It didn’t matter; I wouldn’t get a chance to make that decision. When I got to the apartment all of Will’s things were gone. There was check for five thousand dollars on the counter. In the memo he wrote “for whatever.” I fell to my knees and sobbed.
Over the next few weeks, I called his phone hundreds of times with no luck. I kept replaying the words You’ve ruined me over and over in my head. I did nothing but the bare minimum in the café. I showered rarely and wore the same clothes practically every day. I had no energy, my apartment was a mess, and I didn’t even open my mail. Every day just blurred into the next and I fell deeper and deeper into a surreal fogginess of grief and sorrow. The worst part was that I knew it was entirely my fault. He was done with my fickle bullshit; how could I blame him?
He took everything that was his in the apartment, even the T-shirts I would wear; it was like he never existed. I would look for him on the street and through store windows. I went to the Montosh, where Bradley, the other bartender, told me he quit in typical Will fashion.
“Yeah, the place was packed the night he left. He stood up on the bar and said, ‘I love every single one of you.’ He was pointing and yelling ‘I love you and you and you and you’ and then he pulled out a sheet of paper from his pocket and read a prayer he wrote. I don’t remember it word for word, but I remember the last line was ‘Save your souls and stay away from love or you’ll be a madman like me’ and then he said, ‘That’s it, I’m done, I’m outta here! Gonna go sleep and drink!’ Maybe not in that order, but at least he seemed happy, in a crazed kind of way.”
The words stung, I knew Will wasn’t happy, he was never neurotic like that when he was happy, it was just his coping mechanism.
I walked out feeling like the world was folding in on me. I gasped for a breath, but the weight of my mistake was crushing. I thought Will must have been completely insane to quit his job; it wasn’t like him to be that irresponsible. I imagined him in some storage closet somewhere, drinking himself to death.
I begged Sheil to try to find him through the mutual friends they had, but she told me no, that I needed to learn my lesson. She’s a tough cookie. Martha was a little more sympathetic; she gave me a copy of The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, complete with her own highlighted notes. I sat in the back of the café, scanning the book for some answers, advice, anything I could use; I was grasping at straws. Most of what I got out of it was just a reminder that I’d fucked everything up.
I ran my fingers over the quote Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. I squeezed my eyes shut, cursed myself, then threw the book down and screamed.
Martha came over and put her arm around me. “You need to eat—you’re disappearing on me and you’re scaring the customers.”
“I deserve it.”
“You’re wrong. Will is a deeply sensitive young man and he knows what you’ve gone through this year and he’s been patient with you. I don’t think you deserve any more heartache, but this is your own doing and you know it. You’re not being punished; you’re punishing yourself. You can’t fault a man for loving you, Mia.”
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“Are you sure about that?” She sniffed me. “Child, you need a shower. Go home. I’ll close up.”
I went home and decided to skip the shower. Instead I found an old Sinead O’Connor cassette, covered the top hole with tape, stuck it in my father’s ancient stereo, got a microphone, and put it next to the piano where I composed, then recorded, the saddest piece of music I’ve ever heard. I timed the song “Nothing Compares 2 U,” and recorded my wretched song right over it. I thought Sorry, Sinead, my sorrow knows no depth; my song is so much more pitiful than yours. My song is so pathetic; there is only one suitable title for it… “Hell.”
Having spent almost every day at the Kell’s for an entire year, I started declaring Sundays as my official day off. Although my hope was that I would use my free days for some form of self-improvement, either exercise or composing more pieces, I did neither one of those things. Instead I slept away nearly every moment I wasn’t at the café. I lost weight and felt exhausted all the time. There was a growing distance between Jenny and me. While she worked on starting a family, enjoying her marital bliss, I was focused on surviving a monumental heartbreak. Because Will stayed away and avoided me, I felt robbed of the opportunity to right my mistakes, which made me grow angry toward him. The memories of him were so heartbreaking, I couldn’t bear idle time in my apartment, so I would just sleep, or sit at the park and watch the children play. I envied the simplicity of childhood and let my mind wander to memories with my father in that same park. That was my only solace as the anniversary of his death passed along with my twenty-sixth birthday and Will’s thirtieth, all events that I essentially ignored. I got a few “Happy Birthdays” from people at the café. Martha made me a casserole, insisting that I eat half of it in front of her. Jenny made me a cake and Tyler did a comedic birthday slam for me on poetry night. On Will’s birthday, Jenny asked for the night off but didn’t tell me why, not that it wasn’t obvious.
When I did make an attempt to write music, the notes would inevitably turn dismal and monotonous, so I gave up playing the piano and writing music. I put all the other instruments away in closets and bought myself a nice flat-screen TV and would watch hours of meaningless, shit programing in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep.
I woke up one Sunday morning months after that fateful night in LA. It was spring and the new warmth in the city came flooding through my windows, providing me with a modicum of energy, just enough to get out of bed before noon. I finally addressed the mountain of mail building on my countertop. Sipping coffee while I perused one of the many New Yorker magazines in the pile, I got lost in a modern fiction excerpt, particularly a few paragraphs from the novel by author Lauren Fuser-Biel.
Isabelle watched the majestic creature pensively as he paced behind the ironclad fortress. His captivating beauty drew her closer, her eyes locked on his. She began mimicking his movements with acute precision, back and forth, forging a new path in the unmarred earth on her side of the bars. They studied each other with determined stares; her mouth fell agape. Faint whispers escaped in haunting tribute as she fixated on the beast. “Wolf, you are beautiful, admired because you are flawless, adored because you are predictable, envied because you are cherished… empty because you are caged.” The beast stilled. Isabelle, like a dammed river, slowed with a lingering motion as she appraised her counterpart. The trepidation in his sharply angled eyes, blue as the glacial depths, bore deep into her mind. She discovered a weakness in the magnificent and mercurial vision in front her, simultaneously revealing her own.
Protecting the flesh that was her only possession, she recoiled into herself to examine the surroundings. Where would she go for escape within the confines of her cage? As if the answers were predetermined, she stood and began pacing once again, for the worn path had become a familiar and safe refuge, the bars her warm blanket, the ferocious animal her protector.
Tormenting whispers echoed with the beast’s penetrating gaze. “Back and forth, beautiful creature. Back and forth, Wife.”
I pondered the meaning and wondered if the author was speaking of herself in it. Was it a warning about marriage or life in general, or was it simply a statement about the traps we make for ourselves, the walls we build, the prisons we are comfortable within? Was I guilty of choosing safety over happiness and freedom, like the character in the book? I wondered if anything mattered at that point. It was all in the past; I was left with nothing but regret now and no power to change things.
Flipping through the stack, I came across a birthday card. The front was Van Gogh’s Irises; when I opened the inside I sucked in a breath at the sight of Will’s handwriting.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
HOPE YOU’RE WELL
LOVE, WILL
Well? Was he kidding? He basically fell off the face of the earth wit
h no explanation except that I ruined him. I had resorted to scanning the faces of homeless men, thinking I would find him drenched in drunken sorrows at the street corner. I thought I was solely responsible for destroying a great musical talent, not to mention the love of my life, and here was his writing, perfectly legible, hoping that I’m well, signing off with love. It was just enough to break my heart all over again. I scoured the envelope for a return address, but there was nothing. Clenching my jaw, my fists balling in anger, I decided I needed to do something I hadn’t done since Jackson died. I threw on a pair of sweats and tennis shoes and started running. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore and then I collapsed on the bench overlooking the playground at Tompkins Square Park.
A familiar face caught my attention but I struggled to place it. I stared at her long dark hair, dark eyes, and alabaster skin, similar to mine. It wasn’t until I saw her reach down to hand a young boy a water bottle that I realized it was the woman I had helped at the airport over a year ago, just after my father’s death. It was the day I met Will and the memory was still vivid. I walked into the playground area and took a seat next to her on the bench. She glanced over and smiled, but there was no sign of recognition on her face. I was feeling bold and intrigued that I ran into this woman again. I turned toward her and stuck my hand out,
“Hi, I’m Mia. I don’t know if you remember me, but I helped you in the security line at Detroit Metro last year?”
She smiled, then pointed at me and nodded. “Yes, I do remember.” I could see in her face that she did recognize me and there was something else, she recognized herself the same way I had. “I’m Lauren.”
“I remember—hi. Wow, your boys have grown so much in just a year.” She nodded and smiled. “How old are they?”
“They’re four and five—fifteen months apart and very busy I might add,” she said, laughing. “Which one is yours?”
“I don’t have kids, I just love this park. I used to come here with my father. So, you must be very busy with two little active boys?”
“Yes, fortunately I work from home so I get to spend lots of time with them.”
“What do you do?” I asked.
“I’m a writer.”
“Really? That’s so cool. What do you write?” I realized I was being really nosey, but she didn’t seem to mind. I looked down at my appearance and wondered briefly if she thought I was a homeless person or an asylum escapee. I must have been quite a departure from the put-together Mia of last year.
“I write fiction. I wrote a book called Bountiful Lies that was just recently published.”
“You’re kidding me?” I looked at her like she had three heads.
“Oh no, you didn’t like it?” I could tell she was bracing herself for criticism.
I sat there, stunned at the coincidence. “I literally just read an excerpt in the New Yorker this morning.”
“Well?”
“It was great, I’m gonna buy it for sure.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that, Mia.”
“Is Isabelle you?”
“Oh good lord no, it’s purely fiction. But I suppose all the characters have a little piece of me.”
She was kind and seemed a bit lonely like me, which gave me the urge to tell her my entire life story. I ended with my heartbreak over Will and how he had thrown away a promising future, which led to our breakup. I told her how I missed everything about him, but mostly our friendship, the music, and the way he took care of me. She listened attentively while I tried to explain how my life had been turned upside down. I said I felt like I was drowning in a huge chasm created by some obsession I have with getting things right. She seemed unusually interested in what I was saying, and I wondered if I was providing her with some fodder for the next book. Oh no. That’s not good. My story would certainly be a cautionary tale. I turned the conversation back to her.
She told me how her husband was a writer as well, Pulitzer Prize winning, in fact. She believed that the passion they shared was the ultimate catalyst in the relationship. She didn’t believe opposites attract. She said, “My husband is my soul twin, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Was he a writer when you met him?”
“Aspiring. We met in Atlanta, at a small art house theater where he collected tickets. At the time he was still living with his parents and working on his first book. He picked me up for our first date in the most beat-up Chevy truck I had ever seen. It was the middle of summer and ridiculously humid. His truck didn’t have air-conditioning and the window handle was broken, so he reached over me and rolled my window down with a pair of vise grips. Pretty impressive, huh?”
The story was clearly for my benefit. She wanted me to hear something deeper in the words; it was an anecdote. She understood my dilemma, which gave me the sense I was going through some painful rite of passage she had already experienced.
“How did you know your husband would be successful?”
“I didn’t. I knew I loved him and that meant I trusted him. I was never obsessed with material possessions, but I had the same concerns as you. I eventually realized as my love grew that more than anything, I believed in him, because of his passion and determination. It boils down to one word… faith.”
“Oh no, not that word.”
“Yes, committing yourself to someone requires a leap of faith—that’s why it’s so hard for some. There is no crystal ball, but if you love someone enough and you share a similar dream, then your faith in that person becomes faith in yourself and that’s the best part of sharing your life… you’re better for it. Isabelle in the book is trapped by her own fear and nothing else… no one else. It’s a cautionary tale,” she said, watching my reaction.
I almost choked on my tongue. I pondered her words in silence as I looked on at the exuberant children. When it was time to go, I hugged her and gave her my phone number. I felt like she was sort of a big sister; it was a connection I’d longed for my entire life. I ran home with my newfound determination and called Jenny.
“Jenny, you have to tell me where he is.”
She paused for a long beat. She had been avoiding me and any conversation related to Will; I only saw her at the café, where she was all business. I knew her and Tyler were taking Will’s side in the whole thing, which made me feel even more alone. “I don’t know where he is,” she said.
“Why won’t you talk to me about this?”
“About what?”
“Stop being like that, Jenny. About Will—where is he, I need to talk to him.”
“He doesn’t want to talk to you and I have nothing to say.”
“I need you. I messed up and I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I’d say.”
I started crying. “Please, I’m having a hard time.”
“Okay,” she said quietly. There was long pause. “I’ll be over later. We’ll go out, get some dinner or something.”
“Thank you. I know I’ve been a mess and I’ve made mistakes. I can’t make things right with Will, but I want to with you and Tyler.”
“Okay, Mia, I’ll see you in a little bit.”
I couldn’t understand why Jenny was so mad; it really had nothing to do with her. I was nervous to find out. With my newfound energy I took a little extra time getting ready. I hadn’t had plans in ages and it was nice to look in the mirror and feel somewhat put together. I wore skinny black capris, plain black heels, and a dark blue, low-cut tunic top.
“Why are you so dressed up? We’re just going to Sam’s.”
“I haven’t been out in a long time; I thought maybe we could try that sushi place in Soho?”
At first Jenny’s look was disapproving, but it immediately turned to pity when she saw the hope in my face. “Okay, let’s do it,” she said, reaching out to hug me. It felt so good to be hugged by her. I missed my friend.
Over dinner, I asked her about life and Tyler. Things were going well for them. I told her about Lauren and the book. The restaurant was small and packed
, so we sat at the sushi bar and shared quite a spread along with a bottle of sake and a giant beer. Our conversation was interrupted when I recognized familiar words being piped through the speakers. It was Sonja singing Will’s song. I could hear his sexy voice backing her up in certain sections, which created a huge lump in my throat. The song was much more juvenile than the way Will had originally written it, but it suited Sonja. “Wow, it’s on the radio?”
Jenny looked at me, scrunching her eyebrows. “Yeah, it’s number one on the billboard chart. You didn’t know that?”
“No, I guess I’ve been a little out of it. Well good for her, then.”
“And Will too.”
“Yes, good for him.” I was glad she brought him up first. “How’s he doing, by the way?”
She took a deep breath through her nose. “He’s hanging in there.”
“Why won’t he talk to me?”
She paused for far too long. “Well, Mia, the guy told you he wanted you to be his wife and the mother of his children and you basically said he was a loser. I believe his exact words were She ripped my soul out, poured gasoline on it, and watched it burn.”
I briefly wondered what our souls would look like if we could see them. What kind of shape would mine have? I decided Will’s would be the ever-changing clouds in the sky: heavenly; serene; but sometimes dark, brooding, and filled with electricity. Then I thought about what his soul would look like on fire. I cringed.
Instead of pleading and begging or calling Will dramatic, I just calmly said, “I made a huge mistake that I have regretted every single day. I’ve changed. I know what I want, but it’s too late and I’ll never get over that. I just want him to know that I’m sorry and that I did love him, I do love him, and I just want to see him.”
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