I drove home under the limit like a saint. Every light was a test. Every other car was a jury that had not been seated yet. I kept checking the mirror for a guest who was not in the trunk anymore. The absence was louder than the humming had been.
I parked in my own driveway and sat until the engine died of its own accord. The garage still held the shape of a van. The trunk still held vinyl. I sat with both facts and did not try to make them friends.
I brushed my teeth until my gums hurt and still tasted failure. Dirt under the nails. I washed. I washed again. The bathroom mirror gave me a man who looked like he had fallen, which was close enough to true. The bedroom doorway watched. I was glad I had not tried to make Mira into this. She had been eyes. This had been a mess with a pulse.
I sat on the couch with the television off because television had already had its say. The house talked again, pipes and fan and a fridge that hummed like a trunk. I did not sleep so much as wait for the windows to pale.
I thought about going back. That is the sick part. Not to finish what television had promised, but to erase the evidence of not knowing how. Going back is how people get caught. I stayed on the couch and let that be the only wise thing I did all night.
Morning came anyway. Eggs I burned and ate because burning was honest. A laptop that knew too much of my search history already. I needed a method that was not Saturday spilling coffee and was not a park that had already died once. I needed something that would feel like the first time without pretending the first time could be copied with tape from a hardware store.
James texted a picture of a leaky faucet he had fixed. Pride. A wrench. A life that produced before and after. I sent back a thumb. The thumb felt like a crime of its own. He replied with a chair emoji I did not understand and then a sentence about coming by Sunday. I did not answer Sunday. Sunday was a country I was not ready to visit.