Wiping my eyes, I read the letter two more times before I was able to start thinking. I got the box and looked at the return address. He was in Italy now, and I hoped if I sent something to this address it would find its way to him.
I gathered up the presents and the letter and found some fresh stationery my mother had given me once upon a time. I’d thought she was nuts for giving it to me, but now I was glad to have it.
Carefully, I started a letter of my own.
Dear Fin,
I got your package and your letter. I love it. It’s so sweet, like you. These words are so hard for me to write. Your words were hard to read, but you were right. I was thinking the same thing. Our minds must be more connected than either of us realize.
This isn’t working right now. I love you, but I can’t keep waiting for your calls, hoping that we’ll have the time to talk. Praying for a video chat. And that’s nothing compared to how much I miss seeing you and touching you. I’m not just talking about the sex, although I miss that. The closeness is what I miss. There are a lot of miles between us, but it feels like more. I think we’ve both been pulling away, knowing this was going to happen.
I don’t regret anything, Fin. I need you to know that. We were not a mistake, and I’ll always think of our time together as some of the best times of my life. I also know that I’ll love you forever. I know that I was made to love you, and that will never stop.
I’m always here for you if you want to talk. Write me, or not. I’ll be here.
I love you, now and always.
Sincerely,
Your Marisol
I reread my own letter several times before I folded it up and took it to the post office. I filled out the address I had for Fin and sealed the envelope before dropping it into the box for the international mail.
It was done.
I wasn’t sure how many days it would take for Fin to get the letter. Or if he would respond. I called Chloe right after I sent it and I could barely get my words out since I was sobbing so hard. But she got the gist and met me in front of her apartment. I needed to be somewhere else today.
“Oh, babe,” she said, holding her arms open. I fell into her hug, and she held me for a long time then walked me up the stairs to her place.
She sat me on the couch with a box of tissues and messed around in the kitchen. The sobbing gave way to a numb feeling, almost like being really drunk.
Chloe came back to the table with a tray loaded with wine, ice cream, cookies, chips, and coffee. “I wasn’t sure what you’d need, so I brought everything,” she said.
I reached for the wine and chips first. Chlo seemed satisfied that I was eating and drinking. Then she went and turned on the television, finding a channel that played Law & Order and not much else.
“The last thing we need is anything with romance in it,” she said in explanation as she sat down with me and poured her own glass of wine.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
I shook my head. Not right now, but maybe later. It was still too fresh and raw.
“Okay, no problem. Let me know if you do, or if you just want to stare at the television.”
“I think I’ll just stare. That’s about all I have the energy for right now.” The numb was giving way to tired. I just wanted to close my eyes and sleep for a year. I drained my first glass of wine and poured a second.
I wanted to get drunk. I wanted to forget. I wanted it to all go away.
I didn’t fall asleep. Chloe and I stayed up most of the night watching TV and eating enough food for six people. We also went through two bottles of wine, though I did most of the drinking. My hangover wasn’t terrible because of all the food I consumed. I’d have to remember that for next time.
Chloe was almost completely silent the whole time. She headed to bed but put a blanket over me. I slept for a few hours, but I kept waking up with this feeling like I was falling.
I didn’t get off the couch until noon, and it was only because I had to pee badly. Chloe was up and looking like she meant business.
“I’ve got some extra clothes for you. I want you to get in the shower and change your clothes. We’re going to the fucking aquarium.” I didn’t want to go to the fucking aquarium. It reminded me of Fin. But I saw the resolve on Chloe’s face and I didn’t have enough energy to protest.
So I got in the shower, changed my clothes, and blow-dried my hair. That was about all I could do. Everything took so much effort.
When I emerged from the bathroom, Chloe smiled at me and handed me a Pop Tart. I bit into it and remembered why I didn’t eat Pop Tarts anymore. Yuck. I ate it anyway.
Chloe pushed and prodded, and got me on the subway and to the aquarium.
“This sucks,” I said. Those were the first words I’d spoken since the night before.
“Yeah, breakups do. But we’re going to go stare at the jellyfish for a while.”
So we did. She sat me down on the bench we sat at the last time we’d come, and I stared at the jellyfish as families with kids streamed around us. A few kids got rambunctious and tried to smash their hands on the tank or climb all over everything. I just ignored them and watched the jellyfish.
They were so hypnotic when they swam.
“I feel like I’m high,” I said. Not that I’d really know what high felt like. I was just assuming.
“It kind of is, actually.” Chloe was a little more adventurous than I was when it came to experimenting.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked again.
“He wrote me a letter.” I hadn’t told her any details other than that it was over. “It was a really good letter. He said he wanted to end it, to set me free. It’s crazy because I was going to tell him the same thing, but I got his letter first. I mean, not the whole setting free part. I just . . . I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t live in this constant state of limbo.” Chloe sat and listened. I jumped when a little boy started throwing a tantrum near me. His mother dragged him off, declaring it was well past his naptime.
“A letter. That’s much more romantic than a breakup text.” It was. The letter was terribly romantic.
“So I wrote him one back. I sent it today. I don’t know when he’s going to get it.” I leaned against her shoulder and she put her arm around me.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“I basically agreed with him. Told him I loved him. He said he loved me in his letter. That’s the first time he’s told me.” My heart had swelled, reading those words. And then everything burst.
“Wow. That’s a little messed up, telling you he loved you in a break-up letter.” I guess, looking at it from the outside, it was a little strange.
“I’m glad he did. I knew he loved me, but it was nice to see it. To know that his reasons for ending this weren’t because he didn’t want to be with me.”
Chloe sighed. “I’d think that would make it worse.”
I shook my head. “No, because I know that everything we shared was real. If he’d said he didn’t love me, I’d wonder if he ever loved me. If our whole relationship had been a lie.”
I couldn’t live with that. If I had nothing else from my relationship with Fin, I had the knowledge that he loved me.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. So, what now?”
“I have no fucking idea.”
Chloe and I spent hours at the aquarium, just watching the fish. I’d moved past the numb stage and everything just made me want to cry.
“I think I’m doing those stages of grief,” I said as we sat down at the café for lunch. It was so loud with kids we could barely hear each other.
“Yeah? Which one are you on?”
“Sad. Really sad,” I said, and I had to take a deep breath. I knew my eyes were swollen and red. I hadn’t cared enough this morning to put cover up on them.
Chloe gave me a sympathetic face and started eating her hot dog. I looked down at my own food. I wasn’t hungry, but I thought I should eat so Chloe
wouldn’t worry. I picked at my chicken Caesar salad and watched the mayhem around me.
“Do you think there’s any way you’ll get back together?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I mean, if he comes back and he’s here full time, maybe. But his dad is still going to be in the picture. And I don’t think his dad is just going to let him quit. Fin is his only son. He has to carry on the family name and all that crap.” A mother nearby gave me a nasty look for using the word “crap.” I wanted to roll my eyes at her, but resisted the urge.
“I used to think sometimes that Harmony and I would get back together. Everyone always tells you that if it’s meant to be, it will be and all that shit.” Chloe got another nasty look, but she didn’t notice. “And it felt like it was meant to be. When it was good, it was the best. But then it wasn’t good and I didn’t know how to get it back to that place. I knew we were ending before the whole cheating thing happened. I was so angry at her, but I was also angry that the thing I’d thought would work out, didn’t. My sure thing, not so sure.”
I’d never thought my relationship with Fin had been a sure thing. Not really. We’d always been on the edge of something. But I’d wanted it to be a sure thing. More than I could say.
“And then when it was over,” Chloe continued, “I didn’t know what to believe in anymore. If Harmony and I were wrong, and I’d thought we were so right, maybe everything I thought was wrong. Maybe I didn’t know a damn thing at all.”
I hoped I didn’t go through that. I didn’t want to question everything. The stages of grief were more than enough already.
“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?” I said.
“Yeah. A pair of girls with broken hearts.”
Great. Now I realized I had a broken heart. That was that achy, hollow feeling in my chest. Sure, I’d had relationships and breakups before, but nothing like this. I’d never loved someone so completely before.
“This is going to be really awful, isn’t it?” I said, meeting Chloe’s eyes.
She nodded. “Yeah, it’s going to suck.”
Chloe and I spent the rest of the day together. We went shopping for some retail therapy that didn’t exactly help, but I ended up with a new pair of pants and a cute top, and then we drowned ourselves in mimosas and never-ending pasta for dinner.
“We’re going to get so fat, but it’s so worth it. When Harmony did all that shit, I gained fifteen pounds.” I didn’t remember that, but I could imagine. Some people stopped eating when they went through trauma. It seemed that I just wanted to eat more.
“Thank you,” I said as she walked me back to my apartment. I didn’t know what was going to happen when she left me, but I had class the next day and she had to work. She couldn’t be my breakup coach forever. I had to do this on my own.
“Anytime. I need to pay you back for all those times when you picked my ass up off the floor after Harmony. I really put you through the wringer, but you were there for every second of it. I don’t know if I ever thanked you,” she said as we headed upstairs to my place. I could already feel the extra food I’d consumed in the past few days going to my thighs.
“There’s no such thing as payback where best friends are concerned. We’re even no matter what,” I said.
We reached my door and she gave me another hug. “I love you, Mari. I want you to call me if you need anything. Anything, you understand? I don’t care if it’s three in the morning, I will wake my ass up. Oh, and if it happens to be during working hours, that would be great.” I laughed. Chloe would take any reason to get out of work she could get.
I hugged her back and she smacked a kiss on my cheek. “Thank you, Chlo. You’re the absolute best.”
She gave me a little wave before she headed down the stairs, and I unlocked my door. The first thing I saw when I walked in was all the stuff from Fin’s package. Shit. I should have put that away. The sight of it sent me off again, only this time I was pissed. Guess I’d moved to the anger stage. I was really moving fast here.
For a moment I wanted to throw all the stuff on the floor, set it on fire, or toss it off the roof. But then I’d regret it. These were the last things Fin had given me. They were the keepsakes I’d look at to remind me of my great love. I knew I probably wouldn’t feel like this about someone else. I’d always be comparing him to Fin, and that wasn’t fair to another man. I’d just resent him for what he wasn’t.
Or maybe I was selling myself short. I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to make those sort of decisions about my future.
I looked at each of the things. Smelled the lilac oil. I dabbed it on my wrists. Yes, it reminded me of Fin, but it also reminded me of my grandmother first. And nothing could ruin the memories I had of her. Not even Fin.
I looked at all the things and considered reading the letter again, but it was too painful and it would just set me off. So I put the things back in the box and folded the letter on top. I took them to my linen closet and put them on a high shelf so I wouldn’t see them unless I really looked.
There weren’t a whole lot of traces of Fin in my apartment, but that didn’t matter. He was still here. He was everywhere, in everything. I’d have to burn down the city to get rid of him, and I didn’t think even that would work.
The only upside of him being on the other side of the world was not running into him at the bar, or the office, or even on the street. He wasn’t here, so it would (hopefully) be easier to let go of him and move on.
My apartment was too quiet, so I turned on some music. Of course the first song on the radio was one that had played the first night I met Fin at the bar.
“Seriously?” I yelled at the radio before turning it off and deciding to watch TV instead. First thing on? Sleepless in fucking Seattle.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I said, changing the channel. I didn’t care what I watched as long as it wasn’t that. I’d watch golf if I had to. I didn’t have any association with Fin and golf.
I clicked around until I found a home improvement show. I turned the volume up for background noise and tried to sit still, but I couldn’t. I wanted to cry or throw something. Pacing around made me crazy, so I decided to clean my apartment. Sure, it was nine at night and I could have done homework or a million other things, but cleaning was good. It was mindless and physical. Just what I needed.
By one in the morning, my place was cleaner than it had been when I moved in. I’d gotten grief from my neighbors for running the vacuum at midnight, but I gave exactly zero fucks.
I set down the bottle of cleaner and paper towels. My body was so tired I wanted to lay my head down on the counter and sleep like that. Instead, I stumbled to my bedroom and collapsed on the bed.
The next morning I woke up with what felt like the worst hangover in the history of hangovers. My head hurt so much I thought it was going to split wide open. I could barely open my eyes since they were so puffy. Chloe had told me to put some teabags or ice on them, but I hadn’t listened. I’d been too busy in my cleaning frenzy. I could still smell the lemon from all the cleaner I’d used last night.
“Mother fuck,” I said, and just the act of talking made my head hurt worse, if that was possible. There was no way I could rally in time to get to class.
I lay in bed for what felt like hours, willing myself to get vertical so I could go get some food or coffee or something. It took three tries, but I finally did it and fumbled my way to the kitchen. Coffee. I needed coffee first.
I filled my newly-clean coffeemaker and got it going before searching in the bread box. I found a Danish in the back I’d forgotten about. I checked the expiration date, and I had another day, so it was still good.
I checked my phone and found a good morning message from Chloe. Nothing from Fin, of course. I wondered if he would when he got my letter. I didn’t send him anything with the letter. I hadn’t even thought about it. Maybe I should have.
Oh my God, I still had the key to his apartment. And a ton of my stuff was there. Oh God. I h
ad to get my stuff.
The thought of going to Fin’s made me want to throw up the coffee I’d just sipped. I couldn’t do that today. No way. I wasn’t strong enough yet.
I lay on the couch for the rest of the day wearing comfy clothes I put on when I was sick. Guess this was another kind of sickness. Chloe texted me throughout the day asking how I was. I messaged her back and thanked her. I made sure to call Dad and check on everything at home. He said Mom had smacked Glenna.
“Did she quit?” I asked.
“No, that’s the thing. She just sort of smiled and didn’t say a word.”
Wow. Guess that woman was tougher than I gave her credit for.
“Well, I hope it doesn’t happen again.”
Dad chuckled. “I don’t think so. You should have seen the look on your mother’s face. I don’t think she realized she’d hit her until after it happened. Your mother isn’t a physical woman.” No, she fought with her sharp tongue and words. So much worse than physical violence sometimes.
“How are you, Marisol? You sound a little down today.” Dad had caught on to my depressed tone. I’d tried to hide it, but I guess I didn’t do a very good job.
“Oh, nothing. Nothing you need to worry about.” I didn’t want to tell him about Fin. Not yet. Not until I could say it without breaking down and crying. “Just tired today.”
“Uh huh. You can talk to me, you know. We haven’t always had the greatest of relationships, and I know that. Your mother and I used to talk about it a lot. She always carried so much guilt about it.”
Wait, what? I thought she didn’t give a shit. Or that she was angry at me for not being the daughter she thought I should be.
“I didn’t know that,” I said quietly. I was already so emotional, so this was putting me really close to the edge again.
“Anyway. You can talk to me anytime. Okay?”
Deep Surrendering: Episode Nine Page 4
