by J. Sterling
As we wandered down Third Street in Santa Monica, I tried to push aside the memories of Cal’s last day here. How had my personal space become littered with thoughts of him? If he wasn’t going to be in my life, then I didn’t want him in my city.
We chose a bar, headed inside, and I grimaced at the giant chalkboard that read Over Fifty Types of Bourbon!
Bourbon.
Two months ago, I most likely would have ignored the sign or not even seen it. Now the word triggered something so deep inside my heart, I thought it might stop beating. It was so stupid, the way I associated Cal with the liquor, but it was tied to a memory, a minuscule speck of time that had come to represent so much more.
Bourbon had once made me feel happy and brought a smile to my face. Now all it brought me was pain associated with loss, and I never wanted to drink it again.
I hated bourbon.
I hoped it all burned to the fucking ground.
Sorry, Kentucky.
Rolling my eyes, I chose a small two-person table farthest from the bar and sat down.
“We’re eating, right? I’m starving,” Tami said, concern pinching her features.
“Yes, we’re eating. Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” She tilted her head, staring at me with aqua-colored eyes today.
“Like you’re afraid I’m going to fall apart at any second.”
“I don’t think that. I’m just still sad for you, is all.” She reached across the table and squeezed my hand.
“Let’s drink first, be sad later,” I said with a smile.
Our waiter appeared, and we ordered drinks. When he walked away, I gave Tami my full attention.
“Tell me what’s going on with you. Distract me.”
She waved away my question. “You know there’s nothing going on with me. All work, all the time. And then random guys who mean nothing the rest of the time.”
“I can’t wait to see the guy who knocks you on your ass and steals your heart.”
She gave me a wry look. “To be honest, you’re not making me want that anytime soon.”
“Pretty sure you won’t have a choice in the matter,” I said with a small smile. Tami truly in love was going to be something to see.
“Trust me. I’m aware.”
Our drinks arrived and we toasted each other before downing them way too quickly.
“I need bread,” I warned, “or it will not be a pretty night.”
Tami snorted. “I need more than bread.” She waved our waiter back over, and we ordered food along with our next round of drinks.
I downed my third lemon drop before reaching for my phone, which I’d placed on top of the table.
“Oh no, you don’t. Give me your cell!” Tami practically yelled before prying the phone from my grasp.
“Why are you taking my phone from me?”
“Because you’re drunk,” she said matter-of-factly, as if that was a perfectly acceptable answer.
“And?”
“And drunk Jules equals drunk texting with Cal. You’ll hate yourself tomorrow if you cave and text him tonight.”
She was right, so damn right. But that didn’t stop the desire from churning within me. I wanted to text him. I missed him so much, I felt it in every part of me, especially my stupid heart.
“How can he just walk away from me and not care?” I asked Tami again, as if she’d have new insight into the same question I’d been asking since he left.
She shrugged, her eyes sad. “I don’t know, Jules. I’m sorry. None of it makes any sense to me.”
“Me either. I just . . .” I stopped and sucked in a deep breath. “I miss him, and I don’t understand how he doesn’t miss me. Was everything he said to me a lie? It has to have been, right? Otherwise, he’d be just as miserable as I am right now.”
“Do you think it was a lie?” she asked before sipping her cocktail.
“Yes.” I shook my head. “No. I don’t know. I don’t want it to have been lies because then that just means I’m a fool on top of everything else.”
“You’re not a fool.”
“But I believed him without question. Every single thing he said to me, I totally bought into and believed because I felt the same way.”
“That doesn’t make you a fool, Jules.”
Tami might have been trying to make me feel better, but it wasn’t helping.
I had believed every word Cal said and texted me over the past two months. My heart would skip when he told me he missed me, that he couldn’t wait to see me again, or that he couldn’t stop thinking about me. I never even thought for a second that those words might be untrue. Until now. Now it was all I thought about, how his words had to be lies.
I didn’t understand what he had to gain by lying to me, but it was the only thing that made any sense. If everything had been a lie, then of course it would be easy for him to walk away and never speak to me again.
“I wish I had the answers for you.” Tami lifted her glass to me before downing the rest of her drink.
“Me too.”
I wish someone did. The not-knowing part was slowly and painfully killing what was left of my heart.
As my brain tried to come up with scenarios that made sense, a new possibility occurred to me. “Maybe he met someone and didn’t want to tell me. If he met someone else, he would probably just move on and not want to tell me about it.”
Tami raised an eyebrow at me. “Is that what you would do?”
“No! Of course not. But I’m not looking for anyone else; I don’t want to date anyone else. I really like Cal. I don’t want to be with someone who isn’t him.”
She toyed with her drink, seeming deep in thought. “I don’t think he met someone.”
My eyes widened, my heart suddenly a fraction more hopeful than it was two seconds before. “You don’t?”
She looked up at me and shook her head. “I don’t. I don’t think that’s what happened at all, and I’d be surprised if it had.”
“I wish I could read hearts,” I all but slurred as I downed the last of my drink.
The waiter paused at our table and looked at me with raised eyebrows, but I shook my head. I wanted another lemon drop, but I certainly didn’t need one.
Tami laughed. “Don’t you mean minds?”
“Why on earth would I want to read minds? No. Hearts. Hearts don’t lie. Okay, well, maybe they do. But you can’t talk yourself out of feeling the way you feel in your heart the way you can in your mind. Hearts feel things whether you want them to or not. They aren’t logical, trying to make sense all the time. They just do.”
“So you’d read Cal’s heart if you could?”
“In a heartbeat. Pun intended.” I laughed at my own joke. “If I knew how he felt about me, then I’d be okay with his silence. It would at least ease some of the pain, or help me get over it altogether. If I just knew what was going on in there.” I jabbed at my chest with my finger.
Tami shrugged. “You should just ask him how he feels.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause you took my phone.”
“I didn’t mean tonight!” she exclaimed. “No. I take it back.” She pointed at me, looking all bossy and lawyer-like. “You don’t ask him anything. You don’t reach out to him, you don’t text him, you don’t tweet him, you don’t call him or send him an e-mail, or Snap-whatever. Nothing, you hear me? That was a bad idea from me. Don’t you dare contact him ever again.”
“I hear you,” I said, nodding at her.
“You aren’t going to listen to me, are you?”
“Who knows. I clearly enjoy the torture of putting myself out there and getting nothing in return.”
But it wasn’t about the torture, really. I wanted answers. Hell, I wanted something from him. Anything was better than the silent treatment.
Cal had grown on me way quicker than I’d ever anticipated, and felt his absence like a loss in the worst way. The pain in my c
hest reminded me how undead my heart truly was with each beat it sputtered out. It had simply been an organ that existed inside me for so long, feeling nothing, and now all it brought me was a constant ache.
“You know, I wonder what’s wrong with me,” I said, my heart spilling out of my mouth.
“What do you mean, what’s wrong with you?”
“Let’s just say that everything he said to me was a lie.”
“This again?” Tami leaned back in her chair and groaned.
“Yes, just listen. Say he lied about everything. Then how messed up is my truth meter if I had no idea the whole time?” I glared at her, begging her to help me make sense of my heart.
“Because he wasn’t lying?”
“If he meant the things he said, then where is he right now? How could he walk away so easily like I never existed and ignore me?” My eyes welled with tears, and I swiped at them before any dared to fall.
I had meant every single thing I’d said to Cal since I met him. Everything I had confessed to him was said with a full heart, and I’d believed everything he had said back to me. I’d smiled when he contacted me, every part of me jumping for joy.
But now I simply felt like a fool, as if somehow I should have known better. If he misled me, why hadn’t I sensed it? Why didn’t I know this could happen?
Because my heart is stupid, something inside me whispered.
Stupid heart. I hate you.
“Can I trust you not to do anything dumb?” Tami asked as she held my phone just out of my reach.
“Yes,” I snapped as I reached for it, but she pulled it away.
She grinned as she handed it to me and I grabbed it, quickly scanning for any text message notifications. None appeared, not even from work.
I glanced at Tami and typed out a quick message.
Jules: Say something, Cal. Please. Anything is better than this silence.
Tami’s eyes grew huge. “Shit, what are you doing?”
I pressed Send on the message before anything could stop me, even myself. But when he didn’t respond, all I wanted to do was go back in time and take it back.
Damn it.
I had no self-control when it came to him and my lust for answers, especially when I’d been drinking. When I was sober, I could at least talk myself out of texting him, but drunk, all bets were off. It was as if I came unhinged and let control fly out the window.
But Cal had answers that I wanted. And drunk Jules was apparently relentless, and a little needy.
“Nothing,” I tried to lie.
“What the hell did you just send him?”
I shook my head. “Don’t be mad. It was the last one.”
“The last one? Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes.
“It was. I mean it,” I said, trying to convince her.
Cal had been silent for too long, too many days in a row. It was sad, how even when you expected the disappointment, it still hurt, still stung. It was a feeling I didn’t want to get used to.
I was such a sap, still holding on to a thread of hope, no matter how small that thread was. There was always a chance that he’d respond to a text after I’d sent one. But as minutes turned to hours, and hours turned to days, it was obvious that he never would.
How could he walk away so easily? How could he ignore me like I didn’t exist? And why did he want to? What happened? The questions compounded inside my mind as the answers never came. How was I supposed to get past this when I had no idea what went wrong?
It was all well and good to involve your heart in love again when things were going well. But holy hell, when things went bad . . . I found myself wishing I’d never even cracked open the door to peer outside. Life had been so much easier feeling nothing for a guy, although it was far less satisfying.
That was the trade-off—you could close your heart to love forever, but you’d miss out on all the good that came with giving and receiving love. You had to decide if it was worth the risk.
And was it?
I’d like to say that I’d made the choice, that I had consciously decided the risk was worth the impending pain, but the truth was that the choice was made for me. There was no other option when it came to Cal. I’d been all in since the day I first met him in that hotel lobby.
Who we loved wasn’t always a choice. Sometimes it was an irresistible pull, a gravitational force, something we couldn’t see or control that drew us toward another. Sure, we could try to fight it. But in the end, love always won because it didn’t fight fair. It had a secret weapon, a tool of sheer force to use against us—our heart.
And once that son of a bitch got involved, you could kiss away all options you thought might exist.
Brutal Silence
Jules
Each new morning, I woke up with a twisted sort of renewed positivity that restored my depleted hope from the night before. Would Cal be able to go another twenty-four hours without talking to me? That’s what my brain wondered, the question my heart always asked. I was convinced it would be an impossible task.
But by the time I fell asleep each night, the answer was always a resounding yes. Apparently he could.
I hated feeling this way, so insecure, so vulnerable and weak. The feelings might not be familiar but they consumed me, infusing every thought or heartbeat that wasn’t otherwise distracted. It was awful. I missed Cal so much that I constantly checked my phone, hoping a text would be there. I still wanted that. After more than a week of his silence, I shouldn’t have wanted a text from him so badly, but I did.
How could a man walk away from a woman with no explanation and expect her to go on with her life as if nothing had happened?
Everything changed when someone did something so inconsiderate to you. There was no closure, no way to properly grieve the loss because you didn’t know what the hell went wrong, or what you could have done to fix it. And therein lay my most soul-crushing problem—the fixing-it part. Oh, how I still wanted to fix whatever had broken us. Or at least know what the hell had happened.
It seemed there were two kinds of people in the world. First, there were those who simply accepted things that happened without question. Those who could watch someone walk out of their life and would shrug their shoulders before moving on. The ones who could let things go easily.
Then there were the kind of people who fought to save relationships, who demanded answers when things went south. The people who, when they realized they didn’t want a relationship to end, held on with both hands, clinging to it as if their life depended on it.
I realized that I was the latter type. At least, when it came to Cal and my stupid heart, I was. I didn’t let go easily, didn’t accept well. I fought for truth, for reasons, for answers. For my heart. Who knew that I’d be such an advocate for that organ when I’d spent so many years hating it?
Each morning when I opened my eyes, I ached when I remembered that he was gone. The first thing I did was check my phone, the lack of a text notification or missed call just another stab to my already bludgeoned heart.
How much pain could one heart handle? I knew the answer: all of it. It could handle every single ounce that life doled out, and you couldn’t do a damn thing to stop from feeling it.
I admonished myself for being so sad over the turn of events. In the grand scheme of things, I shouldn’t be feeling this level of sadness for someone I’d only known a couple of months. It wasn’t as if Cal had been in my life for years. He hadn’t, and that was almost the worst part—how much I physically felt his absence, as if a part of me was now suddenly missing. But then I remembered that our hearts didn’t care about logic or time.
My heart didn’t play by rules that my mind made up. It didn’t follow silly timelines or measure its feelings based on the number of days it had known someone. No, hearts simply felt, whether you wanted them to or not. And they didn’t bother explaining themselves either. My heart longed for Cal, it missed him, and no matter how hard my brain tried to logically talk my heart out of
those feelings, my heart refused to listen.
Silly brain, it would say. You know nothing.
All my heart did was remind me how easily it had opened back up after being closed for so long. I had no idea that it wouldn’t take a miracle for my heart to breathe back to life. Cal had done that so easily before leaving me to crash and burn all alone. And I had no idea why.
I searched my mind, questioning every feeling, every emotion, every second of longing. What did I want? I wanted Cal to come back. I longed for him to tell me that it had all been a mistake, that he was wrong, and beg for my forgiveness. At this point, I’d have taken any of it.
The bottom line was that I was really, truly sad. I hadn’t felt sadness like this in . . . well, I wasn’t sure how long. I wore my sadness like a blanket, wrapped around my body for comfort. No part of me was left unburdened by the weight of it. I carried it all, felt it all, and moved through my days enveloped by it.
I was thankful that work was busy and that I had clients booking me out the next few nights in a row. Work was the only thing that seemed to keep me distracted, and saved my sanity. My sadness blanket was cast aside when I was busy working, my mind occupied, my thoughts busy. There was no time for sadness. No time for thoughts of Cal.
But the second work stopped, my brain began spinning with questions and pain. I became a woman obsessed. Obsessed with his Facebook page, stalking it, checking it constantly to see what had been updated. Had he accepted any new friends, posted any new pictures, gone out with any girls?
My behavior was awful, and I hated the way it made me feel, but I couldn’t stop. My curiosity was a sickness, and there was only one cure.
Clicking on the Unfriend button quicker than I ever had in my life, I deleted Cal from my friends list and breathed out a sigh of . . . something. It wasn’t quite relief, but I knew that eventually it would be. Hell, part of me wondered why he hadn’t unfriended me first. My need to be involved in his online life would go away as soon as I could no longer access it.
I wished the questions that plagued my mind and heart would shut off as easily as my computer did. Unfortunately for me, my body was not a machine; there was no on-off switch. It would simply take time for me to heal, but I’d be lying if I said I was a patient person. I wasn’t. And I hated feeling this sad about everything.
