Tabitha Stay With Me File

Now the silence is different. It’s the sound of rain hitting her shoulders. The sound of her not turning around.

I flinch. She’s not wrong.

“If I stay, you have to mean it this time. Every single day. Not just on the rainy ones.” tabitha stay with me

“Then let me be late,” I say. “Let me be late and awful and whatever else I’ve been. But don’t leave. Don’t get in that car. Because once you do—” My throat closes up. I swallow. “Once you do, you take everything. The good mornings. The burnt toast. The way you hum when you think no one is listening. You take all of it, and I’ll be standing in this doorway for the rest of my life, saying it to no one.”

She drops the suitcase.

“I’m here now,” I say.

She closes her eyes. A single raindrop falls from her lashes. Now the silence is different

The wind shifts. A branch from the oak tree scrapes the roof like a fingernail down a chalkboard. I take a step off the porch. The gravel bites into my feet. I don’t care.