On Sunday, Lafayette hired a moving team to help move all of my furniture first thing in the morning. I didn't have a whole lot of actual personal possessions. I only had two totes worth and then all of my clothing. At my parents' house, I had a lot more stuff I always wanted to move into my apartment. Even though my new place was a studio, it was still spacious, so I figured maybe I'd actually be able to bring more of my stuff.
Lafayette forced some of his furniture onto me, which I appreciated. When walking into the apartment, we first entered into the kitchen and the tall counter made a nice, natural divide from the kitchen to what I deemed the "living room" area. A small table fit in the center of the kitchen, but I also had two barstools to put at the counter as well. In the living room, I put my new pull-out couch against the wall, a quirky rug, a coffee table in the center, a conjoined lamp and side table next to the couch, and then a small, comfy armchair perpendicular to the couch. I put a long, storage TV stand against the other wall across from the couch and put the TV that Lafayette gave me on that.
To divide the living room area from the bedroom area, I put a four by four cube storage unit behind the armchair and then my bed on the other side. I used the unit with some cube boxes to hold different stuff and then used some for decor items I planned on buying. I put my wardrobe across from the bed. The wardrobe was pretty big because I had a lot of clothing. I had to store some underneath the bed as well. Lastly, I put my desk against the window that looked out onto the city.
It was well into the evening when I finished getting everything set up to a comfortable position to stop for the day. So we ordered Indian food and ate in my new living room.
"Thanks for all of your help," I said.
"It's not a problem," he said.
A part of me still worried that he was mad at me and hated me and was planning to fire me. I was also embarrassed for being so drunk on Saturday. I barely remembered anything. I remember crying in an Uber with Owen and then waking up in the middle of the night at Lafayette's. Everything in between was a blur. "You promise you don't hate me?" I asked.
Lafayette sighed, looking at me, trying not to smirk at my irrationality. "I promise. I do not hate you. I've actually never hated you ever," he said.
"Good. Do you think I'm annoying?"
He stirred his chicken tikka masala and side eyed me. "Not generally."
"But right now you do?" I asked, smiling.
"Maybe a little. Can I eat now?"
I nodded. "Of course."
We ate and watched another episode of the latest show we were binge watching. I tried to not think about how we weren't going to be able to do this anymore. But I couldn't not think about it. So I started to get mopey. It didn't take long for Lafayette to notice.
"What's wrong?" he asked. "I promise I'm not mad at you."
"No, it's not that," I said. "I'm just bummed. It's been fun watching shows with you and eating dinner with you. I mean, I know we shouldn't do this anyway because obviously some boundaries have been crossed, but still..."
"I know. I'll miss it too. I haven't hung out in a casual way with anyone in a long time," he said. "I haven't just relaxed with anyone in forever. Relaxing is hard for me."
I sighed deeply. "I don't have many friends, so it sucks that we can't be friends," I said.
"Em, we...I..." He bit his bottom lip, thinking, looking really cute. "How about, once or twice a week we stay a little late at the office, like we do so often, and we eat dinner and watch something? Maybe Tuesdays and Thursdays we can stay late, but Monday, Wednesday, and Friday you are out of the office before six. Sound good?"
I nodded. "Yeah, that sounds nice," I said. "But, you also have to quit working before six. I know you sleep at the office or whatever, but no work."
"I can do that."
"Also..."
"Yeah?"
"I was thinking..." I said. "Do you think you could maybe sleep on my couch tonight? I'm nervous about staying in this place alone. You can say no."
"Sure, I can stay the night," he said. "Just tonight."
I nodded. "Thank you."
We lounged around my apartment for an hour before we decided to go to Ikea before they closed to get some decor. We stopped at his place so he could grab some clothes and a toothbrush. When we came back, we sat on the couch again, each scrolling on our phones in silence. I perused Twitter while he played Tetris.
A thought popped into my head. "Faye?" I said.
"Yeah?" he asked, still playing intently.
"I have a question, but you don't have to answer it. It's just, there was something I overheard. I guess it's not really a question, but...I didn't know you had a sister that passed away."
He put his phone down, leaning his head against the couch. "Yeah, I don't talk about it much," he said. "Her name was Delphine. She died when she was twelve."
"I'm sorry," I said. "What Richard had said...it's not true, by the way."
Lafayette nodded. "Yeah, believe it or not that didn't really get to me. My mother was devastated when she died. She's been through a lot," he said. "I think about her all the time. She would be twenty-nine right now. I'm sure she would've been famous somehow."
"I'm sorry," I said again. He was speaking softly. I could tell he cared about her a lot, missed her. It made me sad.
"I was her favorite sibling. She'd come into my bedroom when she was scared, which was a lot. We had similar fears and problems," he said. He glanced at me, then down. "She ended up committing suicide. We were all devastated."
My hands shook. "That's really sad," I said, thinking of Kenneth. He had been fourteen.
"Yeah...My poor mother," he said. "I..."
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing, it's nothing," he said, almost whispering.
"You can tell me, but you don't have to."
He took a deep breath. "When I was thirteen, about a month after my birthday, I tried to kill myself. I was unsuccessful. I think a part of me just wanted to go to sleep for a very long time. So I spent my last semester of seventh grade at a facility. It wracked up a lot of debt for my parents, but my mother insisted. We were transferred to a new school. I finished eighth grade. I became friends with Michael and Emilio. Things were going okay. My father was in AA. I started high school. Then the summer before sophomore year, when I was fifteen, she was twelve, she killed herself. My mother was so devastated that she became physically unwell for a while. I started working. Clovis started working. We all did because my mother had been working two jobs just to get by. My father ended up working more too to take care of us. Eventually, Mom got better, but she was never the same."
Of course, I had a few tears forming. "Faye," I said. "I never knew that's what your childhood was like."
"It wasn't easy. I wish I had been a better son and brother," he said. "I wish I had spoken up more, been there more."
"Spoken up about what?" I asked.
He looked at me, right in the eyes, searching. "I'm not sure I can tell you."
I nodded. "That's fine. You don't have to, but I'm here for you if you ever need to get something off your chest. I don't mind. I can't be your therapist but I can at least listen."
"Thanks, Em," he said.
"I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you were unsuccessful."
He smiled softly. "Me too. Some days I wish I had been successful, but I haven't had a day like that in a long time. I think I've finally reached the point where I don't want to hurt myself. Maybe that's why I let Richard call me and tell me the things he did. Someone else would hurt me instead. I don't know. It was a controlled hurt, you know? But I guess it's not as controlled as I thought."
"You should try a controlled joy instead," I said, hugging my knees.
"I should," he said, his eyes steady on mine.
Our eyes lingered too long on each other, so I turned away. "We have work tomorrow morning so we need to sleep," I said. "I will not enable your poor sleeping habits."
"Hey," he said, throwing his hands up.
"Just being honest," I said, going into the bathroom to brush my teeth. As I started to brush, he came in and wet his toothbrush, adding toothpaste, and brushed as well. He elbowed me out of the way to stand in front of the sink, making me laugh. We spit at the same time and he washed his mouth with mouthwash while I flossed. Then I used mouthwash and he flossed, continually elbowing me out of the way.
When I climbed into bed, I couldn't help but think about Lafayette climbing in with me. I had to get the thought out of my head, but it wasn't easy when he was getting into the pull-out bed next to me. I could climb in with him if I really wanted to, but these were totally inappropriate thoughts so I shook them out of my head.
"Good night, Faye," I said.
He turned off the light and said, "Good night, Emmy."