of our daily life.

At first, I liked it.

Ryan and Megan got along.

I didn’t have to choose between my relationship and my friendship.

If I worked late, they’d sometimes grab groceries together.

If Megan needed help assembling furniture, Ryan would go upstairs.

If I traveled for work, Megan had a spare key to our condo in case a package needed to be brought inside or building maintenance needed access.

Then her slippers appeared by our front door.

She said she hated walking barefoot on cold floors.

A bottle of her face wash showed up beside mine in the bathroom.

She said she’d forgotten it once and figured she might as well leave it.

Ryan started buying the vanilla Greek yogurt she liked.

He said it was on sale.

None of those things were worth starting a fight over.

That was how I explained every single one of them.

One by one.

Until I got out of the shower that night and realized I didn’t feel like going back into my own kitchen.

I sat on the edge of the tub in a robe while I heard Ryan and Megan laughing through the wall.

Megan had a loud laugh when she was comfortable.

I knew that laugh better than almost anyone.

For years, it had made me happy.

That night, it made me tired.

When I finally went into the dining area, they’d already started eating.

Megan was sitting beside Ryan instead of across from him.

There was fish on her plate, but she was picking around the bones.

Ryan reached over without looking, took a piece from her plate, pulled out one she’d missed, and put it back.

It was a tiny movement.

Casual.

Automatic.

Like he’d done it before.

Megan noticed me first.

“You’re done.”

Ryan looked up.

“Come eat.”

The air conditioning was blasting.

My hair was still damp.

“I’m freezing.”

Megan had the thermostat remote beside her plate.

Her face changed immediately.

“Oh.”

She looked at Ryan before she looked at me.

“I turned it down because the kitchen got hot. Sorry.”

Then her eyes got shiny.

“You’re still mad about the parking thing, aren’t you?”

“I said I was cold.”

Ryan sighed.

“Claire.”

I stared at him.

“What?”

“Megan cooked dinner after working all day. Can we not do this?”

“Do what?”

He gave me that patient expression people use when they think they’re dealing with someone unreasonable.

“You know what I mean.”

No.

Actually, I didn’t.

But Megan did.

She reached for my hand.

“I’ll be more careful tomorrow.”

Tomorrow.

Like this was already scheduled to happen again.

I sat down.

The food was good.

Megan was a good cook.

They spent most of dinner talking about people at work I didn’t know.

A regional manager named Eric.

Some contractor who kept missing deadlines.

A woman in accounting who was apparently having an affair.

They had inside jokes.

They finished each other’s stories.

Ryan remembered how Megan took her coffee.

Megan knew which client Ryan hated talking to.

I barely spoke.

And for the first time, I looked around my condo and noticed how much of Megan was in it.

Her slippers.

Her cleanser.

Her yogurt.

A phone charger by the couch.

A cardigan hanging over one of the dining chairs.

It wasn’t any one thing.

It was the accumulation.

She hadn’t moved into my home.

She had seeped into it.

And I had helped make room.

My phone buzzed against the table.

It was an email from my director.

I had been staring at the same email for three days.

Our company was opening a new implementation group in Seattle.

They wanted me to lead it.

It was a major promotion.

Higher salary.

Relocation package.

More responsibility.

The kind of career move I normally would have accepted before finishing the email.

But my wedding was in two weeks.

Ryan’s job was in Chicago.

Our entire plan was here.

So I had told my director I needed a few days.

I locked my phone without answering.

Then I looked through the window at the rain.

A stupid thought came into my head.

My bathtub had been exactly the right size for one person.

I almost laughed.

After dinner, Ryan and Megan opened a bottle of wine.

I went into the bedroom.

The next morning, before work, I stopped at the building office.

Our garage spaces weren’t deeded property. They were separate reserved leases managed through the building.

Mine was stall 118.

I’d been lucky to get it because it was close to the elevator.

There was a waiting list.

The building manager, Carlos, looked surprised when I told him I wanted to give it up.

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“You know we probably can’t get it back for you later.”

“I understand.”

He glanced at the screen.

“I’ve got three residents waiting for that section of the garage. I can terminate your lease effective tomorrow.”

“Do it.”

He hesitated.

“Everything okay?”

I smiled.

“Everything’s fine.”

For the first time in months, that sentence almost felt true.

I took the train to work.

That afternoon, our group text lit up.

Megan:

Claire, are you mad at me?

Then:

Seriously please don’t be upset over the parking thing.

Then a crying emoji.

Ryan replied before I did.

She’s buried at work. Stop overthinking it.

Megan:

I just feel awful.

Ryan:

You apologized. It’s fine.

I looked at the screen.

My parking space.

My soaked clothes.

My half-mile walk through a flash flood warning.

And somehow Ryan had just declared the situation fine on my behalf.

I muted the conversation.

The next evening, I got home later than usual.

Megan’s SUV was still crooked.

I didn’t care anymore.

I parked in one of the building’s temporary twenty-minute spaces long enough to go upstairs and grab a package.

As I got close to the condo, I heard voices through the door.

Megan.

“Are you sure?”

Ryan laughed.

“I already signed for it.”

My hand stopped on the key.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said.

“I wasn’t letting some random person take it. Then where would you park?”

My stomach tightened.

There was a pause.

Megan lowered her voice.

“What happens when Claire finds out?”

“She’ll be annoyed.”

“Ryan.”

“She’ll get over it.”

Megan laughed nervously.

“What if she says I can’t use it?”

Ryan said something that made every muscle in my body go still.

“It’s under my name now. She doesn’t get to decide.”

I opened the door.

They both looked at me.

Ryan was on the couch.

Megan was standing by the kitchen island with a glass of wine.

Neither of them spoke.

I set my purse down.

“Which space is under your name?”

Ryan’s expression changed.

“Claire.”

“Which space?”

Megan put down the glass.

“I should probably go.”

“No.”

I looked at her.

“Stay.”

Ryan stood.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Then answer me.”

He exhaled.

“I picked up 118.”

“My parking space.”

“You gave it up.”

“And you immediately leased it.”

“It was going to somebody else anyway.”

“For Megan.”

“For us.”

I almost laughed.

“Us?”

“You had 118. Megan has 119. I have 120. If some stranger took yours, it would make things harder.”

“For who?”

His jaw tightened.

“You’re doing that thing where you turn something simple into a moral argument.”

“What thing?”

“Claire.”

He rubbed his forehead.

“You didn’t want the space anymore.”

“I didn’t want it because she kept parking in it.”

Megan stepped forward.

“I told you I was sorry.”

I looked at her.

“I know.”

She seemed confused by how calm I sounded.

Ryan continued.

“Okay. So now there’s extra room. Problem solved.”

I stared at him for a few seconds.

He genuinely believed that.

In his mind, he had solved the problem.

I couldn’t use my own space because Megan needed extra room.

So I gave up my space.

Ryan took it.

Now Megan had extra room.

Perfect.

There was no problem anymore because I was no longer part of the equation.

I walked past them and went into the bedroom.

Ryan followed me.

“What are you doing?”

I pulled my suitcase out of the closet.

He watched me unzip it.

“Claire.”

I started putting clothes inside.

“Would you stop?”

“No.”

“Are you seriously leaving because of a parking spot?”

I folded a sweater.

“Move.”

He put his hand on the suitcase.

“Talk to me.”

I finally looked at him.

“You took the space I gave up because your employee needed more room for her car.”