Man on the Inside

7

He receives a text from an unknown number that very night, and he stares at it with uncomprehending confusion.

Can you meet me tonight?

He knows who it is, exactly and specifically, without question. There are multiple reasons that he responds anyway with, sorry, who is this?

One reason is that he's slightly worried about the cases in which he's wrong about Artemy Volkov. There are worlds in which he's perfectly fine with killing people, or otherwise silencing Brontë before he can do anything. Another reason is that Brontë's answer to the question is a resounding no.

He's sitting in the car, looking at the house he used to live in. It was Debbie's house, and it always felt like it. Her parents bought it for her- that was just the kind of family she grew up in, the kind who could throw money away like that- and he was never going to try and take it from her just because he legally could. He had no desire to be needlessly cruel. He felt like he'd already treated her like that, for reasons he could never pin down. Maybe he just felt guilty that he couldn't give her what he'd promised.

He looks at the wine he bought. He knows she only drinks white, but he knows nothing about Steven, so he's just got something he knows Debbie likes. Which is stupid, because now he's sitting here wondering if that's somehow inappropriate.

So he texts Nimm. I got the wine I know she likes but now I feel like it's too much.

She texts back almost instantly. Are you still freaking out about this?

It was on her advice that he did this. I just want to make a good impression.

I think if you don't yell at her boyfriend for no reason, or do something equally stupid, you'll be fine.

He sighs and stares at the bottle. He doesn't exactly have any second opinions he can get. He's got the guys at the precinct, who like to pat him on the back and ask how he's doing and invite him out for drinks, but he can't talk to them. At least he can talk to Nimm, even if she gives him pointless and unhelpful advice.

His phone dings again. Seriously, I don't think it actually matters. Nobody is thinking about it as hard as you are.

Slightly helpful advice. Just as he's opening the door, his phone dings again.

...from the unknown number. You know who it is.

Does it have to be tonight? Brontë texts back, his heart in his throat. He saves the number as Art, and the response isn't immediate, so he turns his phone to silent.

It's weird, to see that contact in his phone. He closes it out like that magically makes it no longer real.

Stepping up to the door as a guest is still disconcerting. He lived in this house for about fifteen years- he put this screen door up himself. He used to tell people to mind the step up constantly; he remembers where that dint in the doorframe came from, when they were moving Ricky's new bed inside and it tipped sideways out of their hands. He never got around to fixing it, and he supposes Debbie didn't in the several months since he left. Why would she? That dint will probably be there forever, that single thin cut in the white-painted wood.

Debbie answers the door. She smiles, and Brontë wonders, as he often does, if he's doing divorce the way he's meant to; are they supposed to hate each other? What does it mean if he missed her, but isn't aching for her every moment? "Hey, Neil. You're a little early."

"Am I too early?"

"Not at all," she says, swinging the door open for him. It hasn't been that long since he's seen her, but every time he does, something is a little different- such that when he compares the woman in front of him to the woman he divorced last year, they have very little in common. She's lost a fair amount of weight, she's dressing nicer, there's blonde highlights in her hair, and now it's shorter, around her shoulders. "Come on in. Is that...?"