Wrong Side of the Tracks by Ashley Zakrzewski
Epilogue
“Are you sure this is the place?”
I look between Liam, who’s just climbing off his bike, and the house across the street. He walks up to me, squinting at the small building.
“Huh.” He looks as confused as I feel. “It’s the right address.”
“It looks nothing like the pictures.”
He takes my hand and we walk up to the house. I see the realtor’s car parked in the driveway, but she probably hasn’t seen us yet. Liam is biting his bottom lip, eyeing the house.
“It’s a little bit more… Rundown than I had expected, I have to say.”
“Rundown?” I snap. “There’s no glass in the windows upstairs, and the yard is a dump.”
“It’s rough, sure.”
“Hi you guys!” Tessa, the perky realtor, has spotted us and is waving at us from the front door. “Come on in, let’s take a tour of the place.”
“I swear to god, if she says anything about the place’s potential, I’m going to lose my shit,” I mumble before we reach the door. Liam snorts out a laugh, but doesn’t say anything. Tessa holds open the door for us, and I’m practically blinded by the whiteness of her teeth when she flashes us a smile.
“Isn’t this just the cutest place?” she coos. “You know, there’s a fireplace in the living room that’s been here since the nineteen thirties. How cool is that?”
“Does it work?” Liam asks. “The fireplace?”
Tessa’s smile falters slightly. “Well, you would probably want to bring a chimney sweep out here for an inspection, but I don’t see a reason why you should be able to use it eventually.
Liam and I share a look. So that’s a no then.
The inside is only slightly better than the outside. The wallpaper is falling off in places, but at least there’s a functioning dishwasher in the kitchen. Tessa goes on and on about what could be done with the place, how great it can become.
“I know it’s a little bit unpolished,” she says after we have walked through the entire place. “But I just think it has a lot of potential.”
I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing. Liam’s cheeks are twitching, but he’s doing a pretty good job of staying serious.
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s really… Something.”
“Right?” Tessa winks at us. “And I bet I can convince the sellers to give you a really good price. They’re quite eager to sell.”
“Can’t imagine why,” I mutter under my breath. This is the fifth place we’ve seen in the past month and they’ve all been awful. How hard can it be to find a decent house in this town? We’re hardly in a metropolis, it’s not like the prices are outrageous. But I guess the people sitting on the good houses aren’t selling right now. The fact that we’re not finding anything is kind of discouraging though.
Liam puts his arm around my shoulders and kisses my temple as we walk back to the bike.
“Something will come up.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say. “It’s just taking longer than I would like.”
“I know it’s not ideal, but maybe I should just move in with you when my lease is up.” We hop on the bike and he fires up the engine. “It’ll be kind of cramped, but…”
“We’ll make it work if we have to, but I really hope we find something before then.” I say in his ear. “I was looking forward to starting our future in a place that is ours. I know it doesn’t really matter though, it’ll be okay if we don’t find a house right away.”
“No, it does matter,” Liam protested. “It’s been almost a year since I moved back here, I want to create a home with you too. It won’t be the same if I just move my stuff into your apartment.”
I sigh and lean into him. “We’ll keep looking. Something will turn up.”
I check for new listings every night after work, and every now and then Liam sends me pictures of houses that could be interesting. But they’re either too far away from town, in too bad a shape, or too expensive. Maybe we should just stay at my place, it might not be so bad. We’re spending most of our time here anyway. But when Liam asked me if I wanted to start looking at houses, I was so excited. A big step into the future we are building together. I guess that just has to wait. Liam’s lease is up in two months. I doubt we will find a place before then.
I’m having lunch with Joanna one Saturday, and I vent about our house hunting problems. She shakes her head, a sympathetic look on her face.
“Oh, I know how it is. We got lucky finding our place, if Martin’s dad hadn’t known the couple we bought it from we might have never got it.”
“Too bad we don’t know anyone who’s selling,” I say, stuffing my face with the sandwich I ordered. Kind of dry but I’m hungry, so I eat it anyway.
“You know, I can ask my sister if she knows about any properties,” Joanna says. “Did I tell you she’s getting her real estate license?”
“You didn’t.” I sit up straighter, my interest peaked. “You think she might know of some places?”
Joanna shrugs. “Can’t hurt to ask. I’ll have her call you if there is something out there.”
I only have to wait for two days before I get a call from Joanna’s sister. She tells me about a house that isn’t even on the market yet, but she can get us a showing with the agent she is interning with. She can’t send us any pictures, but the house is in a great area, so I say yes. Liam is ecstatic when I tell him about it, and we celebrate with wine and a nice dinner, even though there’s nothing to celebrate just yet.
We drive out to the outskirts of town a few days later. Park right outside a white house with a porch, and a nice little garden. It’s not huge, but it’s charming and seems to be in good shape. We’re shown around by the realtor, and Liam is holding my hand the entire time. Two bedrooms, and a newly renovated kitchen. It’s beautiful.
We don’t even have to think about it. As soon as we get back to my apartment, we call and put in an offer. We spend the rest of the night imagining what we could do with the place, still not knowing if it’s ours or not. It is ours in our heads already.
Liam gets the call when I’m at work. I’m in a meeting, and when I get out and see that I have nine missed calls from him, my heart sinks. You don’t call nine times unless someone has died. At first I don’t understand the words that are coming out of his mouth when I call him back, my heart beating so fast I’m sure it’s going to jump right out of my chest.
“We got it!” he calls out for the third time.
It? We got it. We got it? “They accepted our offer?”
“Hell yeah, they accepted our offer,” Liam says on the other end. “You’re really stuck with me now, Eva.”
I laugh, reality sinking in. “I can think of worse fates than being stuck with you.”
The house is ours. We’re going to have a home together.
And we’re staying there – for good.