One Last Look - takahē

I moved out on a Thursday. As I packed the last box in the trunk of my hatchback, the sun greeted me as if it was our last encounter. I turned back to take one last look at the house I convinced Noah to buy with me. But somehow it was me who was leaving.

The stained glass window of two roses sprouting from a single vine winked in the sunlight. It was the first thing I’d noticed when I walked up to the door on the day of the open house. Something in my heart had set, the click of two pieces snapping together. I had found my forever home. Or so I thought.

Inside, I fell in love with the hardwood floors, the red oak stairs winding up the wall, the matching wooden door casing carved to emulate Greek columns. The house yielded copious amounts of light from the bay windows and skylight, whether from the sun or the moon. Drips of modernism blended with its mid-century trimmings: marble sinks with exposed piping, sleek counter tops with rustic glass knobs, Edison bulbs affixed to antique sconces. A composition of juxtaposition. A house with character. As if that’s all we needed.

Noah wasn’t around to see me off; he didn’t need to be. Everything we needed to say, we’d already said countless times over. Goodbyes at this point encouraged a sentimentality neither of us harboured for the other.

But I had one goodbye left in me. Once I secured the trunk of my hatchback, I kissed the sealed envelope containing my house key and dropped it in the mail slot.

I returned the next day, not by choice, but by necessity. Somehow, in the move’s chaos, I had forgotten my laptop. A part of me wished Noah would mail it to me, but the time and expense seemed unnecessary. Surely, I could stomach one last encounter with Noah. With my home.

So there I was, under the scorch of a bleached sun. My shirt clung to my back as I peeled myself from the driver’s seat. Even the roses on the stained glass window appeared to have wilted.

Seasonal damage had stripped the front door of its stark onyx colour to reveal speckles of the ivory paint underneath. I flicked the chipped enamel, having never noticed this before.

When I gripped the door knocker, a slimy substance coated my fingers. I recoiled, inspecting the brown slick on my hand. An icky feeling crawled up my back as I cleaned the grease from my fingers. Of all my years of living here, not once did I use this knocker. Was it always oily?

I knocked twice on the door and waited, turning to examine the front yard. Patches of grass were stained yellow from either dehydration or dog piss. Can grass blanch in less than twenty-four hours?

The front door opened. Noah threw up a hand in greeting and I followed suit, neither of us saying a word. To my surprise, not an ember of resentment kindled. I felt nothing.

Noah backed up, motioning to the foyer. My brows jumped; he wanted me to come in. I thought he’d hand over the laptop in a one-time transaction, like picking up food at the drive through.

I slapped on a smile and entered. Despite the sunshine, the inside was dimly lit, as if overcast with shadows. It had been less than a day since I stepped foot in the house, but something felt off, like a pen that can’t write.

My nose scrunched at the mustiness lingering in the air, part mildew, part sludge. I slid a hand over my nose. ‘What is that?’

Noah sniffed. ‘What’s what?’

‘That smell?’

Noah shook his head, shrugging, completely oblivious. ‘I don’t smell anything?’

I snapped my gaze to meet his, waiting for the odour to smack him.

‘Maybe it’s the bacon? I made breakfast this morning.’

Yeah, that wasn’t it. I dropped my hand to my side and breathed through my mouth. After kicking off my shoes, I followed Noah down the hall. My sock snagged on something protruding from the floor, and I tripped. ‘Shit,’ I muttered.

Noah spun around. ‘What happened?’

I pulled up my heel to inspect it. A new hole in my sock revealed bare skin. I dropped to the floor, ran a palm along the hardwood. A splinter jutted from a panel like an iceberg, pricking my skin.

I yanked my hand back. ‘Dammit.’ Blood beaded on my fingertip. ‘You should get that fixed.’ I sucked the crimson from my skin while pushing the sliver back into place with my free hand. But the wood had already fragmented—forever changed—impossible to repair without glue.

‘It never bothered you before,’ Noah said.

‘What do you mean before?’

He scoffed under his breath. ‘When you lived here.’ He used that duh tone.

Irritation sparked in my gut. ‘If you knew about the flooring, why didn’t you ever fix it?’

‘Why didn’t you?’ he challenged.

My eyes flared.

I would have fixed it, if I had known. What difference did it make now? It needed repairing and clearly he didn’t care enough to put in the time or energy to patch it up.

I had no desire to argue with him over hypotheticals. ‘Where’s my laptop?’

He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Kitchen.’

I pushed past him, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. My laptop sat on the breakfast counter, the charger rested on the lid. Dirty dishes overflowed from the sink. A fruit fly buzzed in front of my face and I smacked the air, missing it. It seemed oddly appropriate for the insect to survive, as if staking a claim to this house. As if I was the intruder.

Something had changed in the last twenty-four hours, a tectonic shift. Memories losing their sheen.

I clutched the computer under my arm, turning to face Noah. He leaned against the door frame, opening his mouth to speak.

‘—Thanks for not throwing my laptop off the roof,’ I said instead and headed back to the front door, shoving my feet into my shoes. The moment I turned the knob, a sense of relief flooded my lungs. ‘Have a nice life.’

For the first time since we broke up, I didn’t care about the past and what I left behind. I was moving on.

I closed the door behind me, hopped into my car, and turned up the music, never once looking back.

Melissa Ren is a Chinese-Canadian writer whose narratives tend to explore the intersection between belonging and becoming. She is a prize recipient of Room Magazine’s Fiction Contest, a Tin House alum, a grant recipient of the Canada Council for the Arts, and a senior editor at Augur Magazine. Her writing has appeared or forthcoming in Grain Magazine, Factor Four Magazine, Fusion Fragment, and elsewhere. Find her at linktr.ee/MelissaRen or follow @melisfluous on socials.