The Internet Told Him to Leave Me, but He's Still Holding Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Day Two

No morning kiss, no texting first, separate blankets; Knox is baffled at breakfast; then he texts her a photo of a client's tattoo request, and it's her face.

I didn't answer fortyfour_k.

I stared at his comment for a long time and then put the phone face down on the nightstand.

He's an idiot if he lets you stop.

Some stranger had made an account at midnight to say that to a cartoon moose.

I fell asleep on the very edge of the mattress with one arm hanging off.

In the morning I woke up first, which never happens.

Knox was asleep on his stomach, taking up two thirds of the bed, one huge hand flat on my pillow where my head usually is.

Every morning of my life with him, I've climbed on his back and kissed the moose on his left forearm until he groaned.

The moose is mine. I drew it on a napkin the week we met, and he put it on his arm that Friday.

I looked at it for a long time.

Then I got up and went to make coffee.

Rule one. No kissing him first.

He came into the kitchen twenty minutes later in sweatpants and bare feet, scratching his beard.

He walked straight to me and bent down, the way he always does, for his kiss.

I handed him a mug.

He looked at the mug.

He looked at me.

"Did you just hand me a mug?"

"It's coffee."

"I know it's coffee. I've met coffee." He held it up. "Where's the other thing?"

"What other thing?"

"Annika."

"I'm making eggs," I said, and turned to the stove.

He stood behind me for a while.

I could feel him there, warm, close enough that I only had to lean.

I didn't lean.

"Okay," he said. "New question. Why is there a second blanket on the bed?"

"I was cold."

"You were cold. You sleep in a flannel and two pairs of socks and you use me as a space heater."

"Maybe I'm trying to be more independent."

"From the blanket?"

"From things in general."

He sat down and watched me burn the eggs.

"Where did that blanket even come from?" he said. "We don't own a second blanket."

"It's the guest blanket."

"We don't have guests."

"We have Inga."

"Inga sleeps in her scrubs on top of the couch cushions like a raccoon. She has never once used a blanket."

I put the eggs in front of him.

They were black on one side.

He ate every bite and said, "Great eggs," with a completely straight face, which almost broke me.

At ten he put on his boots and his coat.

He stopped at the door.

This is where I usually hang on his neck and make him late.

"Bye," I said, from the drafting table, without turning around.

There was a pause long enough to drive a truck through.

"Bye, Annika."

The door closed.

I put my forehead down on the moose.

At noon Inga called on her way home from a night shift.

I could hear the wind on the Lake Street bridge in the phone.

"You sound weird," she said. "Why do you sound weird?"

So I told her.

The thread. Chad Brixton. Dump her. The rules.

There was a silence.

"Say the rules again," she said. "Slowly. I've been awake for nineteen hours and I want to make sure I'm hearing this right."

"No kissing him first. No texting him first. No dog pictures. Separate blankets. I let him miss me."

"That's insane."

"It's not insane. It's a strategy."

"You're a golden retriever, Annika. You're trying to teach a golden retriever to be a cat."

"Who is Chad Brixton?" she said. "Why do we care what Chad Brixton thinks?"

"He has a blue check."

"I have a blue check on my car insurance. Doesn't mean I'm right about your boyfriend."

"Your boyfriend reads books with lighthouses on them. He cried at your library reading when a seven-year-old asked you to sign her arm."

"He didn't cry."

"He cried, Annika. I was there. I handed him a napkin."

"I'm going to sleep for eleven hours," she said. "When I wake up I want to hear that you climbed him like a tree."

She hung up.

I posted Day 2 at one o'clock, with a drawing of the moose handing a mug to a bear.

"Day 2. No morning kiss. He asked where the other thing was. Holding strong."

The comments came fast.

"Proud of you!!"

"Let him wonder."

"This is how it starts. Next he'll be texting you first."

And there was fortyfour_k again, already, at 1:03.

"Rule 2 is the dumbest one. If you want to text him, text him. What exactly are you saving the texts for?"

I glared at the screen.

I didn't text him.

At 1:30 a dog walked past the window with a sweater and little boots on all four feet.

Ten out of ten. Easily the best dog of the year.

I took a picture of it with my phone.

I didn't send it.

I sat there holding the phone for a very long time.

At 2:14 my phone buzzed.

Knox.

He had texted first.

It was a photo of the paper sketch pad from his front counter, where clients draw what they want.

On it, in black ink, was a portrait of a girl with her hair in a messy bun and a pencil stuck through it.

Round cheeks. Ink on her fingers. My face, exactly, drawn in about ten lines.

Under it he'd typed, "Walk-in wants this on his chest. Says his girlfriend stopped kissing him and he needs something to look at."

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