by Dina Silver
“Okay,” he says.
“And last week I met him for coffee, when you were in Vegas,” I cower, “and he asked me if we could get back together, if there was still a chance for us.” I pause for a second. “I told him that there wasn’t a future for him and me, and that I was dating you,” I say, trying not to sound defensive.
“Okay,” he repeats.
I clear my lungs and let out a profound breath. “Then today he stopped by and said he wanted to talk, so I met him downstairs because I knew you were coming, and like an idiot, I thought that was the best plan. He then made one last petition for our relationship, and for some God forsaken reason, he proposed to me. And that’s when you walked in.”
My eyes begin to well up so I look away. I’m determined not to release one drop. All the while, Ryan is sitting across from me perfectly still until he runs his right hand through his hair. A small sigh escapes his nose.
Before he has a chance to speak, I continue. “Ryan, I can’t imagine how I would feel if you were saying these things to me right now, nor can I imagine what you must have thought when you walked in on us. All I honestly care about is that you know how unbelievably sorry I am to have kept all of this from you. If I could change how I’ve handled things…I would do anything,” I say.
He unfolds his hands and leans backwards on them. “Well,” he starts. “It’s nice to have an explanation I guess.” He nods once, and then his mood shifts as he stands up and steps away from the table, and from me. “Kat, I can tell you’re getting upset, and that’s the last thing I want to happen. I’m not angry, I’m just not sure what to say.”
I heed Adam’s advice and make a meager attempt at light-hearted humor. “Want to write it down?”
“No,” he says in a distant voice before continuing. “I want you to know that I believe you…what you just told me.”
His statement leaves me only partially relieved. “But?” I ask.
“But I also have to believe that there must be more to your relationship with Marc for him to come to you like that and propose.” He looks at me questionably while his words sink in. “And since I’ve already come between you and Julie, maybe it’s just too much. Maybe it’s not meant to be with us, you know? Sometimes when there are too many hurdles, there’s a reason for it.” He stops talking and looks over at me.
I manage to stand, despite my weak knees. “It’s no surprise to me that there are hurdles standing in our way, because that’s how it is, nothing good ever comes easy,” I say, pleading. “Especially for me.”
He sits down on one of the stools at his kitchen island and I can see by the scrunched skin on his forehead that he’s truly conflicted. We’d had such a fantastic time together this weekend and I just met his parents this morning; he can’t possibly pull the plug on us now!
“Look Kat, I want this to work out, you know I do. But my gut tells me that maybe you need some time to take care of the situation with Marc.” He looks down at the floor. “I’ve been in a similar position before, and it didn’t bode well for me in the end.” He finally makes eye contact again. “I’m not saying that history will repeat itself, I’m just saying that I’ve been here before and if I could’ve changed anything it would’ve been to let her figure things out before being with me.”
So that’s it, I’m not the only one keeping secrets. Ryan Sullivan has baggage of his own. “Ryan,” I begin softly. “Obviously I don’t know the specifics of the situation you’re describing and I don’t need to. Because what I do know is that I have nothing left to figure out. I’ve made my decision, and have no regrets.” I walk closer to him. “I promise you I have no agenda here other than being with you. It’s what I want, you know that.”
He’s still looking at me, but with the same conflicted face. “I know Kat, but a man just proposed to you today and it wasn’t me,” he states. “I think you have a few loose ends to tie up.”
Having already fainted once today, I have faith that my brain will keep me on my feet for the remainder of this conversation. That being said, I can’t fend off the dizziness for much longer. I concentrate on breathing again, and choose not to look him in the eyes anymore because that will surely exacerbate my lightheadedness. He and I have never had so much as a disagreement over what channel to watch, let alone one of this magnitude. I know deep within my bones that he’s not someone who is easily swayed once he’s made up his mind, and I sense the agony of defeat start to come over me like a dark shadow.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Sorry Kat, I think it’s for the best. If we’re going to be together, I want it to be under the right circumstances.”
Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. “Just to be clear, are we breaking up?”
“Let’s just take a break, so you can…”
“Work things out, right, right,” I say to myself in dismay.
“Kat, I’ve been here thinking about what happened at your apartment today, and where to go next,” he says.” I don’t think there is any other answer.”
“Right.”
I make my way to his front door without looking back. He follows close behind and sees me out. I have nothing else to say to him at this point and have lost the will to fight.
“I’m going to Vegas on Wednesday, but let’s talk when I get back, okay?” he says.
“Okay.”
“Goodbye, Kat.”
“Bye.”
It looks as though Adam was wrong; Ryan was not willing to consider my explanation. I leave his building and walk over to a park bench before heading to my car. I sit and cry my eyes out for the second time today. I place my head in my hands and release every ounce of sadness and frustration that I’ve been holding onto for the last half of this wretched day. After I compose myself, I retrieve my purse from the sidewalk. A girl needs her best friends at a time like this, so I reach for my phone and dial Julie’s number.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A Friend in Need
There’s no way to mask my sobs when Julie answers the phone, so after assuring her that I’m in no physical danger she generously agrees to meet me back at my apartment. I tell her I’ll fill her in when she gets there. I’m able to comfort myself long enough to get home and splash some water on my face before she arrives. I buzz her up and wait in the hall for her. Just seeing her face brings tears to my eyes. Yet again.
“You better be dying,” she says as she approaches my door. “I’m sick with worry.”
“No such luck,” I say as she enters the apartment. We go to take a seat and carry a half-empty bottle of wine to the couch.
“What on earth is going on?” she asks.
“Before I begin, I want to say I’m sorry again, for our fight.”
“If the tears are meant to make me feel badly for you, they’re working.” She smiles. “Is that what this is about?”
“No, it’s not. But before I get to that…”
“Hold on Kat,” she interrupts me. “I know I was hard on you, and even though you attempted to tread lightly and explain the situation, all I heard was betrayal. Ryan and I weren’t that serious, and I shouldn’t have attacked you like I did,” she takes a breath. “And I did get your email, and I appreciated what you said. I wasn’t planning on ignoring you forever, you must know that.”
“Thank you.”
“So, what the hell is going on?” she asks.
I proceed to tell her how everything has progressed with Ryan and me. I then profess my feelings for him and confide how terribly insecure I feel about everything. Next comes the update on Marc and his recurring attempts to patch things up. And then comes the story about the proposal. The real zinger. That jaw-dropping moment where Marc pulls an ace on the river, wins the game and leaves me royally flushed. Lastly, I describe what has taken place over the last hour between Ryan and me. Somehow when you’re either dumped or dissed by the person you love, you’re desperate to talk to someone - anyone - who knows them and might have some insight into the p
ain you’re going through. This wasn’t the only reason I called Julie, but it was one of them. She shakes her head and sips her wine during my entire narrative, and when I’m through she settles back into the couch and circles the rim of her glass with her index finger.
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” I say, bleary-eyed and exhausted.
“First of all, I wish I had some idea what Ryan was thinking, or some way of reassuring you where he is concerned, but I clearly don’t know him nearly as well as you do,” she says. “Secondly, I’m mortified by the fact that you felt unable to share any of this with me earlier.
I should’ve been there for you through all of this and I’m so sorry that you weren’t comfortable talking to me. I understand why, and I completely blame myself.”
“I’m the one who should be, and is, apologizing to everyone,” I clarify.
Julie sits up and leans over to give me a hug and it’s exactly what I need. “Alright, let’s try and put this behind us, you and me. It’s done, okay?” She sits back into a more relaxed position. “Now let’s figure things out here, I mean, what in the hell was Marc thinking?!”
“I know!”
“Did Ryan see you faint?” she wonders.
I nod.
“And he just left?” she asks.
“What else was he going to do? I’m laying there unconscious with a man who just asked for my hand in marriage.” I shake my head at the memory. “I’m sure he couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”
“So what exactly did he say when you went over there tonight?” Julie leans forward off the back couch pillow, her body language indicating she needs more of the play-by-play. Unfortunately, it’s all a blur to me at the moment. My head aches as I try and run through the details with her.
I’m rubbing my temples to alleviate the guilt and the tension. “I honestly can’t think of his exact words, because as soon as I realized where he was going with it, I tuned out the details.”
“Just try,” she demands.
“He basically said, ‘someone just proposed to you…it wasn’t me…I’ve been hurt before…and you need to clean house before bothering me again…if ever’.”
Julie gets inquisitive, “He said he wanted to propose to you?”
“No.” I shook my head.
“Well you just said something like, ‘it wasn’t me’ and ‘I’ve been hurt before’? He obviously has some issues of his own here. Number one, he is way into you, because he’s scared of you hurting him, and we all know you can’t be hurt by someone you don’t truly care about. And number two, he’s actually considered marrying you I bet, or he wouldn’t have even mentioned something like that. And both of those things are two huge points in your favor,” Julie says, very proud of her ability to decipher his man code.
“I don’t know.”
“Well I do know. If there’s one thing that I know for sure, it’s men.” She crosses her arms. “Had you told me about all these Marc invasions over the past few months I could’ve predicted his indecent proposal as well,” she claims with confidence.
“So now what do I do? I can’t just keep bothering Ryan and try to present my case over and over. He told me to take some time. Doesn’t that clearly translate to ‘leave me alone, freak’?”
“He’s scared. He just took you to meet his mother this morning for Christ sake! I absolutely think you should do whatever it takes to let him know how you feel. If Marc had done that with you, like he realizes now that he should’ve, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. Because you would’ve taken him back,” she concludes.
“But you know what, when the two of you broke up, you were the one who was scared. Terrified in fact. You were scared of being alone, of not having him in your life, of him not changing…of a lot of things.
He knew what you were going through and what did he do about it?
Nothing.” She stops to make certain I take a moment to remember.
“Now you are in a similar position, only you’re the one that’s going to have to do what Marc didn’t do. You’re going to have to put an end to Ryan’s fears, and fight for what you want.”
She makes perfect sense. She’s eloquently put into words precisely what I need to do; only I know I’m not going to be able to do it. Like that time when my uncle was teaching me how to water-ski. I was bobbing up and down like an apple floating in the lake, holding on to the little bar while a boat idled in front of me. “Just keep your arms straight, stand up when you feel tension and let the boat do all the work,” he said as I looked up at him, my face and hair dripping from the first six failed attempts. Sure, I understood what he was saying; I just didn’t have the confidence to make it happen.
“Can you do it for me?” I ask Julie.
“I wish I could, sister.”
“Me too.”
“Hey,” she wonders. “Did he ever cook for you?”
“Yeah,” I say with a not-so-innocent grin.
“And?”
“It was hot.”
“Damn,” Julie shakes her head and takes a sip of her wine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
Misery Loves Company
Much to my displeasure I have to be at work early on Monday and it’s certainly not going to be as fun as the past few have been. As expected, no post-its or pastries from Ryan to welcome me into my cube of doom either. This is going to be a rough day. I wish I had some other distraction from my work besides Scrabble and Facebook. I do my best speed walking to get from the elevator to my desk without seeing anyone; however, my efforts do not get past Adam.
“I’m assuming everything went fine considering I didn’t hear from you?” He questions me and plops down in my desk chair as I’m putting my purse away.
“Quite the opposite.” I remove my sunglasses and expose a set of swollen eyes.
“Holy Evander Holyfield, what happened?” he gasps.
I put my glasses back on and could care less that Maureen from H.R. is giving me looks from her smelly cube. “He broke up with me.”
“He didn’t,” Adam responds instantly. “You’re lying.”
I wave for Adam to get out of my chair, but he doesn’t. “Do I look like I’m lying?”
“Did you tell him everything?” he inquires with an accusatory tone like I must have done something wrong.
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him you have no intention of marrying Marc?”
“Yes.”
“Well what gives then?” he asks me.
“Apparently I’m not the only Brutus to his Caesar, and he’s all ‘been there done that, didn’t work out before, sorry’.”
“He’s wild about you and you know it,” Adam tries to reassure me.
“I don’t know anything anymore. I know that my ex-boyfriend comes back into my life after I’ve vowed to get over him and move on. And I know that he decided to propose to me months after I’d stopped wishing he would. I sigh heavily and lean against my desk. “Oh, and I know that Ryan has no time for someone as useless and deceitful as me. That spot on his dance card has apparently been filled already.”
Adam gets to his feet. “Let’s take a walk.”
“I am not leaving this cube until five o’clock. So if you care about me at all you will bring me a bowl of mushroom barley and a demi-baguette around twelve-thirty.”
He places his hand on the back of my jeans and yanks upwards. “Get up,” he says as I stand up with my glasses on and my shoulders slumped.
“Adam, I don’t want to see him. Please, I love you. Leave me alone today.”
“He’s not here little kitty. He and Dave and the design team are out all day,” he informs me.
“What? Really?” I squeal with disappointment.
As much as I dreaded seeing Ryan today, I really need to see him. The fact that we work together gives me an advantage I wouldn’t otherwise have in a typical break-up. The opportunity of chance encounters. However, it looks like that isn’t going to be the case today.
How can I begin fighting for what I want with no opponent?
“Really,” Adam confirms as I follow him to the elevators and then outside for some fresh air. “So exactly what happened?” He wants to know and he deserves to know, but I do not have the energy to relive the story right now.
“Honestly, I don’t have it in me at the moment.”
“Excuse me?” He places his hands on his hips. “Muster it up.”
“I’m emotionally exhausted and I just can’t drudge it all up again right now,” I tell him. “I can’t afford to get all emotional at the office.”
“Well you look like shit, so I believe you, but could you at least give me the post-it note version? I’m dying over here.”
I spy a bench in front of our building and walk towards it as Adam follows. If I’m going to host yet another pity party in my honor I may as well be seated.
“He’s had his heart broken before,” I begin, “and he doesn’t feel like having it done twice. He thinks we should take some time so that I can ‘work things out’ and join Two-Faced Tramps Anonymous in the meantime,” I say methodically.
“Wow.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much the response I’m getting.”
“Getting from who?”
“Julie came over last night and I spewed out every detail of my recent, indecent past and we had a love fest.”
“Good for you,” he commends me with a silent handclap.
“Thank you.”
“So what’s Julie’s take on it?” Adam asks and leans back on his hands.
“Gloves on, pride off.”
“Not a bad plan,” he says.
“You think?”
“Yes,” he says. “Aren’t I the one who sent you over there last night in the first place? You should absolutely wipe this puss off your Noxzema moisturized face and let him know how weepy and pathetic you are without him.”