No More "Despair"

This is the rest of the story. Don't forget to tell me what you think.

She didn't come to the store. He knew he had been foolish to expect her since he had forced her into saying she would. He stayed at the store for an hour after he closed it and then he drove to her apartment.
She wasn't there. Her car wasn't in the parking lot but he knocked on the door anyway. No one answered it so he went to Tom's Donuts and called her cell phone while he drank a cup of coffee.
When she answered, he said, "Where are you?"
"Who is this?"
"It's Keith."
"Oh. I'm on the way home from work."
"Where do you work?"
"I do hair at this place on Lima Road."
"Oh. You're a hair dresser?"
"Yeah. Sort of. Really, I'm a poet."
"Oh." Rachel seemed to him like a poet. "Can I meet you at your apartment?"
"Sure."
"Okay."
He was sitting on the steps leading to the door when she pulled into the parking lot.
"What do you want, Keith?"
"I want to talk to you," he said.
"About what?"
He had been so focused on getting an opportunity to talk to her that he had lost sight of what he wanted to say.
She seemed to sense this, and when he didn't answer immediately, she invited him inside.
"Do you want a beer?" she asked as she opened the refrigerator to get one for herself.
"Yeah. Thanks."
She handed him a bottle and sat down next to him on the couch.
"Will you show me some of your poetry?" he asked.
"Okay." She rooted through the stacks of papers and books and junk on the coffee table until she produced a brown leather journal. She opened it to a page near the end and handed it to him. "Here's something I wrote last night."
It was called "Utter Despair." He didn't usually read poetry. He mostly just read the newspaper. This poem seemed good, though.

Utter Despair
His mouth doesn't say a word,
But his eyes say something,
And his fist says the rest.
I don't know what he wants,
But this thing between us
is starting to feel like a test.

I may try to make him walk away
by showing him that it doesn't matter
and that I don't even really care.
But those eyes of his are looking at me
with a disappointment I didn't create and
I can't take credit for his utter despair.

Boredom drew me to him and,
of course, there's someone else
in both our lives, and there's no
future here anyway, even if we
were right for each other, there's
only even if and even though.

"Is this how you feel?" he asked.
"I think there's a lot going on inside your head that has nothing to do with me," she replied.
He nodded.
"Are you disappointed, Keith?"
"Mostly, yeah."
"I'm sorry about that. It's sad."
He shrugged.
She put her hand on his thigh and kissed his cheek.
"There's nothing anybody can do to change the way my life turned out and it could be worse." He paused. "My older brother killed himself."
"Oh. Wow. When?"
"Ten years ago."
"Holy cow. That's something huge to carry around all the time."
"I think he was probably disappointed, too, but I'm not going to kill myself."
"What was his name?"
"Henry."
"Like your son."
"Right."
"You admired your brother?"
"Idolized him."
"I see."
It was a standard response, reserved for those moments when you didn't have anything meaningful to contribute but you couldn't exactly stay silent. Her "I see" disappointed him, though.
Alex's shoes were on the floor next to the door.
"You don't love him?"
"No." She paused and moved her hand across his face, from his lips to his cheeks to his gray sideburns. "I don't love you, either."
"I know."
"And Alex loves me. Plus, he's good to me. He buys me things and he likes George."
"I could learn to like George." As soon as he said the words, he hated himself. Why was he begging this 26-year-old quasi-poet girl to love him? What would he to do with Brenda if Rachel were to love him?
"I don't think it's in the cards for you and George to be friends."
"Probably not."
"Are you going to break up with Alex?"
"No."
"Okay."
"Are you going to tell Brenda about us?"
"No."
"Okay."
He swallowed the remaining liquid in his bottle of beer and stood up. She stood, too, and squeezed his hand.
"This thing is really over, isn't it?" he said.
She nodded.
He bent down and kissed the bruise on her face. She moved her lips to meet his and they shared one last soft kiss.
"Thank you," he said.
"You're welcome, Keith. Try not to be so disappointed."
"Okay."

He really thought it was over, that he wouldn’t see Rachel again, and that he should probably try to forget about her and their affair. He went to the store early on Monday morning, after spending the weekend telling his son that he couldn't go to Europe because there just wasn't any money. He wanted to sit alone and think in the dark. This time of year, the sun didn't come up until after eight and it was only 7:30. He had the newspaper, which he put on the desk and didn't read.
He appreciated the quiet of the morning; he appreciated it insensely, vigorously as if it were there exclusively for him.
The heat kicked on and it startled him. He stepped outside the back door to smoke a cigarette. The sun was barely visible on the horizon, but it was no longer dark. He could see without strain.
There were footsteps in the gravel and he looked up to see Rachel walking toward him.
"You're up early," he said.
She shook her head. "I'm up late."
"You haven't been to bed yet?"
"No."
"What are you doing here?"
"I came to see if you maybe wanted to get a doughnut."
"I only have about an hour."
"Okay."

They went to Tom's, as usual, and she told him that he looked "haggard."
"Have you been sleeping?" she asked. She was twirling the end of her hair and she seemed to him very young.
"I've never really slept great," he admitted.
She nodded. "Because of the disappointment."
"Sometimes," he said slowly, "when I feel like shit, you know, I wonder if this is how he felt."
"Your brother?"
"Yeah."
She let it hang there until he wanted to say more.
"But I don't feel like shit constantly so maybe it's not the same thing."
"Probably, he was depressed."
"He was better looking than me—and smarter, too. He played basketball in high school and I was in marching band."
"So was I."
"Really."
"What did you play?" she asked.
"Baritone."
"I marched snare, but I played piano in jazz band."
"A girl drummer?"
She grinned.
"We sent Henry to North Side, but he didn't like it. He wanted to play football at Snider so we filled out the papers and the school system let him transfer. He quit after one season."
"Do you talk to Henry about your brother?"
"No. I don't talk to Henry about anything."
"You don't talk to anyone about anything, Keith."
"I talk to you."
She bit into a cream-filled long john and a dot of cream got left behind at the corner of her mouth. She extended her tongue to bring it inside. "You only talk to me when I force you. But this thing with us is over so who will you talk to now?"
He shrugged. "I guess I'll go back to not talking to anyone."
"What about your wife?"
"That's just not the way it is with us."
"What is she like, your wife?"
"Rachel, what I did with you—what we did—that doesn't have anything to do with my family. It doesn't touch them, and I don't want to talk about them when I'm with you. I want to keep it separate."
"We're not lovers anymore. That's all over. We're friends now."
"We're not friends."
"Yes, we are."
"I'm 44 and you're 26. You're a poet and I'm a guy who owns a store and worries about how he's going to pay for his son's college."
"We have things in common. We both went to North Side and were in marching band."
"Not at the same time."
"We're both disappointed and a little wayward. And we both like doughnuts."
He smiled. "Why did you come to see me this morning?"
"I wanted to tell you that I'm getting married," she said with doughnut in her mouth.
"Oh." He paused. "To—"
"Yes."
He wasn't jealous or pissed off by her news. He was maybe a little disappointed but he was used to that feeling.
"Okay," he said. "That's…good."

When he went home, there was a note from Brenda. She had gone shopping. He was glad to find the house empty and even more glad to find beer in the refrigerator. He took a bottle and sat in a recliner in front of the television, but he didn't turn it on. He drank about five or six more bottles and then he went to her apartment. He knew that he was drunk and that he shouldn't drive anywhere, let alone to her place, but he went anyway.
Alex answered the door. He was Latino or Middle Eastern or maybe Italian. Anyway, he skin was brown and his hair was black. He was wearing a light blue dress shirt, untucked, and khaki pants. He feet were bare and he was holding George, whose eyes were closed in contentment.
Keith stood there staring at him until Alex finally said, "Can I help you, sir?"
"Who is it?" Rachel said as she appeared in the doorway next to him.
"I don't know," Alex replied. "Do you know this guy, honey?"
Rachel's eyes fixed on Keith but there was no sign of recognition. "No. No, I don't think so," she said.
"I'm sorry," Keith said finally. "I think I must be in the wrong place."
"No problem," Alex said as he closed the door.
"No problem," Keith repeated, nodding his head.