“I can’t move. I can’t breathe.”
“Honey.” She comes over to rub my back. “Come on. In. Out. In. Out. Good girl. You got it. Sweetie, I hate to see you like this.”
“I knew this was going to happen.” I bend forward and rest my hands on my knees. “I knew it.”
“Okay, I’ll go look first.”
“Marnie, no!”
Too late.
She jogs across the street and slinks up between the front door and the window, peering inside through the glass of the door. When I see how quickly she jerks her head back, and the look on her face, I want to die. The feeling in my chest is unbearable. The only thing worse is the feeling in my stomach. She jogs back and grabs my arm. “Let’s go.”
“Just tell me.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Marnie, just tell me.”
“Let’s just go over here, hold on.” When we get about a block away in the opposite direction, she pulls me around the corner and pulls no punches: “She was trying to kiss him, but he was resisting her. I promise you, he was resisting her and pushing her away. She was all over him, but he was pushing her away and that’s what matters. Look at me, honey. Look at me.”
I somehow manage to raise my eyes to her concerned face. It’s the same face she has when one of her kids or students has fallen down. She’s not denying that it might hurt, but she doesn’t want to make it worse by freaking out.
“It’s okay,” she says. “I would tell you if I thought it looked like he was into it and he was not. Definitely not. I’m sure he will tell you about it later and you’ll laugh about what a little drama queen you were about nothing.”
I try to concentrate on Marnie’s face. I do trust her. I don’t trust Sadie. I don’t know if I trust Vince, and that’s what’s killing me. She wraps her arms around me when I collapse into her, sobbing. I don’t care who sees. It’s too much.
I told Vince that I was too tired to do anything last night, which was certainly true, but I was mostly exhausted from crying so much.
I got no sleep.
I’ve agreed to meet him for lunch at the Italian restaurant where I gave him the Rumi book. I didn’t want him to come to my apartment. There are too many places he could kiss me there and make me lose my resolve.
I can control a room full of six year-olds, it should be so much easier for me to control my own brain. Not since I first laid eyes on Vince Devlin.
These eyes, my eyes, have puffy grey bags under them today. There isn’t enough cover-up in the world to hide them, or enough lip gloss to detract from them. All I can do is wear my sunglasses and hope that I don’t burst into tears as soon as I see him while shooting snot out of my nose.
I get to the restaurant five minutes earlier than our agreed-upon time, so I can get settled and calm myself down.
Un, deux, trois, fuck.
He got here before me. The hostess points me towards him, sitting at a corner table on the patio. He looks nervous. Nervous and beautiful and completely capable of breaking my heart with one look.
He sees me and smiles, stands up. I let him kiss my cheek and hold out my chair for me. When I sit down, a small sad sigh escapes my lips.
“Hey you,” he says. “I missed you yesterday.”
I don’t remove my sunglasses, because I’m already tearing up. I nod. “I missed you too.” The words come out soft and gravelly.
“Are you getting a cold?”
“Maybe.”
“You should get their minestrone soup.” He looks so worried about me. It’s too sweet. He rubs his lips together. I have this feeling he needs to tell me something, and I just want him to get it over with.
“I just saw my Dad, he said that Charlie wants me to tell you that book was a big hit with his girlfriend.”
“She’s not his girlfriend,” I whisper.
“She will be soon enough. He’s a Devlin.” He grins.
I shift around in my chair.
“You gonna take your sunglasses off?”
“Not yet.”
“Are you okay?”
I take a breath. “How’ve you been? How was your day yesterday?”
“Weird.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I had so many calls about a property that I just listed, more than I was expecting.”
“Oh yeah? Did you…have showings? At the property?”
“Yeah. What’d you get up to? I missed you. I told you that.”
Our waitress comes to take our order, but I haven’t looked at the menu yet. He orders me a minestrone soup and hot tea. He’s being so sweet I might start screaming. When the waitress leaves, he reaches across the table to pull my sunglasses off my face.
“Whoah.” He stares at my pink, swollen, damp eyes.
I can’t look at him anymore.
“Shit,” he says, under his breath. “What is it?”
“Umm…” I sniffle and wipe away a tear. There’s no one seated immediately around us, and no reason to put off this conversation. I stare at the center of the table as I speak. “I’ve been thinking…We should have a little time-out. Take a break. I just need to be on my own for a little bit to sort through my feelings, and I don’t want to speak for you, but maybe you could do the same.”
“Why would we do that?”
“It’s not you, Vince, I promise. It’s just…hard to overcome the circumstances in which we met.”
“I don’t see why it matters how we met. You met your principal the normal boring way and look how that turned out.”
“I just think we should take a break before things get too serious.”
“Well then you are way too late.”
I finally glance up at him and the look he gives me breaks my heart in two, but it wasn’t the one I was expecting. He looks heartbroken.
“Why is this happening?”
“It was bound to happen eventually, you know that.”
“Why is this happening now?”
“I saw you yesterday morning. With Sadie.”
He doesn’t even blink. “Nothing happened. I mean, she was trying something, but I didn’t…You don’t trust me?”
“Were you going to tell me that you saw her?”
“No, Nina. That’s not what I was going to tell you today. I don’t give a fuck about Sadie—seeing her barely even registered in my brain—this can’t be about that.”
“Well I do give a fuck about Sadie and about Russell and about you, and I want to be able to only give a fuck about you and me, but I need some time on my own so I can process everything that’s happened.”
“You said you aren’t mad at him anymore.”
“I’m not but I never had time to process the breakup either. I was with him for three years, Vince, I was engaged to him.”
Our of the corner of my eye, I see the waitress heading towards us with my soup and tea, but as soon as she catches our body language, she turns on her heels, pretending to have forgotten something, and goes back inside.
“Are you telling me you still have feelings for him? Is that why you’re worried about me and Sadie— you’re projecting?”
“I don’t have that kind of feelings for him no. God no. Vince. I’m a mess right now. School starts in less than three weeks and I can’t be an emotional mess when I’m responsible for dozens of small children. Why don’t you understand this?”
“You said you’d give me the whole summer.” It’s an accusation, the way he says it. He’s getting aggressive and I’m getting defensive. I honestly didn’t expect him to be like this. He’s usually so open and understanding. I don’t know what I was thinking.
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m not good at this.”
“At what? Being with me?”
“I love being with you. I just don’t know if I’m good at being me when I’m with you.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Who are you being?”
“Vince.”
“No, tell me. I wanna know. Who we
re you being? Who did I fall in love with?”
He says it so quickly, my brain doesn’t even register the words. “I’ve booked a flight, I’m going to Bloomington for ten days.”
“What? When?”
“Tomorrow. I’m going to stay with my parents.”
“You already planned this. Without telling me.”
“I just decided to yesterday. I’m telling you now.”
He shakes his head. I can visibly see him shutting down.
“Vince. I didn’t mean for this to be a permanent break. I just need some space. It’s not your fault, but I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know what else to do.”
I’ve lost him. I can see it in his eyes. “What about Charlie?”
“Well…I can FaceTime with him when I’m gone.”
He shakes his head.
“Vince.”
He won’t even look at me. Whatever he’s thinking about, even though he’s physically still here, he’s already left me.
“We can still be friends while we’re working through this. I’m just talking about a couple of weeks.”
“No.” He looks up at me.
“No?”
“We had a deal.”
“I’m sorry if you perceive this as some sort of betrayal, but I was hoping you’d be a little more flexible and understanding.”
“Yeah? I was hoping a good girl like you would be a lot more reliable.”
“How am I not reliable? You’re the one with the history of lovin’ and leavin’ ‘em.”
“I don’t know what else I could ever say or do to show you that it was different with you. You get everything or you get nothing.”
“That doesn’t sound so different to me.”
He winces, but he’s not budging. He’s so stubborn. I never would have expected him to be this stubborn.
“That doesn’t seem unreasonable to you, Vince?”
“You know what—don’t talk to me like I’m a six year-old. Deciding to leave town for ten days before you even give me a chance to talk about this seems unreasonable to me. It’s pretty immature, too.” He stands up, pulls a twenty-dollar bill out of his wallet and drops it on the table. “You know what—forget about Charlie. My Dad’s started bringing Sharon around a lot. He’ll be fine.”
“What, so is there a one-woman limit in the Devlin household? What is that supposed to mean? God.”
I can see that he regrets saying that, but I’m so mad at him right now I don’t care.
“You’re leaving? That’s it?”
“The difference with you, Nina, so we’re clear, is that I wanted to give you everything. You’re the one who’s leaving. Deal with that.”
I don’t watch him walk away. I can’t. I already know that if I run after him it’s too late.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Nina
When Marnie came over, I literally had to crawl across the floor to buzz her in and unlock my door.
My plan for sorting through my feelings in a way that’s not overwhelming has not gotten off to a good start.
But at least I don’t have to force myself to feel something.
I don’t need a song to remind me how to feel. I don’t need alcohol to make me feel more or less. I’m feeling everything and nothing. I feel Vince in every pore of my body as much as I feel his absence.
Eyes closed, I feel Marnie take my hand and place something smooth and squishy into it. I don’t have to see to know that it’s a Capri Sun juice pouch. This may be the last time I smile, even a little bit, for the rest of my life.
“Sit up,” she says. “Drink up.”
I do. It’s my favorite flavor—tropical punch. A sweet reminder of what summer is supposed to taste like, instead of tears and self-loathing.
“Thank you,” I say meekly. “Can I make you some tea?”
“No. I brought back my shoulder to cry on. It didn’t get used at all the last time around.”
The last time around. “Oh God. This is my second break-up in two months.”
“Yer on a roll, kiddo.”
“I spent three years in a relationship with Russell and didn’t shed a tear when he dumped me. I spend just over a month with this guy and now that it’s over I feel like something has died inside. What’s wrong with me?”
“First of all there is nothing wrong with you, Sunshine. Secondly you didn’t cry for Russell because you knew exactly what you were going to get with him and you were relieved you didn’t have to keep getting that shit. It’s sad about Vince because you had a glimpse at how great it could be and you’re never going to see it come to fruition. And that sucks. It feels like you’re dying inside because your lady parts are never going to rub up against that beautiful man’s body or sweet mouth ever again.”
“Marnie!”
“Sorry.”
“Oh my God! It’s true. He told me he fell in love with me and I didn’t even respond. It was so unexpected! He must hate me.”
“No.”
“Yes. Whether he was into it with Sadie the other day or not I probably just drove him back to her.”
“No.”
“Yes. I hate me.”
“Honey. You were trying to protect yourself.”
“I’ve been trying to protect myself my whole life and the only time I’ve ever been really happy was when I stopped doing that.”
“It takes a lot of practice to get used to a change like that. It’s like learning to ride a bike without the training wheels. Maybe next time you’ll get the hang of it. Find that balance.”
That sends me into another humiliating fit of sobs. “I don’t want a next time with someone else.”
“It might not be with someone else.” She waits for me to stop hiccup-crying before continuing. “I mean, I’m no shrink. But it seems to me that you’re both pretty similar in really important ways.”
Sniff. “Sexually?”
“Well. Sure. But also emotionally. You both have abandonment issues.”
“What?! No we don’t. We aren’t needy. I mean, I’m not. He’s definitely not.”
“It goes the other way too. Emotional distance. Sound familiar?”
I stare at her for an eternity. “Dave is the luckiest guy alive.”
“Oh, I am not this understanding with my husband. He’s wrong about everything. He’s just lucky I stick around long enough to fall in love with him over and over again.” She holds out her hand, which I take and squeeze, with more gratitude than I could say with words. “You’ll have that one day too, honey. I know you will.”
To further illustrate my poor judgment when deciding to come to Bloomington for ten days in August, it has been so humid that when I cry outside on the back porch, my tears never evaporate.
My parents, strangely, haven’t been as worried about me as they were several years ago. Maybe it’s because I’m not depressed, I’ve just been so, so sad. Or maybe it’s because my Dad’s finally figured out how to get his hair to look awesome with the putty that Vince recommended, and that makes both him and my Mom too happy to worry about their lovesick daughter.
Or maybe they’ve noticed that I’m starting to get better, even though I haven’t communicated with Vince at all since seeing him at the restaurant.
The space that I thought I needed in order to sort through my feelings has somehow only been filled with more love for Vince. It’s a cruel joke. Returning to Bloomington, a few years after leaving because I didn’t want to be reminded of my first broken heart, trying to escape Brooklyn to avoid running into my second broken heart. But there is a difference.
Probably without planning it, Vince has broken my heart open. I may have lost him. He may stay mad at me forever. I might never see him again. I may still be mad at him for being so stubborn. But I love Love again. I get why people fall in love, even if the relationship doesn’t last. We don’t shun summer just because we know it doesn’t last forever. We revel in it. I will never regret one second that I spent with Vince, and every single word, kiss, look, fe
eling, moment that he gave me in the span of weeks will live in me for a lifetime.
The mess we made really is more beautiful than anything I’ve ever known.
I’ve never really understood why people get tattoos before, but now I just want—now I need—to have something permanent on my body, to show how I feel on the inside. To show that it won’t change, even when circumstances have.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nina
And before I know it, it’s the first day of school. I’ve got my classroom all decorated, I’ve got my Hello, I’m Miss Parks name tag on, my name on the chalkboard, my lesson plans for the first week are fully-detailed, my teaching supplies are organized, my classroom rules are ready to be explained in a clear and fun manner. I haven’t said a real swear-word out loud in two weeks, and I haven’t cried in five days.
Beside every thought I have about vowels and fractions and the pros and cons of hand sanitizer are two thoughts about Vince, but they’re just there keeping me company, they don’t send me into a tizzy. See, I use words like “tizzy”. I’m officially a dorky first grade teacher again.
I’ve seen Russell in passing twice. He seems okay, although if he weren’t okay he wouldn’t show it. We had a quick conversation about telling our co-workers that we’re no longer a couple, but only if they ask, we aren’t going to make a big announcement or anything. He didn’t say anything about whether he’s still with Sadie or not, and he didn’t ask me about Vince. I really think that on that front, for Russell and I, we’ll be fine.
I still haven’t heard from Vince, or reached out to him. I plan to, next weekend, once the first week of school is behind me.
I’m standing at the door to my classroom, waiting to greet my new students, when I look across the hall and see Tyler’s mom pass by the entrance from the big yard, looking around. My kids haven’t started to arrive yet, so I hurry over to the doors.
“Eve?”
“Oh thank God.” She approaches. “I was hoping I’d catch you.”
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