Chapter 11: Empty Glass

I woke up alone in the room over the diner at six, and the grill was already hissing downstairs.

Wyatt had walked me up the back stairs at four, kissed me once at the door and gone home to sleep.

My whole body hummed.

Then I remembered his phone lighting up on the supply room shelf, and the Portland number he had turned face down.

"Not tonight," he had said.

It was morning now, and he had promised not to ask me about the city, so I didn't think I could ask him either.

I lay under my grandmother's quilt and replayed the supply room in pieces.

I was smiling at the ceiling.

I went down for coffee at seven.

Pru was waiting at the counter with her chin in her hand.

"Morning, sunshine," she said.

"Don't."

"I said nothing."

"You said it with your face."

"My face is allowed." She slid a plate of pancakes toward me.

"For the record, I've been waiting six years to be right about something."

"About what?"

"About him. For six years he's looked like he hasn't slept. This morning he whistled in the parking lot."

I put a forkful of pancake in my mouth so I wouldn't have to answer.

Pru's mother came out of the kitchen with a dish towel on her shoulder.

"I didn't hear a thing," she said to nobody in particular, and went back in.

"She heard everything," Pru said.

The bell over the door jingled.

Wyatt stood in the doorway in a clean shirt, with his hair still wet.

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