Pushing the call button, she answered on the second ring. “Hello.”

“Hey, it’s me, Haven.”

I was relieved when she sounded genially happy to hear from me. “Hey girl! Are you calling to tell me that the coffee shop has re-opened because I’m bored to tears over here.”

“Um, no. I’m actually calling because I was wondering if you might have a spare room. My apartment caught on fire last night.”

“Oh heavens, that’s awful!” In my mind, I pictured her slapping her hand over her chest in shock. “Of course you can stay with me and Clint.”

“Thank you so much. It won’t be for long.”

That was a bold faced lie. The amount of money that had to be acquired now was staggering and Rogue didn’t provide enough income to cover half. I’d have to get a second and third job or else I would be living with Mallory and her boyfriend for the next three months.

“No worries. We have the room and with Clint gone most of the time, it will be nice to have the company,” Mallory said.

She gave me the address of her house, which was in the suburbs of Detroit. If I wanted to fall off the grid for a while, this would be the place to do it. Nonetheless, as much as that sounded heavenly, Big Ted’s threat echoed in my mind. Since the building had been old, faulty wires could have been the reason for the fire but my gut said otherwise. Big Ted had showed up at my work and threated to kill everybody close to me. Conveniently, my apartment burned to the ground two days later. It looked like a message to me.

“Hey!” I looked over my shoulder at Monica who was running barefoot down the walkway. “I called you a cab.”

“Thanks but you didn’t need to do that.”

“You have been standing out here for the last forty minutes.”

“I have?”

“Yeah.” Her tone became gentle as if she was talking to a fragile toddler. “What happened to Andrew, Haven?”

I winced. His name was a jagged piece of glass that cut my chest wide open, leaving my heart vulnerable and exposed.

“Nothing happened. I couldn’t crash with him forever,” I said.

“It’s been three days and when we talked last, it seemed like everything was going fine, so obviously something happened.”

The cab arrived, saving me from an explanation. “I have to go.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m staying with a friend for a couple of days.” Monica’s expression of worry made me blurt out one-half of the story. “There was a fire at my apartment last night so that’s why I can’t go home. I don’t have one.”

Monica and I weren’t huggers. I could count the amount of times we hugged on my fingers but when the situation called for it, we did. She wrapped me in her arms as my eyes sprung a leak. I sniffled against her shoulder.

“Oh honey,” she counseled. “I’m so sorry.”

“So am I.”

“If you need anything, blankets, linens—anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask.”

Stepping apart, Monica had teared up as well. She wiped her face on her white t-shirt and I laughed. “We are a mess, aren’t we?”

“We are always a mess but remember when we lived together and were too poor to buy toilet paper?”

“How can I forget?”

At twenty years old, Monica and I had roomed together in a crummy studio apartment above a porn shop. We lived off ramen noodles and viewed toilet paper as luxury item. While it had been a year a growth, I wouldn’t want to relive it. Nor did I want to relive the years when I lived on the streets. The day I moved into my own place was considered one of the best moments of my life. However, that only happened because the landlord felt bad for my poor ass. She let me pay off the security deposit in installments. Who knows if luck would strike twice?

Monica clamped her hands on my shoulders. Steely determination twinkled in her eyes. “Repeat after me. If we can survive that, we can survive anything.

“If we can survive that, we can survive anything.”

“Good.”

“You are like a younger and skinnier version of Dr. Phil,” I joked.

She cocked her hip and put on her best impression of her grandmother. “Honey, I’m like the modern day Oprah. Dr. Phil is a joke.”

Monica’s grandmother, Mrs. Lovette, had been a fan of daytime talk shows to where it bordered on a religion. She would plop herself down in front of her 1980s boxy television until Monica came home from school, where she would then proceed to tell us how she would counsel the guest differently. Mrs. Lovette passed away two years ago, but she was greatly missed by everybody who knew her. The cab honked twice, impatiently.

I shifted my weight. “Alright, I better go before the cab driver blows a gasket.”

“Ok. I’m really sorry you can’t stay with me. My apartment isn’t suited for two people.”

“It looks like you were doing just fine with having Marco there.”

She rolled her eyes skyward. “Well yeah, it’s fine when you are doing the naked tango.”

The cab driver stuck his head out the window, yelled time was money, and tapped his watch. Monica held up her finger to signal one minute. He mumbled something in a foreign language that sounded like stuck up princesses.

I gave Monica another hug and rolled my suitcase to the cab. Climbing inside, my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. Andrew’s named flashed on the screen and I hit ignore.

“5432 Hampton avenue, please,” I told the cab driver.

The city sprawl soon spread into wide-open spaces, white picket fences, and beige as the theme color. Welcome to the suburbs.

Mallory’s bright red door was a cute touch to the old brick home. So were the black and white striped rugs on the porch. I wouldn’t have guessed by the way she dressed, but Mallory had an eye for home décor. I rang the doorbell and waited. Through the stained glass panels, I saw her approach.

She opened the door with a smile. “Hey!”

“Hey yourself.”

“Did you find the house ok?”

“Yeah, easy peasy.”

Mallory stepped aside and gestured me for to enter. “You are just in time. I was making hot chocolate.”

Wiping my feet on the doormat, I walked into a cozy hallway. Cinnamon and chocolate scented the air, reminding me of snowy winter days. Above the staircase, pictures of Mallory and her boyfriend hung on the cream colored walls. Shoes haphazardly tossed on a shoe rack made me smile. It was exactly the kind of home I hoped to have one day.

Gathering the mess off the floors, she tossed it into a hallway closet. “Sorry. I’m not used to having so much square footage to clean.”

“Don’t apologize. I was just thinking about how cozy your place was.”

“Oh, well, thank you. It’s the first place Clint and I have called home together. I wanted to make it feel special with little things that hold meaning to us.”

“That’s really sweet.”

Mallory blushed as she straightened her ponytail. A rough-cut diamond on her ring finger caught the light. It was simple in its beauty, like Mallory.

Squealing, I grabbed her hand and admired the ring more closely. “You are engaged! When did this happen?”

“The other night. Clint planned a romantic picnic in our backyard and asked. It was only six years over due.”

“Better late than never.”

As a young girl, I was more focused on getting through each day than planning a hypothetical wedding. Honestly, marriage seemed like a pointless institution. A signature on a piece of paper was less meaningful than choosing to be together because you wanted to be, not because you were stuck. Nonetheless, Mallory deserved her happy ever after.

She gazed dreamily at her finger. “I can’t believe it’s real. Clint is the love of my life and the thought that we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together makes me stupid giddy, like yesterday I had a dance party for one in the kitchen.” Mallory looked at me straight faced. “I don’t dance, Haven, yet I busted moves like nobody’s business.”