Let me give you some backstory first.

Over the years I’ve known Myla, she’s been passionate about collecting one thing and one thing only: vinyl records. One year for her birthday, I bought her a Crosley record player and her top favorite records she’s been wanting for years. Like ELO, Dolly Parton, even the record for White Christmas—she has eclectic taste. These are her prized possessions. The one thing she would pull out of the house if there was ever a fire. Her sworn children.

No one is allowed to touch them besides her.

She lines them up in rainbow order because she thinks they’re prettier that way, and every Friday, she pours herself a glass of wine, puts on a record, and then lies across the couch and just listens. Sometimes she designs at the same time, just for fun.

Guess what night it is?

Yup, Friday.

And guess what I did?

I think we’ll just go downstairs and find out.

I fly down the stairs and stroll into the living room, looking none the wiser. “You beckoned?”

Standing in front of her record cabinet, Singing in the Rain record in one hand and Journey in the other, her eyes blaze like laser beams right at me.

“What did you do?” she asks.

“I didn’t do anything,” I say, feigning innocence just like she did with my batteries. I’m not an idiot. I know she keeps taking them.

“Don’t play with me, Ryot. These are all mixed up. There is not one single record in the right case.”

I know. I woke up in the middle of the night to do it. Even though I was dead tired, the thought of redemption really kept me going.

“That’s so weird. I wonder how that happened.” I scratch the back of my neck.

“You did it. That’s how it happened.”

“I don’t remember doing that,” I say. “You know”—I point at her—“maybe the same person who keeps stealing my remote batteries did it.”

“This is not funny, Ryot. They could be scratched. They could be hurt.” Her face falls before she crumples to the ground and starts panicking while pulling out her records and trying to carefully match them up.

Hell, maybe I went too far.

It’s not like the crooked pictures on the wall are my prized possession.

“Hey, do you, uh, do you want some help?”

Her eyes snap up to me. “You’ve done enough.”

Yeah, she doesn’t want me around.

“Okay, well, I’ll be outside watching the Bobbies versus Rebels game if you want any help.”

She doesn’t say anything, just keeps carefully working to put everything back in place. I shouldn’t feel bad after all the hell I’ve been through, so why doesn’t this feel right?

This was supposed to be redemption for her eating that beautiful steak in front of me last night—while I chewed my charred meat like gum until it felt like I wouldn’t choke while swallowing. But it doesn’t give me the kind of euphoric feeling I was looking for. It makes me feel like a dick.