10. 

She kissed him anyway.

9.

Nate looked up at Maddie, not expecting anything after the tangled shame he had spilled between them. Like the coffee that day outside the IT office, a meet-cute too much even for rom-coms. She remembers that glint of rueful under his tousled hair and how it made her laugh and do that swoon thing inside. A tickle of, yeah, what did her mother used to say about men like that? He can put his shoes under my bed anytime.

8.

When she looked that question, the what do you want, the what are we even doing here, Nate unlocked. Unspooled the useless stupidity of his actions and non-actions. Everything he hid beneath a shield of witty carelessness since that terrible day. He couldn't pretend anymore with Maddie. He couldn't do that to her. So, he unfolded his heart and realized for the first time in uncountable months, he could remember his child without disappearing.

7.

Allison packed up exactly half of everything that could be measured. Six spoons from the cutlery drawer. One set of flannel sheets. Her pillow from the bed. The emptiness in his life doubled.

6.

Maddie knew she wanted Nate from the first couldn’t-this-have-been-an-email team meeting. His eyeroll across the conference table just for her. Ditto later when they dipped into the data and figured out stuff the senior staff had bumbled. Wit and wisdom, no wedding ring, what did she have to lose? She dropped hints. He ignored them.

5.

She took the corner too fast carrying that grande iced mochaccino. He claimed to never like that shirt anyway. One that Allison had given him for Christmas last year. Not that he needed to tell this woman, the newest member of the team. Nate touched her arm ever so lightly to tell her it's okay, really. She stopped apologizing and fell into his smile.

4.

Now that his world had shattered, Nate couldn't face his own fragility. To avoid Allison, he pivoted to work, his days glassy with fatigue, his nights serrated with second guesses. Nothing for his wife and soon, nothing from her for him.

3.

When he took the job in D.C., they had to switch health insurance. The baby's diagnosis came three months later. Soon they’d be adrift in a cascade of paperwork and cruelty, the last resort treatments floating just beyond reach. There's no way Nate could have known and, indeed, the outcomes may have been the same. But Allison never forgave him. He didn’t forgive himself.

2.

She noticed the lack of wedding ring even though she heard from Cara he might have a kid, a son, she thought, and why do you want to know, Maddie?

1.

She really wanted to kiss him.  



LM Fontanes is a multi-racial, multi-genre storyteller who writes, teaches & leads. Words in/upcoming Underbelly Press, Trash Cat Lit, Roi Fainéant, Frazzled Lit, Silly Goose Press, Temple in a City, Emerge Literary, 100-Foot Crow, JAKE, 34 Orchard, Flash Fiction Festival Anthology, Thomasonian, The Willowherb Review, and long-listed for The Smokey Award and the Frazzled Lit short story prize.

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