Winners Don't Have Bad Days (Watty 2020 Winner, Romance)

26. #LegoCastle, February 2018

After the door shut into Daya's face, she dashed back to the living room. She wanted to toss the remote into the TV screen. It was its fault for ruining everything! But owing Mike more than she already did would not improve matters.

The things to say, the right things to say crowded her head uselessly. 

With shaking hands, she gathered the dirty dishes and put them into the sink. 

"You surprise me. You're mum when I want you to speak, you won't shut up when I expect silence," she told the dishes.

The plates clanged against the stainless steel, tempting her to break them into pieces instead of rinsing them for the dishwasher. 

"And you're deep, far deeper than I knew I wanted, but the thing is... to the very bottom of you, you want me to be happy. And I want you to be happy too, even if it's as obvious as a tattoo on a rhinoceros' butt."

The dishes lined on the rack—with her help, this wasn't Disney's animated film. 

"Is it so hard to believe that I love you?" With the water shut off, her voice was too loud for an empty apartment.

Too jittery to do anything constructive, she ran to her room, and burrowed her head under the pillow like a child. Mike will be back. They will sort things out. Gods, she'd should have never given in, she should have thrown the bloody skates away instead of hitting her head on the stone wall.

Somehow, she had to get her feelings through Mike's thick skull. She couldn't win with talking points about his awesome qualities. Mike was far, far better at talking than her, so he'd convince himself of the opposite, particularly if she lets him play devil's advocate.

No, it would do no good to play the game where he had every advantage... She had to do something, not say something. 

But what? Sit in front of his doors with a sulky expression? See, I'm not going anywhere, 'cause I love you. Take me in, tell me what's wrong. I'll fix it. I swear, I'll fix it.

She expelled a shuddering sigh. If only the head-long plunges like that worked. 

Deep inside her the inner gears ticked pleasantly at the thought of his room, his smell, his body warmth. She didn't want to sit by his door; she wanted to touch his things, have her cheek on his pillow, inhaling his lingering presence.

It's been a while since she'd been intimate with someone, and she didn't miss it, until Mike teased the desire out. It came back with a vengeance, and she did not feel the slightest shade of embarrassment. Substitute, yeah... it will be back to the way it was... Mike, how can a guy this smart be this stupid?

She rotated the doorknob and stepped inside his room.

Little had changed there, except the model of the LEGO castle was finished. She sat down on Mike's bed, hugged his pillow to her chest and sighed. She was almost at peace. All the fight left her. The exhaustion of having a cry earlier stretched her mouth in a yawn.

What would Mike think if he found her curled around his pillow, asleep on his bed? Knowing him, he'd tiptoe out and sleep on the couch. And things would go unresolved, words unsaid. Where was he anyway? With an annoyed grunt, she looked around again, yawned again.

Maybe she should leave it until tomorrow. Tomorrow would be another day, and maybe Mike would clue in all by himself how stupid his fears were. Yeah, tomorrow... we'll fix it tomorrow. I'll not let it slip back to the way it was.

She pushed up to her feet, and her idle gaze fell on the nightstand drawer. It stood slightly ajar. Instinctively, she tried to slide it shut, but it wouldn't go, something was stuck.

She opened it, looking for obstruction, and sleepiness fled in the blink of an eye.

The drawer had two plastic bags, neatly sealed. One had mini candy bars, like the ones they sell on Halloween, the other held the empty wrappers; the bulging wrappers-bag jammed the drawer. He must have been collecting them until he could smuggle them out of the condo.

Daya half-screamed, half-growled, and yanked the stupid thing out, ripping a tear in the plastic. The silvery wrappers spilled over the floor. She tossed the bag after it, like a rattlesnake and slammed the drawer shut.

Oh, gods, oh gods, he lied to her from the start, lied to her with a straight face.

And she bought it, never suspecting once he was not even trying. What else was he doing behind her back? What kind of a sick joke—oh, gods.

Is that what had just happened between them? Did the last shred of decency sent him running instead of updating an ancient movie about the cheerleaders, nerds and jocks? Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods... She should have known: a lone gamer belong in the same class of dating alarms as I met a nice guy online.

She sucked air in short, hysterical gasps, a hard task through clenched teeth. She didn't want to believe it, but...

Mike lied.

Mike lied to me.

Building up fury popped her mouth open, allowing for a chest-full of air to fill in her lungs, and with it came a new surge of mad energy. Before she could stop herself, she smashed his bloody castle on the dresser. The LEGO flew around the room and pelted the floor like hail. A new barrage of sobs shook her shoulders. Oh, gods... my life is such a mess.

She knelt in front of Mike's broken castle. The castle so painstakingly built and rebuilt...

A few plastic squares impaled themselves into her knees. She winced, and swept handfuls of LEGO into its plastic tub, then started scooping them off the floor. Tears veiled her sight, as she clutched a few bits in her hand, to the same music phrase repeating in her head, over and over: Oh tell me why, do we build castles in the sky?

It wasn't even that good of a song... She could clean it all up. Cleaning made things better, at least on the surface. But the real disaster, the one inside, the one that made her break his toy like they were in kindergarten, would remain.

Mike lied to me. I broke his stuff. Daya, the princess that destroyed the castle. Gods, I suck.

What did she miss about the man she cleaved to?

She shuffled through memories as if it were a deck of cards. Then she walked on her knees to the other end of the dresser, dragging her hand along its polished surface. A few more pointy pieces lodged into her shins, and she plucked them out, tossed them into the bin without aiming.

Her eyes remained on the pictures of Mike's family. She took them one by one, and studied them again, far more attentively than the first time.

There was Mike, recognizable by a mop of red hair and a spray of freckles as a kid. He grinned and clutch hands of his rotund dad, his elegant mom. His dad would be called a neck beard nowadays. His mom would still be what she would have been centuries ago and always, a beauty.

Mike changed to a gawky teen, tolerating his dad's arm on his shoulder, grinning.

On a separate picture, he stood side by side with his mother, both arms pressed to his sides.

Then it was Mike in his graduation robes, twice. He stood dead center between his parents, not touching either. His mother appeared to be frighteningly similar to her younger version, like she was a witch with a potion of immortality. At first glance, his father looked youthful too on Mike's graduation pictures, much healthier. But the more Daya peered, the more she thought that Mr. Wilson now had something of an ascetic monk with burning eyes about him, something unsettling.

Daya stumbled into the bathroom to throw cold water on her face. Not to wash away the tears: her tears were all gone. But to fortify herself for what she had to do now. She knew where to look for Mike and what to say to him. And her insides hurt like hell at the thought of it.