“Anyway,” I say, breaking the lull, “I need to run. I’m actually meeting Amy in a few minutes.”
“Oh! Neat.” He sounds relieved this will be over soon. So much for him claiming during our breakup that he wanted to stay friends. “Is Braff running track for Auburn?”
“Amherst. And yes, she does the three-thousand-meter steeplechase and all the relays.”
“Cool.”
We both just shift in place. The separation between us is as palpable as a brick wall. I can almost smell the burning ashes of the last flecks of hope I didn’t know I had that we’d maybe get back together. It’s so evident to me now that just because someone is a great guy doesn’t guarantee we’ll make a great couple, no matter how much I work at it and want it.
I grip my shopping bags tighter and say, “So, have a nice time at the anniversary party tomorrow.”
“Thanks. I will.”
“And, you know, good luck this year.”
“You too. Not that you’ll need it.”
“Thanks. Well, take care, Wes.”
“So long, Dom.”
I flash a grin and walk away.
As I head to my car, I’m elated. I made no mistakes and accomplished everything I set out to. There’s no doubt that I came out as the winner of that conversation, though it wasn’t Wes whom I beat. It was the old me that sincerely believed Wes was my one and only. The fact is, he’s only one. I’ll never stop wondering about him, and I’ll still have setbacks. But after trying my hardest all year to go on without him, this is the first time it seems right that my future won’t include him.
Then on the drive to the airport, I grow morose. I expected that speaking to him might rope me back into the depression stage of grief, or as Amy would call it, Post-Traumatic Wes Disorder. It’s different from before, though. This time, I’m depressed that I’m not depressed. That I don’t feel upset by us really being over almost trivializes how special and intense our relationship once was. It was just months ago that I couldn’t go one minute without aching over Wes, and after a while I suppose I got used to having a broken heart. Maybe I even began to protect it or define myself by it in some strange way. Pain was my tie to a past that a part of me wanted to hold on to. The more I hurt, the more I knew I loved, and that felt like a good thing. So that I’m letting go of the pain means I’m also letting go of the love. My Biomedical Ethics professor never taught us about this bittersweet stage of mourning that follows acceptance—grieving the loss of grief.
I approach the airport terminal, and my spirits lift again as I spot Amy waving to me from the curb. Now welling with joy, I smile and pull up next to her.
25
An hour later Amy and I are at Fort Myers Beach, the site of countless other walk-and-talks over the years. She recounts how Joel eventually did call her to grovel. He also offered to pay for her plane ticket and a motel if Amy would come to Kansas, and he promised to get another counselor to cover for him at camp so he could spend the whole day with her, which is what happened. They passed yesterday in their room fighting, crying, discussing, making love, and holding each other. Then last night, she agreed to get back together with him.
“Joel was so sorry,” Amy explains. “I kept telling myself he was drunk when it happened, so he didn’t know what he was doing. Our situation isn’t unique, either. Lots of couples deal with cheating and get through it. I of all people should be cool with a one-time slipup. And I was exaggerating before—uncircumcised dicks aren’t that terrible.”
“That’s a relief,” I say through a laugh as we detour onto the pier.
“But when we went to bed last night, I couldn’t sleep. I was still so angry, and nothing felt right. So at two this morning I woke Joel up and told him to cancel his flight here for Matt’s wedding because I just knew we weren’t going to work. I didn’t want him in any of the pictures.”
“Wait … so it’s over?”
She nods. “For good this time. And I wasn’t a bitch about it. I can’t be. We’re gonna have to share a campus and all our art friends for the next three years, so we need to act mature. Ugh. I have a distinct feeling that my painting is about to enter a blue period.” We take a seat on a bench.
“Are you certain about this? I’d totally stand by you if you kept going out with him—it’s true all couples go through crap.”
“Yeah, but it wouldn’t be healthy. I can’t date him unless I put this behind us, and I know I’d just keep mistrusting him and tormenting him about it. That’d be unfair to both of us. And it’s not like I’ve been a saint, either.”
Amy shocks me again by revealing that she never actually wanted to hook up with anyone else this summer. Flirting was the only way she could think to convince herself, and everyone else, that she was still independent and hadn’t changed. And contrary to what Amy claimed at the time, those two weekends she visited Joel last month were her idea, not his.
“It freaked me out how much I missed Joel, that I was getting so attached to a guy. And seeing the trackies again and how different everything was becoming just made it worse. I felt like I didn’t even have my old life to fall back on. The biggest reason I didn’t want to stay broken up was I was scared being on my own again, which is insane. And now that it has really ended, I feel like this massive failure. I mean, Joel was eleven and a half months of my life! I get that everything’s impermanent, but … I guess I didn’t want him to be.”
Amy doubles up onto my lap and bursts into tears. As hard as it is to watch, it’s heartening seeing that love can reduce anybody to a puddle, even someone as confident, beautiful, and desired as Amy. Forevermore we’ll recall this as the morning she broke up with Joel and I broke up with Guy, except I’m not even close to crying about him. I’m weirdly jealous of Amy for getting hurt, while for me there’s just emptiness, like the neutrons Guy researches—no positive or negative charge. It’s so true that the price of highs is having lows, and I think now how my idea for a heartbreak vaccine would be terrible. If love is part hate, and pleasure part pain, then eliminating heartbreak would preclude the greatest happiness. As freeing as being with Guy was in many ways, it was constricting in the most important ones. For me, at least, feeling something, even something bad, is better than feeling nothing.
Amy and I stay on the bench all afternoon as she bawls and rails about Joel. I just listen and assure her that everything she’s thinking is normal. Then when we finally head back to my car, Amy moans, “I’m such a hot mess. A relationship isn’t like air or water or anything.” She gestures to the gulf. “I can live without a boy. So why does it feel like I’m going to die?”
“Blame your body. The whole biological purpose of existence is to mate, so from the time we hit puberty, our hormones are demanding us to couple up. Maybe it’s basic instinct to feel inadequate if you’re single.”
“That’s what sucks. There’s so many more interesting things than guys, but guys are what we spend most of our time talking about.”
“I think that’s just the way it is, though. No matter what we do, it’s always more special if there’s a boyfriend to share it with.”
“Or a best friend.” Amy clasps her new charm bracelet and chokes up again. “I hate myself for everything I said to you Saturday night.”
“Yeah? So you really don’t think I’m a pathetic nymphomaniac?”
“No!” She cries and laughs at the same time. “If anything, that describes me. At least, the ‘pathetic’ part still does.”
“The hardest thing was not hearing from you all week. I mean, we’ve always shared everything with each other.”
“I know, but I remembered what you went through and how awful it got. I never thought that could happen to me, and when it started to, I went off the deep end. The only way I could deal with it was making everyone else feel as bad as I did. Of course, that just made me feel worse.”
I choke up, too. For weeks Amy was right under my nose struggling with her relationship, and I was too blind to see it. I
thought that just because she was in requited love, her life was fine. If I hadn’t been so caught up in my own drama, I could’ve picked up earlier that all her boy-craziness had become one big act, and that her last-minute Kansas trips were signs of trouble. I can’t believe how much I allowed myself to lose sight of her.
Amy goes on, “I’m so sorry. You don’t ever have to forgive me.”
“Hey, I’m just glad you’re back home.” Then I repeat what Guy said on our second date when we were talking about hazing. “Nothing bonds people more than going through shit together, right?”
“I guess. I just wish you could come with me tonight as I go through the ‘shit’ that is this rehearsal dinner. It’s going to be hard putting on a happy face for everyone.”
“Yeah, but I think it’ll be good having your family around. Plus, I’ll be there tomorrow. And before I forget—” I come to a halt. “Not to keep the subject on boys, but I kinda bumped into one of the trackies this morning. I told him I was going to see you, and he was glad to hear you’re still running.”
“Well, who was it?”
I smile at her, and all at once every trace of suffering vanishes from her face. I’m glad to be able to give Amy this little reprieve from thinking only about Joel.
“Oh, my God, Dom! Are you okay?”
I shrug and grin. “I survived.”
“Oh, my God!” she shrieks again. “Tell me everything!”
26
There’s no denying that Brie makes a gorgeous bride, and Matt looks like the happiest man on earth as she sashays down the aisle. The entire wedding is beautiful and traditional, though I’m not paying too much attention to the details, since my eyes are constantly watching over Amy. Amazingly, she keeps it together throughout the ceremony even while the minister goes off on a tangent about true love, and she’s able to wait until everyone’s occupied with cocktail hour before escaping to the restroom for a cry. Back in the reception hall, no slow song passes without someone asking Amy to dance, but she insists on staying by my side all evening. As corny as it sounds, I think we both feel like the wedding is a renewal of our own vows of friendship.
On our boat the following day, my parents resemble giddy newlyweds themselves as they rave about our new place in Gainesville, which they’re closing on next month. I’ve only seen pictures so far, but I’m getting excited for them. Mom will love having her own den for whenever she starts grad school, and the house is only a short walk from Dad’s office, so he’ll never have to fight rush hour again. My bedroom, with its window seat and skylight, looks cozy, too.
As Dad steers us back to the bay, I say, “So if we’re moving the boat over Thanksgiving, I guess that means today was my last Sunday fishing trip at home.”
“Home is wherever the people you love are,” Mom responds. “But yes, it was your last in Fort Myers, unless you come back for Labor Day.”
“You’re more than welcome to, Dom. Your mom and I have all weekend off.”
I think it over, but by then I’ll be deep into school mode, and today was already so perfect and stressless that it’d be hard to top as a final memory. So I ask, “Why don’t you guys come out to New Orleans instead? You haven’t been since you dropped me there last August, and now I know all the best seafood places.”
My parents look at each other and shrug.
“Sounds good to me,” Mom chimes. “I could use a little vacation after all this house-hunting.”
“That’s not a bad idea, Dom. But don’t worry. If we go, we won’t expect someone to be in by one-thirty.” Dad winks.
After we get home, I finally begin boxing up my room, and that week my supervisor lets me put in half days at the hospital so I can continue packing in the afternoons. I ask Amy to join me since it’ll be a good distraction for her, and we have a lot more fun than I anticipated, unearthing my old things, trying on old clothes, and deciding what to keep, give away, or trash. We’re leaving the ex bag for last since I’m still unsure about what to do, and by Friday I decide it simply has too much sentimental value for me to part with. Amy then has the brilliant idea of photographing everything and then throwing it all out. That way I’ll always have visual records on my computer if I ever want to look back, but they’ll take up no physical space, and I never have to worry about moving them again.
Once we finish snapping all the photos, we bring the salvageable items like the picture frames and mood ring to Goodwill. Afterward Amy cheers me on as I hurl what remains of the bag into the Dumpster behind my building. And since my bedroom now looks like a warehouse, we drive to the Braffs’, where we celebrate our singleness with our final sleepover of the summer, complete with vegging out and pigging out until finally conking out following hours of punch-drunk laughing.
The next day is a flurry of goodbye hugs with my parents, proofreads of Calvin’s MBA essay, and nonstop turbulence that rules out any napping on the flight to New Orleans. After landing at the airport, I rush to baggage claim to find Calvin, who I don’t recognize at first. His bloodshot eyes and dark circles mask his usual exuberance. Evidently he’s also going on little sleep, which I attribute to either freshman orientation duties or an all-night romp with Samantha. When I approach him, he weakly knuckles my upper arm and says in a hollow voice, “Hey, Coppertone. Great to see you.”
“You too. Thanks so much for coming out, Cal. The dorms must be crazy.”
“Oh, yeah. The froshes are freaking out about their roommates. The parents are freaking out about the rooms being too small. The RAs are freaking out about everyone freaking out. It’s the same drill every fall. I’m kinda glad it’s my last year.”
He stares off into space, clearly preoccupied with something, but then the baggage carousel starts up and we concentrate on retrieving my suitcases. It’s only after we board the shuttle back to Tulane that I ask if anything’s the matter.
“Sorry I’m out of it. I, uh …” He rubs the bridge of his nose and peers out the window. “It was a rough night. I’m fresh off a breakup. No one knows yet.”
“Oh … I’m so sorry, Cal.” I’d be lying if I said my selfish side wasn’t thrilled to have him to myself again for the time being. That doesn’t make me feel any less awful for him, though. He had every excuse to bail on me today. But as generous and selfless as ever, Calvin put his suffering on the back burner to come and help me with my baggage. I’m just glad I’m here so I can help him with his, too. “I had seen online that you were with that RA, Samantha.”
“Yeah. It started off as this total whirlwind, but then the weeks passed, and I guess I was getting comfortable. It was only a summer thing to her, though. She says we’re too different. I know she’s right, but …”
“That really sucks, Cal, even if it’s for the best.”
“Yeah.” He turns back at me. “You know, Sam’s a natural redhead, too.”
“Oh, really? She looked blond.”
“She dyes it ’cause she hates it. I never understood why.”
“I get it. Red’s a tough color to live with. You stick out like a sore thumb, you clash with a lot of clothes, and the nicknames reek: Carrot Top, Flame Brain, Ginger-vitis, Fire Crotch—”
“Coppertone,” Calvin interjects.
“Well, I never minded that one.”
All of a sudden Calvin stares straight at me, and I stare back at him. He looks so kind and nonthreatening and cute. We’re in the rearmost seat on the shuttle, hidden from the other passengers’ view. Outside, the sunset sky is glowing gold and pink, and sharp beams of light cut through the clouds like fans. What a perfect moment for a first kiss.
If this were a Hollywood rom-com, that’s exactly what would happen. Calvin would proclaim something like, “I’ve wanted you for so long.” And I’d answer, “It was you, always you.” Finally we’d cling to each other as the shuttle levitated, Grease-style, off into the sky.
But life’s not like that. It’s messy, unpredictable, and unfair. Calvin’s wonderful, but Amy had it right. I. Don’t. Like.
Him. That. Way. I want a boyfriend with whom I can have the love I felt with Wes, the passion I had with Guy, and the friendship I share with Calvin. It may take scads more guys, dates, relationships, and breakups before I find someone who feels right, if I ever do, and I realize it won’t ever be perfect. But no one, especially Calvin, deserves anything less than being in love and being loved just as much in return.
Calvin must know all this, too. He’s the first to look away. Then he clears his throat and does a couple of neck rolls, and he sounds more like the old Calvin as he says, “So, enough about my love life. How was your summer?”
I laugh. “That’s a loaded question, but it was … interesting. By far my craziest summer ever, but not in a bad way. I don’t know if I’d change anything about it, though I don’t know if I’d do it again, either. There’re a lot of new memories, that’s for sure.”
Calvin looks understandably perplexed. “Um … would you care to elaborate?”
“Another time. Right now I just want to think about unpacking and seeing everybody again and starting the semester. Which leads me to your MBA essay …”
I pull out my copy from my backpack, and we spend the rest of the ride going over it line by line. I knew it would put Calvin in a happier mood, since most of my comments are praise.
Back at Tulane, Calvin helps wheel my bags to my room, but he can’t stick around since he’s due at a Res-Life meeting.
“Remember,” he tells me, “team trivia’s Thursday night.”
“I’ll be there. And we’ll see each other later at that quad mixer.” Then I add, “That’s a promise.”
“Definitely, and, uh … hey.”
“Hmm?” I look up at him while unzipping my suitcase.
Calvin just stands there in my doorway for a moment. He still appears pretty cut up, which is expected, considering what he’s gone through. I want to remind him that he’ll always mean a great deal to me, and that we have so much to look forward to, but it’s clear from his eyes that everything’s understood. Finally he says, “Welcome home, Coppertone,” and opens his arms.
Anatomy of a Single Girl Page 17
