My Landlady Made Me A Cup Of Tea After A Bad Date, Then Said 11 Words That Changed My Entire Life

Part 2

I read that apology note four times in a row, standing there shivering in the cold Sunday air.

She had not taken her confession back.

She had only apologized for finally saying it out loud.

Those were two entirely different things.

I folded the paper carefully, slid it into my jacket pocket, and stood frozen on the sidewalk.

I thought about the insulated lunch container she had surprised me with.

I thought about the heavy-duty replacement flashlight she had quietly left on my doormat the previous winter when mine completely died.

I thought about the time my work truck had broken down forty minutes out of town.

She had driven out into the pitch black night to rescue me.

She had acted the entire drive back like driving forty miles in the dark for a tenant was just something normal people did.

I thought about the hot soup that magically appeared outside my door the week I caught a terrible flu.

It was left without a knock, without any explanation, without any expectation that she would ever be thanked.

All of it had been so ridiculously easy to explain away, one tiny piece at a time.

I went back upstairs, but I could not focus on anything.

Monday morning, I stopped at the local diner before heading to my first service call of the day.

Brenda was sitting at the counter.

She had lived in the house next door to our property for fifteen years and essentially operated as the unofficial historian of the entire block.

We chatted politely about my work for a few minutes.

Then she casually asked how Megan was doing.

She is doing fine, I think.

Brenda smiled a knowing, satisfied smile.

Good.

That woman worries about you more than enough already.

I looked up sharply from my lukewarm coffee.

What exactly do you mean by that?

Brenda actually looked surprised that she had let the comment slip.

Oh, it is nothing.

Brenda.

She let out a short laugh and slowly stirred cream into her ceramic cup.

Honey, I honestly figured everyone on the street already knew.

My pulse did something very strange and specific.

Knew what?

She looked at me intently over the rim of her coffee mug.

That she has been hopelessly in love with you for at least two years.

She said it in the exact tone of voice you use when stating a boring, universally known fact.

It was like she was casually mentioning that October is a cold month in this state.

Like it was something every single person already knew without needing to be told.

I sat there staring at my coffee.

I thought about every single evening I had climbed those wooden stairs and blindly called it a good night.

Her car was parked securely in the driveway when I finally got home that evening.

I sat inside the dark cab of my truck for a very long time.

The kitchen light was glowing warmly through the window.

The back porch was completely empty.

The house looked exactly the same as it always looked, which was exactly the problem.

The house was entirely the same, but I was completely different.

I had absolutely no idea how to walk back into that house the way I had been walking into it for three entire years.

I took a deep breath and opened the truck door.

I found her kneeling in the community garden behind the house, aggressively pruning late-season flowers with gardening shears.

I stood at the edge of the path, watching her work, my heart hammering furiously against my ribs.

How was I possibly going to look her in the eye after three years of being completely blind?