by Virna DePaul
It tastes like love.
24
Julia
Time moves with a slowness that is painful. I can barely remember what day it is, whether or not I have to work, whether or not it’s been a day or a week or a month since Bastian broke up with me.
I’m in a fog. I hand out samples at Cooper’s and I listen to people say things to me, but nothing registers. I’m a robot, just going through the motions because I know I have to. Even when She-Hulk gets mad at me, I just tell her I’ll try harder and then proceed to keep doing what I’ve been doing.
Finally, Kevin tells me after work that we’re going to his place for a girls’ night: chick flicks, ice cream, and no talking about boys. I really don’t want to be with anyone tonight, but Kevin’s so worried about me that I tell him I’ll go for a little while. It’s the least I can do, since I’ve been the most useless friend to him lately.
I make sure to bring a few pints of Ben & Jerry’s with me to Kevin’s. He has an entire collection of chick flicks, and although he has a number of my favorites, none of them sound appealing. I don’t want to watch a romance and I don’t want to be reminded of how I told Bastian I loved him and then he threw it back in my face.
We haven’t talked since that day in his office. I almost texted him a day later, telling him that I didn’t want things to be over. Getting drunk later that week, I was about to call a cab to take me to his house, but then Kevin stopped me. I was so desperate, so in love with him still, that I didn’t care about my dignity. I just wanted to be with him again, and to makes things right.
Kevin and I settle into the couch to watch Sleepless in Seattle. But I can’t pay attention to Tom Hanks or Meg Ryan. My ice cream is tasteless. I just want to sleep for the rest of the week. Maybe for the rest of the year, because maybe then I won’t hurt like this anymore.
With every day, I get slightly better. I crack a smile here and there, and I think about Bastian only every twenty seconds as opposed to every ten. I also stop looking for him every time I’m working, even though a very stupid part of me hopes he’ll come into Cooper’s looking for vitamins like old times. But he never shows, and I continue to hand out random samples, my life almost like it was before Bastian became a part of it. The only thing that’s changed? My mom’s met someone. A guy from the gym she joined recently. He’s recovering from his own battle with cancer, and somehow he’s brought something softer out in my mom. In contrast to my own misery, she’s happier. She even took the time to ask about me, whether I’m happy, whether I’ve met anyone, and, teary-eyed, I had to rush her off the phone with the promise that I’d be in touch. And I will, as soon as I feel up to it. Until then, I’ll let her enjoy her time with her new beau even as I try to recover from my broken heart.
It’s nearing fall now and the leaves are changing. I normally love this time of year, but now it just reminds me that time has passed without Bastian beside me. I clutch my pumpkin spice latte as I walk back to work, and suddenly my favorite drink is as flavorless as sand. Before I get inside, I toss it into the garbage and vow never to drink one again.
A few days before Halloween, Kevin tells me we’re going out dancing. I’m reluctant, but if I can credit Kevin with anything, it’s his stubbornness. We go to a divey club downtown, and I end up dancing the night away, feeling freer than I have in weeks.
But as I’m lying on Kevin’s couch afterward, still semi-drunk, I can only repeat Bastian’s words in my head: For God’s sake, stop being a coward. Stop playing it safe. You can go back to school and finish your degree and live the life you were meant to live.
The words have been coming back to me more and more often lately. I’ve refused to consider his suggestion until recently, though sometimes I want to take that next step. But when I looked into reapplying, it seemed so complicated that I shut the tab on my browser, vowing never to look again.
Staring up at the ceiling, I know he’s right. I hate that he’s right, but I know he is. The reason I haven’t gone back to school isn’t because of time, or money, or anything practical: it’s because I’m scared of failing a second time. I’ve let my past dictate my future, allowing what happened to spread to the rest of my life. I’ve felt like the biggest coward for dropping out of school and never returning, but can I really let a stupid mistake from five years ago influence everything I do from now on?
I begin to research reapplying in more depth. I look at deadlines, retaking the SAT, and how to order transcripts. But it doesn’t feel real until I start crafting my entrance essay, explaining my reasoning behind wanting to return.
I show a draft to Kevin to hear his thoughts. He frowns at the paper I’d handed him, making random noises as he reads it, and then reads it again. He looks up at me, furrows his eyebrows, then returns to the page at hand.
“Well?” I ask impatiently. “Do you have any suggestions, or are you just going to keep hemming and hawing like that?”
He makes another “hmmmm” sound, which prompts me to pinch him. He yelps. Then he hands me back the paper and says frankly, “This isn’t it at all.”
I look at the paper in my hand. “What do you mean? Is it that bad?”
“It’s not bad at all. It’s a good essay. But it’s not honest.” Kevin sits down in his big green chair in his living room, and I take a seat across from him.
“Are you going to stop talking in riddles or tell me what you really think?” I know I sound impatient, but I don’t care at this point.
“You completely avoided talking about what happened when you left.” I still at the reminder of how weak I’d been. “You keep sidestepping it, which doesn’t work. It looks like you’re hiding something, when you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“What am I supposed to say? ‘Professor Macintosh wanted to sleep with me and when I refused he told me I was a hack and spread rumors that I offered him sexual favors for a better grade’? I have no proof. Hell, even the way he propositioned me was more implication than blatant invitation.” I begin rolling up the piece of paper in my hand, irritated beyond measure. “So great advice, Kev. Maybe I should name every person at that frat party who was mean to me, too?”
He just rolls his eyes. “You’re so fucking dramatic, and I’m the most dramatic person in the history of the universe. I’m not saying you need a memoir describing every detail of what happened. But you have to explain why you left. Don’t name names, but you can talk about bullying, rumors, not feeling like you fit in, having doubts about your talent. That kind of stuff. Be honest that you made a mistake by giving up on your dream and that you want to make things right. If they don’t respect that, then fuck them.”
I clench the ball of paper tight in my first. I don’t mention to Kevin that I’d lied: this isn’t my first draft. It’s my fifth, and I’d kept rewriting it, trying to make it better. But instead, each draft felt progressively worse, until it was like I’d shaved it down to useless crumbs.
Sitting down the following Saturday morning, I begin typing. My heart’s pounding, as if I’m about to be placed in a courtroom for judgment, but as the words flow from my fingers, my anxiety begins to depart. It’s as though my subconscious had known all along that I needed to be honest, but it was only after I began that the burden started to lift away.
I write the essay in two hours. By the time I’m done, I’m sweating and my heart’s about to pound out of my chest, but it’s a good feeling. While it’s a mixture of anxiety and anticipation, I also feel like I can take a deep breath again. I read over my words. They scare me, don’t get me wrong, but Kevin was right: I have to be honest. I print out a copy and take it with me the next day to Cooper’s.
I show it to him at lunch, and he goes quiet. His eyes are roving the page, and I’m so antsy I have to get up and walk around. I packed myself a salad, but I can’t touch a bite. Every time I get nervous, my appetite goes out the window.
After what seems like an eternity, Kevin still hasn’t said anything. I’m about to stomp my foot like a l
ittle kid and demand he respond, when he gets up and enfolds me in a big hug.
“This is exactly what I meant,” he says, the paper crinkling against my back. “If they don’t let you in now, they’re idiots.”
I slump in relief, then return the hug. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”
We hug a few seconds longer. Kevin hands me back the essay, but then says in a light voice, “You misspelled commitment, by the way.”
I squawk, see that he’s right, and say, “Thank you, Kevin. For reading my letter. And for being my friend.”
“Ditto, Julia.”
By early November, I’m ready to submit my application. I apply to a few safety schools, but my first choice is the college that I left; I checked and Professor Macintosh is still on staff, but that just makes me more determined to face my past. Putting together all of my application materials—transcripts, essay, test scores, letters of recommendation—I can hardly believe I’m doing this. But it also feels like this was a long time coming. I’m applying for the spring semester, and I should have a response by mid-December. My hands trembling while I sit at my computer, I hit “submit” and then take a deep breath.
Now all I can do is wait and try not to dwell on what could—or could not—happen.
In the meantime, I start looking for a new job, or maybe an internship. I can’t keep working at Cooper’s. It may pay the bills, but I feel like I’m wasting my life handing out samples. And if I’m going back to school, I might as well continue making as many changes as I can in my life, right?
As I try to go to sleep that night after reapplying to schools, Bastian dominates my thoughts. Would he be proud of me if he knew I’d applied to return to college? Sometimes I want to call him and tell him what I’ve done, prove to him I’m not the pathetic woman he thought I was, but then I decide that it wouldn’t help anything. He’s the one who broke things off, anyway. I’m not going to beg him to take me back.
I tell myself my pride will keep me warm at night, but that doesn’t stop me from longing for Bastian’s embrace when I’m cold and alone in my bed.
25
Bastian
I usually love this time of year: the leaves changing, the crisp air, hell, even the pumpkin spice everything. But this year, the leaves seem dull and I can’t even think about drinking some overly sweet pumpkin spice latte without wanting to toss it into the nearest trash can. Julia had always talked about how much she loved fall, and that’s all I can think about now.
Standing at my office window, sipping a very black cup of coffee, I realize that I haven’t seen Julia in three months. Three long, solitary months, and even though I haven’t had a major relapse since that time Julia cared for me, something my doctor attributes to the new medication I’m taking, I feel thoroughly run down.
I’d never been the type to mope over a woman, but by God, have I been moping. I see her everywhere, and it drives me crazy. I see her every time I go into my garage and see my motorcycles, and even though I’ve got the Harley completely up and running now, I refuse to take it or my Ducati out for a ride. I want the next time I ride one of those bikes to be when Julia is on the back with me, yet I’ve ensured that is never going to happen.
I’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake. I know that now.
I want Julia back.
But how can I make things right when I fucked up so badly? I’d told her she was a coward and that I couldn’t be with her. I wince, remembering. I knew I could be a dick, but that definitely was my shining moment of dick-dom.
Lucian knocks and comes into my office. We finally got everything with Ryland Masters worked out, although it was a hell of a fight. While Ryland will never be my greatest fan, we’ve come to a mutual—and grudging—kind of respect. I told him he should invest his money how he saw fit, but that if I gave him enough proof that a deal would be a bad idea, he should at least listen to me. Luckily, Ryland’s friend’s business has since taken off, and the return on Ryland’s investment has made all of us happy. Money tends to do that, I’ve found.
“Going to join us for the staff meeting?” Lucian asks, coming up next to me to gaze out the window.
“In a second.”
We don’t say anything for a while, but just look at the street below. I watch as a mother pushes her young child in a stroller, a big, fluffy dog at their side. I see an older man jogging, and two teenagers probably playing hooky. When I spot a woman with dark hair, my heart stops. But it isn’t Julia. It never is.
“How long are you going to keep doing this?” Lucian’s voice is quiet.
I don’t look at him, but I know exactly what he means. He hasn’t talked much about me and Julia, but he knows what happened. Part of me wants to ignore his question, while the other part wants him to tell me I’m an ass and I need to get her back.
I’ve never been this at odds with myself, and I have to say, I hate it.
“You’re miserable, man,” Lucian continues. “I’ve never seen you like this, and I’ve seen you knocked on your ass when you’re sick. But this is different. You’re like a shell of your former self.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Hey, you know I’m all about honesty. I thought maybe you’d move on, but if anything, you’ve moved backward. Just how long are you going to beat yourself up about what you did instead of making things right?”
I swallow a mouthful of hot coffee. It burns my tongue. “How can I make things right?” I ask quietly. “You should’ve seen her face, Lucian.”
“Oh, I’m sure you pissed her off and she’d love to push you off a cliff. But if you love her, you fight for her.” He looks at me, and I finally meet his gaze. “You don’t just sit around crying about it,” he adds.
I know he’s right. I have been just sitting around, feeling sorry for myself. I take another sip of coffee. “What do I even say to her?”
“That you’re fucking sorry, for one. Don’t make excuses, don’t try to sound like she was wrong for getting mad. Just say you’re sorry and you messed up.” He stuffs his hands into his pockets. “You won’t necessarily get her back on your good side, but an apology—a sincere one—is your best bet.”
I think about Lucian’s words throughout the day and into the evening. I think about them for the rest of the week, until by Friday, I’m determined to tell Julia how sorry I am for what I said. But mostly to tell her I was wrong. That I want her back. If she’ll only give me that chance.
I drive over to Cooper’s Friday afternoon, which I know is generally when Julia has a shift. It’s mid-December, and we’ve had snow recently. The sky, gray and hazy, looks like it may snow again, but even if I get stuck at Cooper’s under a foot of snow, I don’t care. I glance around for Julia’s car or bike, but I see neither. Going inside the store, I stomp off the wet snow stuck to my boots and begin walking toward the vitamin section. My heart is pounding so fast and I’m sweating so much that I’m about to strip out of my scarf and coat.
But as I get to the sample stand where Julia normally works, I instead see a guy I’ve never seen before. I frown. Maybe Julia works at a different stand now? I begin to look around Cooper’s, checking out every stand scattered throughout, but no Julia. Is she not scheduled today? Or maybe she’s sick? I hate to think she’s home alone and ill, and I’m about to get in my car and go to her place when I run into a young guy with perfectly gelled hair wearing a pink scarf over his Cooper’s uniform.
“You!” he exclaims, like he’s just come face to face with his mother’s killer.
I frown even harder. “Can I help you?”
“Why are you here? If you’re looking for Julia, she’s not here.” The guy sniffs and tries to step around me.
But he knows where Julia is! I catch his sleeve; he gives me a look like I’m the lowliest of insects. “Where is Julia? Is she sick? I need to talk to her.”
He sniffs again. I then notice his name tag says KEVIN, and I remember Julia mentioning her best friend was named Kevin more than once.
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br /> “Look, I need to talk to her,” I say. “In person. I tried calling her, but she’s changed her phone number. I could go to her place, but that seems presumptuous.” I stop talking, realizing that Kevin probably has no idea what I’m blathering about.
But he just raises a plucked eyebrow at me. “Why do you want to talk to her?”
I really don’t want to spill my guts, but he looks like he isn’t going to tell me anything unless I do. I run a hand through my hair.
“I need to apologize, okay? Do you know where she is? Or I’ll just go to her place.”
I begin to walk off when Kevin doesn’t respond, but he stops me.
“Hey, wait,” he says. I stop. “She doesn’t work here anymore.”
At that, I turn. “She doesn’t work at Cooper’s anymore?”
He shakes his head. “Nope. She quit earlier this month. She’s going back to school and has an internship starting after the New Year.” He smiles a little sadly. “I’m going to miss her, but I’m really happy for her.”
My heart starts pounding again. Julia’s going back to school? I think back to what I said to her that day, and I’m torn between pride and guilt. Is she going back just to prove that I was wrong? I hope not. I hope she’s going because she felt like it was the right thing to do.
I’m about to leave again when Kevin says, “She’s not at home right now. She’s normally at a café called Irwin’s in the afternoons.” He rocks back on his heels, fiddling with his scarf. “Don’t tell her I told you that, okay?”
I’m about to embrace Kevin, but instead I hold out my hand. He shakes it. “Thanks, man,” I say.
I’m walking away, when I realize that I recognized Kevin as the guy who was taking photos of my ass months ago. Looking over my shoulder, I say, “I hope you enjoyed those photos you took of me. Let me know if you need any more.”
He blushes scarlet and then scuttles off, but I’m laughing. I don’t care how many photos Kevin took of my ass; I’m going to find Julia. I’m going to tell her how sorry I am, and how much I love her, and how proud I am of her.