by Emily Giffin
"Please. I really need to talk to you about something," I said.
As I said the words, I realized that Dex likely no longer cared about my needs. Sure enough, he said again, "I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"I just don't think it's a good idea."
"Because of Rachel?"
"Darcy," he said, annoyed. "What do you want?"
"I just need to see you. Can't you just see me? Please? I just want to talk to you. I'm sure she'd understand," I said, wanting him to tell me that he wasn't seeing Rachel anymore. That they had broken up. I was hungry to hear the words.
But instead he said, "Rachel would be fine with me seeing you."
The statement wasn't clarifying. It could mean she was secure in their relationship. It could mean there was no relationship. I decided not to press. For now. "Well, then, why won't you see me?" I asked.
"Darcy, you need to move on."
"I have moved on," I said. "I just need to talk to you about something."
He sighed and then folded. "Fine. Whatever."
I brightened. My plan was going to work. He gave in because he secretly wanted to see me too. "So let's meet back at our place at eight," I said.
"Our place?"
"You know what I mean," I said.
"No. I'm not going there. Pick somewhere else."
"Like where?" I asked, wondering if he had a nice restaurant in mind. "You choose."
"How about Session 73?"
The fact that the bar was mere blocks away from Rachel's apartment was not lost on me. "Why there?" I asked snidely. "Is that your new Upper East hangout?"
"Darcy. You're on thin ice," he said. It was something he always used to say to me in jest. I felt a wave of nostalgia and wondered if he felt it too.
"Why can't we meet at the apartment?"
"Don't press your luck."
"But I have some stuff to give you."
"What stuff? I got it all."
"Just a box of stuff you left. Stuff from the filing cabinet."
"Like what?"
"Maps, instruction booklets, a few letters…"
"You can toss that stuff."
"Can't you just meet me back at the apartment? We can talk for ten minutes. I'll give you your stuff and you can go."
"No. Bring it to Session 73."
"It's too heavy," I said. "I can't lift it, let alone carry it all that way-"
"Oh. Right. You're pregnant," he said bitterly. It was a good sign; he wouldn't be bitter if he didn't still care.
"So I'll swing by your place at eight," he said. "Please have the stuff ready."
"Okay," I said. "See you tonight, Dex."
Later that afternoon, I left work and zipped over to Bendel's, where I picked up a fabulous sea-foam-green cashmere sweater that plunged in the back. Dexter was a huge fan of my back. He always told me that I had the best back and that he loved how strong it was and the way I had no fat around my bra strap. Rachel definitely had her share of back fat, I thought, as I raced across Fifth Avenue to my hair appointment at Louis Licari. After a fabulous blowout, I changed into my new sweater in the salon bathroom. In case Dex made it back to my place before I did, I wanted to be ready.
Sure enough, when I returned home, there he was, sitting on our front stoop, leafing through a document. He looked gorgeous. My heart raced just as it had when I first saw him walk into that bar in the Village so many years before. His tan had faded somewhat, but his skin still glowed. He had olive skin that would make any woman jealous. A perfect, even color, never a blemish. His sideburns were longer than usual-which gave him a sexy edge. I liked the subtle change. But with or without the sideburns, Dex was gorgeous. I had to get him back.
"Hello, Dex," I said, smiling a slow smile. "You're early."
Dex grimaced and tossed his document into his briefcase. Then he snapped it closed, stood up, and looked me straight in the eye. "Hi, Darcy."
"Come on up," I said, walking as enticingly as possible up the stairs to our third-floor apartment. Dex used to hate when I took the elevator three floors up, so I would show him that people could change. He followed me silently and then stood waiting with a grim expression as I unlocked the door. I walked inside, but he waited just outside the doorway.
"Well? Aren't you going to come in?" I asked, making my way over to the couch.
"Where's my stuff?" he asked, refusing to take another step.
I rolled my eyes. "Can't you please just come in and sit down? I want to talk to you for one second."
"I have plans at nine," he said.
"Well, it's only eight."
He glanced around nervously. Then he sighed, walked toward me, and perched on the very edge of the couch, placing his briefcase between his feet. I thought of all the times he had plopped down on that exact spot, kicked off his shoes, and reclined. We had eaten countless dinners on that couch, watched hundreds of movies and television shows there, even made love a few times in the early days. Now he looked out of place and stiff. It was weird.
I smiled at him, trying to alter the mood.
"Let's get this show on the road, Darcy. I gotta get going."
"Where are you going?"
"That is none of your business."
"Are you going out with Rachel? How are things going with her?" I asked, hoping to hear that their ill-advised romance-one based on hurt feelings and confusion-had fizzled, destroying their friendship along the way.
Dex said, "Let's not go through the charade of inquiring about each other's lives as if we're friends."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.
"What part didn't you get?" he said.
"The part about us not being friends?"
"We're not friends," he said.
"We date for seven years and now we're not even friends? Just like that?" I asked.
He didn't flinch. "That's right. Just like that."
"Well. Regardless of whether we're friends, why can't you tell me if you're still with Rachel? What's the big deal?" I paused, praying that he would say, Don't be ridiculous. Rachel and I don't have a relationship. That afternoon was just something that happened… or even better… almost happened. Maybe I had even imagined their tans in Crate and Barrel.
"It's not a big deal," he said. "I just think it's best if we don't discuss our personal lives." He gripped the handle on his briefcase, pushing it from side to side.
"Why? I can handle it. You can't?"
He exhaled hard, shook his head, and said, "Fine. If you insist. Things with Rachel are very good. Great, in fact."
"So you're actually dating?"
"See? That's exactly why I don't want to discuss my life with you," Dex said, rubbing his hand along his jaw.
"Fine." I sniffed. "Let's just get your things. They're in the bedroom. You remember where that is, don't you?"
"You get them. I'll wait here."
"Dex, please," I said. "Just come with me."
"No," he said. "I'm not going back there."
I sighed, striding toward our bedroom, where I had planned on seducing him after a glass or two of wine. That clearly wasn't going to happen. So I grabbed a shoebox, dumped a pair of Jimmy Choos on my bed, and rummaged through my desk until I found a few instruction booklets. One for a fancy calculator he had bought for his home office. Another for our stereo. And a few maps of the D.C. area where his father lived. I put the papers in the shoebox. Then, just to add some heft, I threw in our studio engagement picture, expensive sterling silver frame and all. I knew it was one of Dexter's favorites of me, so it had surprised me when he took other pictures of us and left that one behind. I waltzed back into the living room, thrust the box toward him, and said, "Here."
"That's the heavy box you couldn't carry?" he asked, disgusted. He stood, poised to leave.
That's when it all sank in and I started to cry. Dex was serious with Rachel. He was leaving me to go meet her. Through tears, I begged. "Don't go. Please don't go," I said, wondering how many tim
es I'd say those words.
"Darcy," he said, as he sat back down. "Why are you doing this?"
"I can't help it," I said as I blew my nose. "I'm so sad."
He sighed loudly. "You act as if I did this thing to you."
"You did do this thing to me."
"You did it too. Remember?" He pointed at my stomach.
"Okay. Fine. I did it too. But…" I struggled to think of some way to keep him with me a bit longer. "But I need some answers before I can move on. I need closure. Please, Dex."
He stared at me blankly. His eyes said: "You don't have a choice about moving on. I'm outta here."
I asked my question anyway. "When exactly did you start dating? On the very day we broke up?"
"Darcy, that is entirely immaterial at this point."
"Tell me. Were you looking to be consoled? Is that why you went to Rachel's?"
"Darcy, just stop it. I want you to be happy. I want you and Marcus to be happy. Can't you want the same for me?"
"Marcus and I broke up," I blurted. All pride was out the window now.
Dex raised his eyebrows, his mouth forming the beginning of a question-when or maybe why. But he changed his response to, "Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."
"I miss you, Dex," I said. "I want us to be together again. Isn't there any way?"
He shook his head. "No."
"But I still love you." I linked my arm around his. "And I think that we still have something-"
"Darcy." He pulled roughly away, his features rearranging in a preachy expression. I knew this face well. It was his "my patience has expired" face. The face he got after I posed the same question a dozen times. "I'm with Rachel now. I'm sorry. There's no chance of us ever getting back together. Zero."
"Why are you being so cruel?"
"I'm not trying to be cruel. You just need to know that."
I put my face in my hands and sobbed harder. Then, suddenly, I had an idea. It was an awful, low thing to do, but I decided that I had no choice. I stopped crying, cast him a sideways glance, and said, "The baby is yours."
Dex was unfazed. "Darcy. Don't even start with that Montel Williams DNA-testing crap. That baby is not mine, and we both know it. I heard what you told Rachel. I know when we last had sex."
"The pregnancy is further along than I thought. It's yours. Why do you think Marcus and I broke up?"
"Darcy," Dex said, raising his voice. "Do not do this."
"Dex. The baby is yours. My doctor did an ultrasound to confirm the fetus's age. It happened earlier than I thought. It's yours," I said, shocking even myself with the disgraceful tactic. I told myself that I would come clean later. I just needed to buy some time with Dex. I could get him back if I just had time to work my magic. He wouldn't be able to resist me as Marcus had. After all, Marcus was impossible, weird about commitment. But Dex had been mine forever. There had to be some lingering feelings.
"If you're lying about this, it is unforgivable." His voice was almost shaking, and his eyes were wide. "I want the truth. Now."
I sucked in my breath, exhaled slowly, and maintained eye contact while I lied again. "It's yours," I said, feeling ashamed.
"You know I'm going to want proof."
I licked my lips, stayed calm. "Yes. Absolutely. I want you to take a blood test. You'll see that it's yours."
"Darcy."
"What?"
Dex put his head in his hands and then ran them through his thick, dark hair. "Darcy… Even if it is mine, I want you to understand that this baby won't change a thing between us. Not a thing. You got that?"
"What does that mean exactly?" I asked, even though it was pretty clear what he was driving at. After all, Marcus had just made the same point to me the night before. I had the concept down.
"We're over. Finished. It's never going to happen again with you and me. Baby or no baby. I'm with Rachel now."
I stared at him, feeling outrage well up inside of me. It was all so unbelievable! So utterly inconceivable! How could he be with Rachel? I stood and paced over to the window, trying to catch my breath.
"So tell me the truth right now. Is it mine?" he asked.
I turned and looked at him. He wasn't going to fold. You come to know a person well in seven years-and I knew that once Dex made up his mind, there was absolutely nothing that I could say to change it. His jaw was clenched. There was no opening for me. Besides, as brazen as I could be, I knew I could never actually go through with a ploy like this one, even as a temporary measure. It was just too awful, and I only felt worse for having tried it.
"Fine," I said, throwing up my hands. "It's Marcus's baby. Are you happy?"
"Actually yes, Darcy. I am happy. No, ecstatic is more the word." He stood and pointed angrily at me. "And the fact that you could lie about such a thing confirms to me-"
"I'm sorry," I said before he could finish his sentence. I was crying again. "I know it was really low… I just don't know what to do. Everything is falling apart for me. And-and-you're with Rachel. You took her on our honeymoon! How could you take her on our honeymoon? How could you do that?"
Dex said nothing.
"You did, didn't you? You went to Hawaii with her?"
"The tickets were nonrefundable, Darcy. Even the hotel was already paid for," he said, looking guilty.
"How could you do that? How? And then I see you two in Crate and Barrel, shopping for couches. That's how I knew about Hawaii. You were all tan. Shopping for couches… All tan and happy and buying couches." I was babbling now, a total mess. "Are you moving in together?"
"Not yet…"
"Not yet?" I said. "So you are eventually? Are you serious?"
"Darcy, please. Stop this. Rachel and I didn't do this to hurt you. Just like you didn't get pregnant to hurt me. Right?" he asked in his "please be reasonable" tone.
I looked out the window again at a pile of trash on the curb. Then I returned my gaze to Dex. "Please be with me again," I said softly. "Please. Give me another chance. We had seven good years together. Things were good. We'll forgive each other and move on." I walked back over to him and tried to hug him. He stiffened and recoiled like a puppy resisting the grasp of an overzealous child.
"Dex? Please?"
"No, Darcy. We don't belong together. We aren't right for each other."
"Do you love her?" I asked under my breath, truly expecting him to say no or that he didn't know or that he wouldn't answer the question.
But instead he said, "Yes. I love her." I could see in his eyes that he wasn't saying it to be mean; he was saying it out of a sense of loyalty to her. It was that committed, resolute look of his. It was Dex being a good person, being true to his new girlfriend. I marveled at how fast old loyalties, ones that took years to build, could be ripped apart and replaced. I knew I had lost him, but I felt desperate to recruit a small piece of his heart back to me. Make him feel even a sliver of what he used to feel for me. "More than you ever loved me?" I asked, looking for one small scrap.
"Don't do this, Darcy."
"I need to know, Dex. I really need to know the answer to that," I said, thinking that he couldn't possibly love her more in a few weeks than he had loved me when he had proposed after years together. It just wasn't possible.
"Why do you need to know, Darce?"
"I just do. Tell me."
He stared down at the coffee table for a long minute in that dazed way of his where he doesn't blink. Then he looked around the apartment, his eyes resting on an oil painting of a dilapidated, pillared house surrounded by terraced fields and a solitary oak. We had purchased the painting together in New Orleans right at the beginning of our relationship. We had spent nearly eight hundred dollars on it, which seemed like a huge sum of money at the time, as Dex was in law school and I had just begun to work. It was our first big purchase as a couple-an implicit acknowledgment of our commitment to each other. Sort of like buying a dog together. I remember standing in that gallery, admiring our painting, as Dex told me that he loved the way the e
arly evening shadows fell across the front porch. I remember him saying that dusk was his favorite time of day. I remember we grinned at each other as the clerk bubble-wrapped our painting. Then we returned to the hotel, where we made love and ordered a banana split from the room service menu. Had he forgotten all of that?
I guess I had forgotten such moments when my affair began with Marcus. But I remembered every such occasion now. Regret surged through me. What I would have given to have a big ol' redo, take back everything with Marcus. I looked at Dex and asked the question again. "Do you love her more than you ever loved me?"
I waited.
Then he nodded and said so softly that it was nearly a whisper, "Yes. I do. I'm really sorry, Darcy."
I stared at him incredulously, trying to process what he was saying, how it could be possible that he could love Rachel so much. She wasn't that pretty. She wasn't that fun. What did she have that I didn't have besides a few measly IQ points?
Dex spoke again. "I can tell you're in a bad place right now, Darcy. Part of me would like to help you, but it just won't work. I can't be that person for you. You have friends and family you need to turn to… I really have to go now." His voice was distant, his gaze detached. In a few seconds, he would walk out, hail a cab, and cross the park to see Rachel. She would greet him at her door, her brown eyes sympathetic, probing for details about our meeting. I could hear her asking, "How did it go?" and stroking Dexter's hair as he told her everything. How I had lied about the baby, then begged, then cried. She would feel both pity and disdain for me.
"Fine. Get out. I don't want to talk to you or her ever again," I said, realizing that I had said pretty much the same thing in Rachel's apartment. This time, my words had a watered-down, weak effect.
Dex bit his lower lip. "Please be well," he said, gathering up his briefcase and the shoebox of junk he didn't want any more than he wanted me. Then he stood and walked out of his old apartment, leaving me for good.
sixteen
It was incomprehensible. In my entire lifetime-throughout high school, college, and my twenties-I had never been dissed by a guy. Not dumped. Not stood up. Not even slighted. And there I was-a two-time loser all in a week's time. I was completely alone, didn't even have a prospect in sight.
