Breaking the Rules: The Honeybees, book 1

by Archer, Amy

  I was surprised to hear he had a car; he always arrived at the trainings and our doggy play dates by bike. I started to protest, to say that I’d be fine and could go along with him, but my knee gave another sharp pain, and I nodded.

  “Okay. Thanks, Devin,” I said. I sat on a bench near the street and watched as Devin and Taco disappeared into the distance. Watching the dog walk away with Devin gave me some mild anxiety, and for a moment I had the thought, I hope he comes back. It was ridiculous, of course; obviously he would come back.

  Devin was a good guy. This much I knew.

  It had been two months since I’d even heard from Matt when I got a call from him out of the blue. I was at work and couldn’t answer my phone, but I pulled it out when I heard it buzzing and saw who it was. My heart leapt when I looked at the screen.

  What does he want? I wondered. I wasn’t mad at Matt, exactly, but thinking about him was painful. If I wanted to get back on track with my life, I knew that living in the past was counterproductive.

  Yet I was overwhelmed with curiosity about what he was going to say.

  The students were working on counting, and I should be walking around the room helping them. But for the moment, there were no disasters, so I let them be and tapped the button to listen to the message.

  “Hi, Sophie, it’s Matt,” he said into my ear. Why had he called when he knew I’d be at work? Did he purposely want to leave a message rather than talking to me? “Um, so, I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch these past few weeks….”

  Few weeks my ass, I thought. It had been two months and he knew it. Almost to the day.

  “I…I wondered if we could get together and talk,” he continued, then added quickly, “I know you may not want to talk to me right now, but I thought if we could just get together for coffee or something, just quickly, that maybe we could straighten a few things out.”

  I hung up the phone feeling even more confused than I had upon seeing his name in my caller ID. He wanted to get together and talk? About what? About the way he had left me so unexpectedly? Did he finally want to explain what was going on? It still hurt to think about, but I was coming to accept the situation. It didn’t seem fair to let him barge back into my life and mess things up, after I had worked so hard to get back on track.

  And now with my knee like this too.

  Just then, Ms. Mayfield walked past my classroom, and I jumped up.

  “Ms. Mayfield, can I talk to you a moment?” I said, and we stood just outside the room so I could keep an eye on my class.

  “I’ve been thinking about how to incorporate art into my classroom. I have a lot of ideas, but I’d really love to take the kids on a field trip to an art museum too.” I knew just the one: great mix of old and modern art, not too stuffy.

  Ms. Mayfield shook her head. “Sophie, these kids are too young. It would be a disaster.”

  “I know they’re young,” I persisted. “But art appreciation starts early. I really think it would be good for them. I’d do all the work of arranging parent chaperones…”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said, and I got the impression that meant no.

  But until she said the word, I’d keep pressing.

  I went back to my desk and stared at Matt’s name on my phone screen again, then sighed.

  Okay, I decided. If he wanted to get together and talk, I would get together with him and hear what he had to say. I had a few things I wanted to say to him too, all those angry feelings he hadn’t let me express when he’d broken up with me and moved out of our house so abruptly.

  I waited until after all my students had left, and sat at my desk with the phone in my hand, trying to force my fingers to find his name in my phone. I found it, but then couldn’t bring myself to dial.

  I set the phone down. My heart was pounding.

  This wasn’t fair. He shouldn’t be able to do this to me. Not anymore. Not after two months.

  It’s only been two months, the little voice in my head told me. That’s really not very long, after six years together.

  I settled on texting him instead. We agreed to meet later that week at a coffee shop near our old house, the house where I still lived. It wasn’t one we’d ever been to, so it felt like neutral territory, but it was one we’d walked by many times before, that in fact I still walked by on my way to my marathon training twice a week. Plus sometimes more, if Devin and I met for our doggy play dates in the same park where the trainings were held.

  The day we met up was warmer than it had been, but I felt cold inside in anticipation of what Matt might say. I was proud of myself for the way I’d been moving on, and was worried that he was pushing me off-center just by asking me to meet for coffee.

  When I saw him, my chest constricted. I had arrived first, and I saw him through the window as he came inside, looked around for me, and walked toward me. I felt for a moment like I couldn’t breathe. Then he hugged me and sat down across from me, and it was like old times again. He smelled the same. He looked the same. He acted the same.

  He was so familiar. So comforting. So stabilizing.

  “How’ve you been, Soph?” he asked, just a hint of uneasiness in his voice, as though he was afraid I would unexpectedly throw something at his head.

  “I’ve been really good,” I said, and realized that apart from the unavoidable pain of any breakup, I meant it. I was sticking to my rules, as much as possible, and I was moving on.

  “Good,” he said, looking encouraged. “I’m really glad to hear that.” He gave me a tentative smile.

  “How about you, Matt?” I asked.

  He looked down at his coffee. “I’ve been okay,” he said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “It’s been hard, you know.” It was clearly hard just for him to say that. I tried to remember the last time he’d admitted to difficult feelings and came up blank. This was not a guy who liked to admit to having emotions.

  “I know. It’s been hard for me too.”

  “Sophie…look, I’m not going to drag this out. I asked you to meet me here because I want to get back together. Is that something you’d consider?”

  I felt blindsided. Of all the things I’d expected him to say, this was the last. I’d expected him to try to make up with me, to try to explain what had motivated his actions, to try to make me not hate him. He’d always had a hard time standing people disliking him.

  But this? Getting back together was something I was completely unprepared for.

  “You want to get back together?” I asked. I was sure the shock was evident on my face.

  “I don’t like living without you. I miss eating dinner with you. I miss just having you there.”

  “Matt…” I said, but wasn’t sure what else to say. A little bubble of anger boiled up inside of me, but more than anything I was confused.

  “Don’t you miss me too?”

  “Of course I do,” I said, a little more forcefully than I’d intended. “Of course I miss you. Every day. But…” I wanted to say but I’m moving on, but now that I was sitting here across from him I was no longer so sure of that. “But what happened?” I finally asked. “Why did you think you didn’t want to be with me anymore, and what makes you think you want to try again now? You can’t just come in here and not explain yourself and expect me to forget the way you abandoned me.”

  He nodded and looked down into his coffee again. “Fair enough. I guess I just…underestimated what we had. But now I see what we had was really good.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. Part of me still missed him and thought about how easy it would be to go back to what we’d had. Another part of me thought he’d need to do better than this, way better, if I were ever to consider taking him back.

  “You said you felt like we weren’t moving forward. Do you still feel like that?”

  “I think…maybe moving forward is overrated. Or maybe we just have to do it ourselves.”

  I rested my forehead in one hand and massaged my temples. “I don’t exactly know w
hat you mean,” I said. “We have to do what ourselves?”

  “I mean…” And now he was looking even more nervous than before, terrified, almost. “I mean maybe if we want to move forward we have to decide to do it rather than waiting for things to happen to us that move us forward.”

  I sighed. I wished he would just say what he was trying to say. Matt always had talked in circles.

  He cleared his throat and continued. “Maybe if we got married, that would move us forward,” he said. “Instead of waiting to feel like we were moving forward and then getting married. We just decide to move and we do it.” His eyes looked wild, like he couldn’t believe the words that had just come out of his mouth.

  I stared at him. Was he really suggesting marriage? Here? Now?

  He’s kind of boring. The words popped into my head uninvited, and I considered the revelation I’d had that first day Taco and I had gotten together with Devin.

  Don’t do anything you can’t take back, I told myself, competing with the other voice that was encouraging me to walk away right now. Think on it.

  I didn’t say anything for a moment, and my eyes wandered around his face, taking him in. I’d looked at this face so many times over the years, and a part of me still couldn’t believe we weren’t together anymore. I’d always assumed we would last forever.

  He was predictable, and I loved that about him. Our relationship was predictable, and I’d loved that about it. I never had to worry about coming home and finding Matt mad at me, finding things out of order, finding chaos awaiting me that would spill out into other areas of my life. I’d been free to concentrate on my career, to concentrate on my goals, because I didn’t have to worry about rockiness in my relationship.

  But now…now I wasn’t sure what to think. Devin’s smiling face popped into my mind. What would have happened with Devin if I were still dating Matt? Would Matt have given his okay on me adopting a dog in the first place? And if so, what would he have said when he found out that Taco was Devin’s?

  He would’ve made me give Taco back, I realized. Perhaps “made me” was too strong a term, but he would’ve been clear that that’s what he thought should happen—partly because it was easier than working out an agreement with Devin, and partly because he wouldn’t like Taco that much anyway. Taco was messy and unpredictable. Matt wouldn’t have wanted him in his life.

  So what did it mean that I did?

  “Matt,” I finally said, “I do miss you, and I miss what we had together. But I don’t know what to say right now. These past couple of months have been really hard for me, but I’ve been moving forward” —I winced when I caught myself using his term— “and making progress. Part of me really wants to get back together. Another part of me thinks it would be a really bad idea. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know.”

  Matt nodded, looking solemn and perhaps a little ashamed. “I understand,” he said. “Take some time to think about it. Let me know what you decide.”

  We parted ways, my head swimming. I felt thrown back into chaos by the one person who had always made me feel grounded. I was confused and lost and felt pulled in multiple directions at once. How could he? my mind asked, but this time it wasn’t about leaving me, it was about wanting to get back together.

  All I wanted was to go home and snuggle up with Taco. Taco would make me feel better.

  And then, with a start, I remembered that Taco was still with Devin.

  Later that week, feeling no more certain of what to do than I had the day I met with Matt, I met up with Olivia, another of the Honeybees I’d been so close to in high school. Olivia worked for a PR firm that promoted certain restaurants around the city, and she had responded to my message by suggesting we get together for a walk.

  “Perfect timing!” I had written back. I still couldn’t run on my knee, but it was feeling strong enough to walk on.

  We met up near Olivia’s apartment, and I felt awkward at first. But as with Caroline, after a few minutes we found a comfortable rhythm to our conversation. Olivia had always been the most spiritual of the group, and I could relate to the way she always seemed to think through her options thoroughly before making decisions.

  “So I saw some photos online of you and Hannah,” I said, remembering the endless stream of bar, dancing, and party photos Hannah had posted. “You two still hang out?”

  Olivia nodded. “All the time. We live together!”

  “What? Wow!” Apparently not all of the Honeybees had lost touch.

  With thoughts of Matt fresh in my mind, I talked to Olivia about my predicament. It was nice to have a female friend to talk to, and Olivia turned out to be a good listener. As we walked through the streets of San Francisco, peering in shop windows and stopping to check out restaurant menus, I relieved myself of the burden of Matt’s question. It had been rattling around in my head for days, unanswered.

  Olivia suggested darting into a consignment store, and as we browsed the racks, Olivia said thoughtfully, “When you think about getting back together with him, how does it make your body feel?”

  I paused. I imagined myself with Matt, the two of us together in our apartment, me making dinner and waiting for him to emerge from his room to eat with me. Sometimes he would bring home a six-pack of craft beer after work, and we would sip on a beer together while I cooked. He would help me chop vegetables, and we would spend a nice evening together. I closed my eyes for a moment, immersing myself in the feeling.

  Finally, I opened my eyes and looked at Olivia. “I feel calm when I think about getting back together with him. But I also don’t feel…much of anything.”

  “Well, not every breakup has to be a tragedy,” Olivia said, pulling a navy blue peacoat off its hanger and holding it up to herself in the mirror. “Maybe not feeling much of anything means you need to move on. Now how do you feel when you think about not being with him anymore?”

  “Well,” I said carefully, “given that that’s the actual current situation, it’s something I think about a lot. But as for how it feels? I guess I feel… a little sad, to think about that period in my life coming to an end. But more than anything, it kind of just makes me feel like my life is in a freefall. Like it was all…settled. And now it’s not.”

  I remembered the invitation to our high school reunion, which was on my fridge, still unanswered. Could I face my high school classmates even though I wasn’t where I thought I’d be in life?

  “It’s never really settled, though,” Olivia said thoughtfully. “You know? It’s like, the moment you think things are how they’re going to be for a long time, everything gets shaken up anyway. Someone dies, or you lose your job, or something happens to cause this big shift in your life.”

  “True,” I said, “but I don’t like to think about that. It’s scary.”

  Olivia laughed. “Of course it’s scary. But doesn’t the unpredictability make you appreciate what you have? Isn’t life more fun because unexpected things happen that cause you to change everything, even if those changes are hard at first?”

  I thought about Devin then, in the way on our first doggy play date I had realized that Matt was boring. That Devin had interests and hobbies and was still growing. He seemed so unpredictable when I had first met him, so spontaneous, and I had interpreted it as instability. But what if that’s not what it was? What if spontaneous could just be…fun?

  I stood very still for a moment, asking myself Olivia’s question one more time in a slightly new way. When I thought about Devin, how did it make my body feel?

  The answer came to me right away. There was no confusion. Thinking about Devin made me feel excited, like something was bubbling up within my chest, this aliveness that I hadn’t felt in way too long. Thinking about him made my body feel happy and light, full of possibility.

  And it also made me feel turned on. There was no denying that. I could feel my nipples stiffen under my shirt just imagining the way his hair bounced out of control as he ran. I’d never met anyone who could be so sim
ultaneously goofy and sexy. And the way he looked at me, he made me feel like I could be those things too. And like maybe, just maybe, my life had room for all of it: for spontaneity, for fun, for goals, for stability, for new experiences, and even for my rules for getting my life back on track. After all, Devin ran marathons. Devin attended training twice a week.

  As I thought, I had been idly browsing through the rack in front of me. Now, my eyes landed on a polka-dotted shirt. Normally I wore solid colors and would never have considered something this bright – the shirt was aqua and the polkadots pink. It wasn’t my colors at all.

  Yet something about the shirt caught my eye. Maybe it was just thinking about spontaneity and considering how other people live, how I could possibly live too. But I pulled it off the rack and held it out in front of me, examining it.

  “That’s cute!” Olivia said. “Are you going to try it on?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I am.”

  Matt would hate the shirt. I had a feeling Devin would like it.

  When we left the shop together a few minutes later, Olivia had bought the navy blue pea coat. And I, with a smile on my face, was carrying a bag containing the pink and blue polka-dotted shirt.

  Devin called on Saturday afternoon.

  “You missed training again today,” he said. “Is everything okay? Is your knee still bothering you?”

  “A little bit,” I admitted. “I’ll be back on Tuesday, I just didn’t want to push it too hard.” I was embarrassed to have injured myself and was anxious to start training again. I had to admit, I was anxious to see Devin again too. And Taco.

  “Well, we missed you today,” Devin said. I smiled to myself. “What are you up to this afternoon? Maybe you and Paco and I could get together so you can take him for a while. I’m sure you miss him.”

  I glanced at my to-do list, which was sitting in front of me on the kitchen counter. “Um…” I hesitated. “Yeah, I think I can do that. What did you have in mind?” I felt flustered at needing to rearrange my day, but it was worth it to see Devin. And Taco.