I looked for sandpaper in my closet to smooth out the rough edges. There were divots in the wood that I couldn’t work into. The blood on my hands, I rubbed it into the cottonwood. I figured I could paint over it, and my blood was a good gift to give Matt.
My phone vibrated. It was Patrick.
—sometimes, frances does get violent, idk. its kinda crazy.
—idgi. why?
—shes just a control freak. you know? she gets angry when she can’t have her way.
Matt started coming by during my breaks at work. He called during his lunch breaks to ask if I was working the evening shift, and I usually was. I saw him walking up before he got into the store. The sky was this blue-gray color, the sun setting. You never see it set on the horizon here. It sets over the mountains—Pikes Peak, specifically, the closest mountain to the city. Everyone moves here because they think it’s beautiful, but it’s not. It’s not romantic, because the city is full of decrepit buildings that crowd the view. Dozens of car-sale complexes sit in the foothills, and behind that, the houses of rich people who never have to drive into the potholed neighborhoods below.
Matt had his hands in his hoodie pockets and followed his feet with his eyes. We locked stares through the glass when he got to the door. I finished ringing up the customer I had and turned to look at Jenny at the other register, her bangs in her face, ringing up video games and smiling at customers. Without missing a beat, she nodded at me.
“Go,” she said. “I’ll cover you.”
I stopped in the backroom to quickly check my phone.
—what are you doing tonight?
Another text from Patrick.
—can’t talk now, later sweet thing I texted back. I had begun using pet names to tempt him into opening up to me, to gather intel.
Outside in the cold, I shivered in my polo and khakis even though the sun was shining. A sudden cold snap had hit. We were just around the corner of the building, out of sight. Matt stood an arm’s length away from me and I leaned against the concrete of the building, resting my head against the wall.
“I love coming to see you,” Matt said.
I moved closer to him. I wanted to feel the bass of his voice reverberate through his chest when he said the words “love” and “you.”
“I want to see you alone,” I said. “Like, more often, not just this.”
I knew I was crossing a line. It was something I felt I shouldn’t demand, as the other woman. As a woman trying to get something from him. He had to want to give things to me.
“We will,” he said. “I’m trying to find time.”
I asked myself if he really loved Frankie. If maybe he wanted me because I treated him more sweetly. I asked nothing of him. When you don’t live with someone, you don’t get to see their imperfect facets. The mean side of them. The impatient, ungrateful side. Those things are revealed later, often when it’s too late. It was easy to see why he might want me, why I might be an uncomplicated addition to his life. I was molding myself to some image, trying to be better than what he already had. In these limited moments, he was able to project what he wanted onto me. I was happy to let him have whatever idea of me he wanted. Jealousy came from the fear of being replaced. I was The Replacer.
“It’s just harder now to control my feelings,” I told him, an unusual admission of truth. I had thought the truth would set me free, but it had not. I felt more trapped than before. The brainbloom of my obsession with him took up too much space in my head. I had become attached, and there was nothing I could do to go back.
I did not know what I expected him to say. I hooked my finger into his belt loop, tugged him a little closer to me. I bit my bottom lip and looked up at him. It was like a math equation, the way to charm him.
“Don’t you want me?” I asked.
I wanted to see what kind of sway I had over him. Our bodies near each other. In my head, we could be falling for each other and that meant I was winning. I had a feeling he would leave Frankie. He seemed to want to escape her. I wanted to escape the city. I saw no reason why we couldn’t run away together. We could move away from this town, away from Frankie, away from Sam, from the jobs we had and the blight of Colorado Springs and my mom’s trailer. A place of our own, our own wraparound velvet couch in some garden-level apartment. I even imagined taking the baby. We would be a family. Someday, he and I would share that one-bedroom apartment with Jett in the crib.
Someday I’d be calling Matt Daddy and he’d answer only to me.
“I do, I want you,” he said, his pouty mouth soft and relaxed. “I just need some time.”
A few weeks had passed since the rave. His
