“It’s this ranch?” 

​

Miriam nods. “You’ve been here before.” Her voice from the passenger seat is quiet. She is still waking up. Mostly, she has just sipped coffee from her travel cup, her lips hovering at the lid like a hummingbird at a feeder. 

​

I slow the truck, which belongs to my brother, Trevor, and nestle it up to the curb. I look over at Miriam and see she’s nodding again and taking another sip of coffee. Her eyes are almost closed. Her eyelids look puffy. It’s from crying.

​

I put the truck in park and turn the key in the ignition, quieting the engine. “I don’t remember. Did he throw a party or something?” 

​

Miriam closes her eyes and tosses her head back on the headrest. Her dark hair is pulled into a ponytail. Her skin looks dewy, and she hasn’t bothered with make-up. Neither have I. It’s almost six a.m.—too early on a Sunday to be doing something hard, but here we are. 

​

“No,” she says. She’s reaching down to unbuckle her seatbelt. I see her chest rise under her parka, like she’s steeling herself for the cold, for what we’re about to do. 

​

I exit the truck and wait for Miriam to come around to the driver’s side so we can walk up to the house together. The house is a brown ranch tucked near the corner of a quiet street not too far from campus. 

​

“We came here for that other thing,” she says. “Remember?”

​

It was in October—last Halloween, or close to it.

​

Eric had told Miriam he was going away for the weekend, but the two of them had been fighting for a week, and something he’d said had struck her as fishy. 

​

That Saturday, she swore she saw his car at the mall. Her suspicions got the best of her. She’d called him on his cell five times—he never answered. Then she felt embarrassed, drank too much vodka, and had me drive us to his house that night. 

​

She was convinced she would see Eric’s car in his driveway that night. Apparently, he never parked in the garage, just used it for storage. 

​

Or, she’d told me, she would see someone else’s car in the driveway.

​

But that night in late October, we’d driven to Eric’s house and had found nothing more than an empty driveway.

​

Just like this morning. 

​

I don’t relive the memory for Miriam, but I say, “I do remember now,” as we walk up the driveway, leaving footprints in the fresh snow. Miriam has jammed her hands in her pockets, and I wish I hadn’t left my coffee in the truck. 

​

It feels like we’re about to case the joint as she crouches down and peels back the corner of the brown welcome mat. There is a small key under the mat. It isn’t on a keychain—it’s just a lonely key Miriam struggles to pick up until she rips her glove off. She stands up, pushes the key into the lock, and turns the doorknob.

​

“Come on in,” Miriam says. She sounds bitter. 

​

I have the same feeling I did last night when she came home from Eric’s place crying, details of their fight and the words it’s over spilling out between sobs. 

​

I want to wrap Miriam in my arms and hug her, but I don’t, because although I know she knows I love her, her love language isn’t physical touch. Mine is. 

​

“Welcome,” she says. “Home sweet shit pile.”

​

She keeps her coat on as she walks straight to Eric’s bedroom. Eric is at a friend’s house, according to Miriam. 

​

In a few hours, it will be much lighter outside—not to mention warmer. But Miriam had wanted to go first thing in the morning, and my brother had acquiesced with his truck till he needed it around noon.

Maybe after this, we could go back to the apartment and take naps. 

​

Or get breakfast. More coffee. Stop at the store and buy Bloody Mary mix, eat scrambled eggs with toast.

​

We are only one week into our last semester as undergrads, so my plans for the day are thin: finish a short essay; call my mother. Maybe go for a run.

​

Without instructions regarding what to do with myself, I survey Eric’s space as though it will give me more context for their break-up.

​

It’s not too messy, I think—his kitchen.

​

I open Eric’s refrigerator. Two white take-out containers—the cheap clamshell kind that let air in and do little to keep leftover food fresh—greet my eyes. There are six cans of Budweiser. A tub of fake butter.

​

I oscillate between thinking this house is actually nice and thinking this house is some kind of a crime scene, and I am disturbing it. 

​

Eric’s countertops house the usual appliances. I spot a can opener, silver and unobtrusive. A Mr. Coffee. A toaster. There’s a small table against the wall, underneath the window. It’s just big enough for two chairs, and I walk over to it to get a closer look.

​

There’s a pile of mail, unopened. I consider picking up the envelope on top, but I don’t. It looks like junk, addressed to Eric A. Anderson. I wonder what the A stands for. I think about his name: Eric A. Anderson. It feels light, weightless. Mostly vowels. The kind of name that feels like water.

​

I never actually met Eric A. Anderson. I never learned if he was cheating on Miriam back in October, and neither did she. And even though she spilled her guts last night, if someone asked me to articulate the reason the two of them had broken up, I knew I wouldn’t be able to. 

​

“Jaimie?” Miriam calls. 

​

I leave the kitchen and follow her voice down a dark hallway.

​

We haven’t bothered with the lights, and when I get to Eric’s bedroom, it’s no different.

​

Miriam has moved the desk—the one we’re here for.

​

It’s a teal antique someone put on the side of Eric’s street around Christmas. She’d dragged it into his place all by herself. 

​

She’s pulled one end away from the wall so it’s sitting awkwardly at a 45-degree angle. Around his floor, there are clothes and books and folders, plus an oversize navy beanbag. His bed—a queen—isn’t made, and his gray paisley sheets are in full view, which feels somehow like a violation.

​

I admire the desk for a second. It’s lovely. There are flourishes of pink paint—fleur-de-lis—decorating the outside of the drawers. Pretty clear glass handles, too. It isn’t in bad shape. I can see why Miriam had wanted to save it from the roadside, and I can see why she wanted to rescue it from her ex-boyfriend’s house, too.

​

“You think we should remove drawers first?” I ask.

​

“I don’t think so. I think it will go quicker if we just carry it.”

​

Which is arguable. I think I’m right about the fact that it would be easier to carry the desk sans drawers. 

​

But what I say is, “Okay,” and then I’m holding one end of the desk, and we’re awkwardly waddling down the hallway. Miriam is walking backward and I am trying to match the stride and cadence of someone shorter, yet stronger than me. 

​

In the kitchen, we set the teal desk down to regroup, wiggle our fingers. I open the door to the house, then we’re waddling outside with the desk, a probable pair of cat burglars to any neighbors who might be watching.

​

Miriam freezes when we get to the part where we need to hoist the desk into the back of Trevor’s Dakota.

​

“Lay it down on its side?” I offer. “Drawers up?”

​

She hesitates. “I don’t want it to get dirty.” 

​

It’s true that Trevor’s truck isn’t a paragon of cleanliness, but other than some mud dried on the black plastic lining, it’s not too bad.

​

“Well,” I say. “Hmmm.”

​

It’s started snowing again, and fat flakes are falling around us, clinging and clumping together in their descent. It’s going to snow all over this antique desk, since Trevor’s truck has no cover for the back.

“Let’s get a blanket,” Miriam says.

​

“Or some towels,” I offer, thinking, If I were Eric, which would I miss more?

​

“Old towels,” she says in a strike of inspiration. “He has some in the garage. Will you get them? And I’ll get a garbage bag for my clothes.”

​

It occurs to me this isn’t the first time Miriam’s packed her clothes in a hurry, not the first time she’s broken up with a guy she was kind of living with. I’d missed her over the past few months. It had started as her staying with Eric on Saturday nights. But then, it became Tuesday nights, or three nights during the week. 

​

For the time being it seemed, she’d be back to sleeping at our apartment, back to sharing a bedroom with me.

​

And with this old desk.

​

“Where in the garage?” I ask.

​

We’re walking back up to the house. Miriam’s fists are clenched in the cold, and my own fingers feel numb.

​

“There’s a washer-dryer,” she says. “There’s a thing with like a stack of towels.” 

​

I nod, but she doesn’t see me; she’s crouching before his sink on the hunt, I presume, for a Hefty bag.

 

#

​

I open the door to the garage and it’s dark. 

​

Immediately, I’m met with the sight of something I am sincerely and ironically not expecting, which is a car. A dark blue car—small.

​

And a man is sitting on its hood. 

​

A young man in a black puffy coat, holding a cell phone.

​

He’s looking up at me, and he looks surprised, but not shocked. His dark hair is peeking out from under a beanie. He has a smattering of facial hair and striking blue eyes. His coat isn’t zipped, and I think he must be cold.

​

I realize he must have been in here the whole time, which feels creepy. I know he doesn’t know that I looked through his refrigerator, but I feel slimy about having done it just the same.

​

“Oh,” I say. “Hi.”

​

“Hello,” he says slowly. 

​

He doesn’t ask, what are you doing; I presume he’s figured out what we are doing, or at least that I’m here with Miriam.

​

“Sorry,” I say.

​

“It’s okay,” he says. “I told her I wouldn’t be here.”

​

He talks slowly, like he’s taking his time with his words, ensuring they come out evenly. He is fairly attractive, though he had seemed cuter in the pictures I’d seen on Miriam’s phone. Maybe because in those photos, he had smiled. 

​

“Oh,” I say. “Right. Yeah, we’re just here grabbing that desk.” I hesitate for a long second. He’s still holding his phone in his hand, though he isn’t looking at it. Instead, he’s holding my gaze. 

​

“I’m Jaimie.”

​

“Eric.”

​

“Old towels?” I ask. “Or like, old blankets?” I’m thankful in that moment that Miriam has sent me on this quest instead of herself. “It’s snowing.”

​

He nods and slides off the hood of his car.

​

It’s still unclear why he’s home at all, but I don’t press. I’ve already seen too much of his space uninvited, and it’s not really my business why he’s lied to Miriam about being home. 

​

This was the behavior she’d caught on to last fall, I think, as Eric walks over to the left of where I’m standing. There’s a stack of black milk crates, open and filled with half-folded maroon towels next to the washing machine. 

​

Eric A. Anderson isn’t honest. 

​

I take a moment while he’s digging through the towels to examine the rest of the garage, as I had his kitchen. 

​

There’s a workbench along one wall, and it’s got a handful of tools on it, as well as a large black tarp, folded up—the kind you would use to cover a motorcycle. 

​

Eric is handing me towels. A few are frayed at the edges as though they have been trimmed carelessly with scissors. 

​

“That enough?” he asks.

​

“Sure?” I say, although I am not. How does Miriam plan to cover the desk so that it doesn’t get snowed on as we drive home? 

​

I wonder if Eric is thinking about how he’s parting with these towels for forever; I wonder if he cares.

The towels are stacked in my arms now, and I’m standing next to Eric. I notice he’s not wearing shoes, just socks. Once his hands are empty, he sticks his cell in his back pocket and studies me for a second. 

​

I think he’s trying to decide in the dark if I’m pretty. My hair is up in a messy bun and underneath my coat, I’m just wearing a black hoodie and an old pair of jeans. I hadn’t bothered to shower.

Then again, maybe I’m wrong and Eric’s not thinking anything at all, and I’m just standing in his garage, holding his crappy towels, unsure of what to say.

​

“Thanks,” feels right, though, so I say it.

​

 “I have more,” he says, nodding to the black milk crates.

​

“You have a nice place,” I say, and I am not sure exactly why. Perhaps I want to offer an apology for violating his privacy. 

​

“Thanks,” he chuckles. “I’m not home much.”

​

“Yeah?” I realize I never asked Miriam where he works. She’s only ever offered that he’s still in school—part-time, in addition to working.

​

I could ask him, I think, but the energy and the vibe around him has built what feels like an invisible wall, and while I don’t feel the overwhelming urge to get away from Eric, I don’t want him to let me in on any of his evasions.

​

I say, “Thanks again.”

​

He walks over to the car and sits back down on its hood, assuming the same relaxed position as before. “And Jasmine?”  

​

I turn around. 

​

But I don’t correct him.

​

“Are you going to tell her?” 

​

I can’t tell what’s behind his smile—if he wants me to say yes, if he wants me to say no. 

​

If he wants my confidence, if he’s asking for it. Or, if he doesn’t care at all, and he’s just curious—testing how close Miriam and I are. 

​

It strikes me then that he must remember my name. I am Miriam’s best friend, and she has definitely talked about me, and the odds that he’d get my name wrong—even though he hadn’t been expecting to meet me—seem suddenly small. 

​

It also strikes me that he has not asked if she’s okay. He doesn’t care about the towels. He doesn’t care how Miriam is doing today.

​

And he’s lied to her. How many times did he lie to her? Did he lie about big things, or just small things? Why would he lie to Miriam, ever? 

​

“You know what? Actually, I’ll take that tarp.”

​

He looks at me quizzically but follows my gaze to the workbench. 

​

“That tarp?” he repeats. He looks confused.

​

“Yeah.” I walk over to the workbench and set down his towels. I pick up the heavy black tarp and hold it awkwardly. It’s heavier than I thought it would be. 

​

Eric looks sheepish, but he doesn’t say anything.

​

With the tarp in my arms, I waddle to the door to the house.

​

“Thanks,” I say. I shut the door behind me, although not fast enough. I clock him sitting back down on the hood of his car, looking at his phone and idly scrolling with his right hand, chuckling as the door finally comes to a close.

 

#

 

I walk down the hallway and out the front door. I spot Miriam by Trevor’s truck, and she’s shoving a large garbage bag into the back seat area. 

​

She brightens when she spots the tarp.

​

“Oooh,” she says. “This is way better. Good work.” 

​

Together we cover the desk with the tarp as best we can, although some snowflakes have already landed on its wooden surface. 

​

Our treasure secure, I walk back to the front door, and with a free, ungloved hand, lock it. I tuck the brass key back under the mat where Miriam had found it.

​

Finally, we’re back in the truck. I turn the key in the ignition, then fasten my seatbelt. 

​

I sneak a look at Miriam as I start to pull away from the curb. She looks exhausted still. She closes her eyes.

​

“Go slow,” she says. “I don’t want it getting damaged. Well,” she adds, “no more damaged than it already is.”

​

“Right,” I say. “Don’t worry. I will.”