OUR BROKEN BEGINNINGS

CHAPTER SEVEN

I concluded that this home couldn't be any more perfect. When we got back into the house, Emerson finished showing me the first floor. There was a formal living room across from the formal dining room. The two large rooms had a hallway leading to the mud room in between them. An office was on the other side of the foyer, opposite of the formal living room.

Dual staircases were placed at least a dozen feet from the front doors, the latter being made of dark brown wood and a large intricately designed crystal pane that took up half of each door. After looking at everything the first floor had to offer, Emerson took me upstairs. There were three rooms upstairs, one being the master. I gathered that the two rooms that we were residing in downstairs were guest rooms. The question did arise in me: Why would Emerson stay in the guest room downstairs rather than the master? I kept quiet as he showed me around each room. None of them had any furniture apart from the master.

The master bedroom was one of the most beautiful rooms in the entire house. A large king bed, with a cream-colored duvet and light green accent pillows and blankets, was placed on the farthest wall from the main entrance, with two large, long windows on either side of it. A beige nightstand was placed underneath each window. To the left of the bed was a small sitting area with a large window seat. There were windows on every wall, filling the room with abundant amounts of natural light.

As soon as you walked through the main white double doors, to the right there were twin sliding barn doors with silver handles that led to the bathroom. The bathroom had a white tile floor and marble countertops accompanied by two round porcelain sinks next to each other with silver faucets. A large, white bathtub was placed across the sinks, and the largest shower I had ever seen was diagonal from it. It had a single slab of white tile with specks of brown scattered throughout each wall, and the shower floor was a smooth brown stone.

On the other side of the shower, another barn door led to the large walk-in closet, which only housed a few articles of male clothing. There was an island in the middle of the room and a wall with built-in slanted rows made for shoes directly across from the door leading into the closet.

As I followed Emerson in and out of each room, no words left me. The only sound I emitted was a quiet gasp when I beheld the master bedroom. Emerson spoke every once in a while to add context to each room or to explain what each room was. He mostly stayed silent, letting me soak in every detail.

There was no basement—though this house was big enough and definitely didn't need one. When Emerson was finally done showing me everything, we made our way back down a staircase that was across the mud room and next to the formal dining room. A set of french doors were on the farthest wall of the family room, which Emerson informed me led to the balcony. I glanced through the doors and saw the couches that wrapped around the small fire pit in the middle. There was also a round armchair placed in the very corner, where you may be able to gaze toward the beautiful trees on the horizon.

I sat down on the couch parallel to the doors and looked toward the TV placed on top of the stone fireplace. It was in the corner of the room at a diagonal angle from the large couch, where Tim had originally placed my bags earlier that morning. I allowed myself to loosen a breath as Emerson casually strolled past me and lowered himself onto the second couch. He leaned his head against the back of the couch and looked up at the ceiling before speaking.

"Do you like it?"

I moved my eyes away from the TV and toward him. I smiled as I said, "I love it. It's perfect. Everything about it is absolutely wonderful."

His mouth spread into a satisfied smile, "I am very happy to hear that. I'm glad you love it."

As I continued to look at him, I remembered the question that bounced around my mind upstairs and decided to ask against my better judgment, "Why are you sleeping down here in one of the guest rooms if the master is upstairs?"