by Mistake: (Poison & Wine, book 1)

by Sigal Ehrlich

  He sends his hand to my shoulder. “Anna, I have the money, I don’t need it right now, even after the down payment for the house. I don’t want you to lose the studio.”

  I jerk back in surprise. “You bought the house?”

  He nods.

  “Which one?” My eyes search his.

  “The one we both liked,” he says. I wish I could decipher the look in his eyes while saying that. I thought I could read this guy clearly, but it seems like I got it all wrong. “Back to the studio. Anna, I don’t want you to lose it. It’s just money, you’ll pay me back.”

  I look at him. Really look at him, trying to figure him out once more. Last night comes back with a vengeance, prompting me to say what’s on my mind but in a subtle way, if you will. “You know how it is. We don’t always get what we want when we want it even if it’s the perfect match. I guess I’ll just find another studio when I can afford it. Even though I know in my heart that this one should be mine.” I hold his stare. “Thank you, but I’m not taking your money.”

  I bite on my lip and hurt takes hold of me for the next few moments. I narrow my eyes with every intention to hurt him back a little. “I don’t want it. I don’t want to owe you. I don’t want this to connect us. You wanted time apart. I don’t believe this is within the not-being-in- touch realm.”

  The thing is, sometimes you should allow yourself to say mean things just because they make you feel a little better even if you realize a moment later that you shouldn’t have said them.

  He drops his head. Clever guy, letting me lay into him with no response. Letting me vent. The message, I believe, gets across. Loud and clear. After a moment when we’re both quiet, he lifts his eyes to mine. “The offer stands if you change your mind.”

  I take a step forward and hug him, feeling a little sorry for my outburst. He wraps his arms around me. “Thanks for everything,” I say to his distinctively beating heart. “Safe travels, please take care.” Slowly, I lean out of our embrace and look up at him.

  Silently, he looks at me for a stretched moment. He then sends his hands to frame my face and kisses me with enough sentiment and tenderness to resuscitate my bleeding heart. He draws back a few beats later, saying, “Bye, Anna.”

  I turn and walk away.

  He doesn’t call for me to tell me he made the hugest mistake of his life and that he wants us to be together like in the best tradition of romantic films. He doesn’t say a word. Real-life sucks.

  I know he’s watching me as I walk back to my mom’s room, but I don’t look back. I don’t want him to see my watery eyes and the pain they carry. As I take a collecting breath, I hear my inner navigation system declare, “recalculating route.” It seems like the road I thought I was on merely one sleep ago is now under construction. No Liam. No studio. Mom in trouble. Recalculating route.

  Hold on to Your Combs, Chickens, and Easy with Them Pins

  “See you next week,” I smile at the last clients leaving the studio and haste to complete “closing rituals.” I blow out the candles, turn off the diffusers, close all the windows, get my things, and lock up. Hurrying home, I hoist my bag up my shoulder while holding a tote bag in the other, all while balancing a travel mug and a phone pressed to my ear mid-conversation with my mom. Yes, it’s the third time today. This time she tells me a little less politely that I’m driving her a tad crazy with my constant worrying. Well, rushing to the hospital thinking you lost your one functioning parent will do that to a girl.

  “Yeah, okay, go back to your show,” I say. “If you need anything—”

  “I know, Bean, I’ll call you or your sister. Now, go on. Enjoy your evening. Send my love to the girls,” she says and hangs up. Also, I think she’s still a bit embarrassed by it all. It’s been almost a week since the false heart attack ordeal, yet the panic attack alternative still worries me. We sorted out the money situation, and by that, I mean Vicky sorted out the money situation. Apparently, she got some loan from her place of work, one that both her, I, and my mom will return for the next few good months. When Vicky told me she had found a solution and that I would get to keep my studio I was too thrilled to pay extra attention to the fact that her eyes were anywhere but on mine when she delivered the news. Asking her about it is still on my to-do list, but we probably won’t be discussing it tonight, not with all the gang present. There’s a time and place to interrogate your sibling.

  As soon as I walk through the door, I unload all the things I carried with me on to the kitchen counter and hop into the shower, not before connecting my phone to the Bluetooth speaker for my “happy” playlist on Spotify. I hum to the music and I’m relatively okay but then it hits me again.

  This is how my days go: I’m mainly fine, but then these waves of realization hit me, saddening lows creep in, and I can’t do anything but miss Liam and mourn what could have been.

  Time heals all wounds, my heiny! Laughable really. More like time does crap to heal your wounds and distance makes the heart grow achier. At least we can finally corroborate, it wasn’t just a crush or mild infatuation. I’ve hopelessly, deeply, and genuinely fell for the guy. Broken heart aside, I need to get ready, the girls should be here any minute now. We haven’t met since Liam left about five days ago, but they insisted on coming tonight, all of them. And just as I wrap my hair in a towel and secure it up on my head, the intercom buzzes.

  I open the door to Pandora declaring, “Hello ma’am, we’re here to assess the wreckage.” She hugs me.

  “Explore, explore the wreckage,” my sister corrects, popping her head in the door next and planting a kiss on my cheek.

  “Mend, y’all, mend the damage,” Kayla adds.

  Panda, who seems to be the orchestrator of the emotional distress first responder’s brigade, closes the door behind us. They stand in front of me as Panda does the talking. “We know you tooooo well.” She lingers. “You’re working on logic mode, shoving the pain and disappointment down. Yeah, yeah, a noble cause, helping people in forsaken countries and whatnot, but, where’s the promise, where’s the hey-wow-you’re-beyond-what-I-would-imagine-my-soulmate-would-be thing?”

  I swallow the emotional lump her words bring along.

  “So, we’re here to do a quick and intensive rehab. Tonight, our beloved chicken, we’re going to walk you through the stages of a breakup so you’ll be able to live through it and come out stronger with your Anna ways.”

  The thing about genuinely good friends, they know how to read the “help me” in your “I’m doing okay” smile.

  Marching to the kitchen, Panda deposits a box of rosé on the counter. We all follow in a silent line. There’s something about her gait that just deems immediate submission. “So,” she says, now walking toward the living room. She gestures for me to sit down while telling my sister, “Vic, get glasses.”

  “Ma’am, yes ma’am,” Vicky salutes briskly and pivots to the kitchen.

  “Let’s see,” Panda says, pulling out her phone. “Siri,” she says in her teacher voice. “What are the stages of breakup mourning.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I murmur and shake my head. I look at Kayla, the usual voice of reason, for help but she shrugs with a humored smile.

  And before I know it, wine is poured into glasses and Panda starts the healing ritual. “You should bargain now,” she orders.

  “The hell’s that?” I ask, taking a generous sip of my drink.

  “Bargaining, you know, do anything to avoid accepting it’s over,” she explains like it’s the most logical thing.

  I shake my head again. “I’m not bargaining. I accepted it was over the moment he told me so.”

  Panda carries on, disregarding my reasoning. “Depression, ugly crying, and feeling sorry for yourself, come on then, time to cry.”

  “I don’t cry on demand, you weirdo.” I roll my eyes and take another sip from my glass. I look at my friends with a bitter smile. “You know what the worst part is? He’s the best person I’ve ever met.”
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br />   “Of the male variety you mean,” Panda says. “Otherwise, you’re being a bit of a shit.”

  I manage to crack a smile. “Of the male variety. I swear I met more unicorns than guys like him.”

  “Excuse you, just to quickly circle back,” Kayla says. “What the actual fuck? Now is not the time for glorifying his sorry ass, as cute as it may be. Sorry babe, this is the voodoo doll part of the evening. Hold on to your combs, chickens, and pull out them pins.”

  We all laugh at that. I throw a hesitant glance at Panda, hoping she’s not about to pull an actual Liam Voodoo doll out of her bag. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if she did. I’m glad to find out it’s just another stage Siri the all-mighty mentioned.

  “Understanding,” Panda says, raising her wine glass. “Understanding what a loss it is to him cause you’re fucking awesome.”

  “Amen to that,” Kayla raises a glass too and Vicky joins.

  I smile at them. My smile wavers as I think of Liam, about just how great of a guy—friend he is, was . . .

  Holding the glass, I stare at its contents as I move it in circular motions. “He is the kind of guy who’ll help you color your hair when you’re both a million years old and your hands shake.” I raise my eyes to my friends who stare back at me with concern.

  Kayla clears her throat. “Just so we’re clear, are we . . . embracing pain and hoping for the best, or eulogizing the shit out of this?”

  I huff an exhale, meeting Panda’s narrowed stare at me. “I want to say the first but I’m afraid it’s going to be the latter.”

  She nods and muses, “At the moment, I sort of want him to take a long, long walk on a short, short pier wherever he is.”

  I take a deep breath, and vent out, “Why do we always end up seeing someone by the sum of their flaws? Why not take the good and the bad together even though they chose to not be with us?” I eye my group of close people and say, “C’mon. Don’t! He’s a good person who maybe doesn’t think I’m all that. But you can’t take it away from him. He’s a good person! He’s in a third world country right now on a God damn Doctors Without Borders mission.”

  “Wait a minute, before we hand Father Teresa a noble prize,” Panda counters, prompting Kayla to snort a laugh. “He’s been a dick to one of our best people. I’m sorry, he can save lives and do good, bla, bla, bla, but he’s still a dick.” Frowning deeper, she adds, “And the timing of kicking your fine ass to the curb . . . Je-sus! That’s like beyond dick move. That’s another level of jerkiness!”

  Kayla seems pensive for a moment before saying, “Sometimes I wish people would embrace the simple saying, leave it better than you found it.” We all nod thoughtful in agreement.

  Vicky claps her hands, “And I think it’s ice cream time.”

  Ice cream and rosé. I love my girls.

  We’re all slouched around my living room, Kayla and Vicky on one sofa sharing a tub of everything chocolate ice cream. Panda is on the floor, her chest pressed on a pillow, digging into a tub of pistachio ice cream, while I’m on the adjacent beanbag, playing with my spoon at the rim of a dairy-free cinnamon nice cream. With a spoon to her lip, eyes trained on me, Panda asks, “Name all the things you love.”

  I keep my eyes on the tub in my hand. “In any specific order?”

  She shakes her head, speaking over a full mouth. “Nope, just randomly, whatever comes to your mind. Shoot,” she adds, spaying a speckle of ice cream into the air.

  I inhale and oblige. “Liam, pizza, pets, nature, my family, you guys, sports, music, rainy days, breakfast, fruit, tea, Saturday.”

  “Oh wow, we’re right behind, what was it? Pizza, pets, and nature? Boy, do I feel cherished,” Kayla mocks.

  I shrug. “She said randomly.”

  “Yet the doctor came first.” This comes from my sister who eyes me with the same concern she showed earlier this evening.

  Panda sets the ice cream aside and lands her full attention on me. “I wonder how long it will take you to name yourself?”

  I have nothing to say. She’s right. She straightens to sit on her folded legs. “First and foremost love yourself, you heal you, you make you happy because you’re the most important of all things loved. Always, always no matter what, be on your side. And I can assure you, little hen, that we’ll be there with you.”

  I choke up a little on emotions, biting my lip.

  “Panda, you twat, you’re making me well up. Shut up already,” Victoria says from the other side of the room. “And I don’t care. I know it in the deep tissues of my tits, they’ll eventually end up together.” My sister brings Liam back into the conversation. “I don’t know when, but it’ll happen.”

  My brows furrow at my sister’s statement. I cock my head, trying to figure out how many glasses she’s had.

  “Oh, mighty Gypsy woman, can you check what the future holds for me in your crystal ball? Oh, I mean, in the deep tissues of your tits?” Kayla says, throwing us all into a fit of laughter.

  I don’t even know what time it is when we finally go to bed. True to their support promise, they all stay the night. We’re all in my bed, luckily, it’s not a standard double bed. We’re all tucked together but it doesn’t feel suffocating, it feels just comforting and nice. I feel loved and it’s an empowering feeling. Even if life isn’t always tied perfectly with a silky bow, it’s still a freaking gift, especially when you have truly great friends by your side. And wine. Friends and wine. Always friends and wine.

  “I love you guys,” I say with a smile to my half-sleepy people.

  “Did you hear the joy in her voice?” Panda asks no one in particular. With her voice raised a bit she declares, “Glory hallelujah, gurl, you’ve been saved!”

  We all laugh.

  I grin. “You guys are such idiots.”

  “Your idiots,” Vicky says with a smile.

  “Mine. Always.” Seriously, if this ain’t love, I don’t know what is.

  They fall asleep one after the other. It’s harder for me to do so. Staring at the ceiling for a while, lying between my sleeping friends, my thoughts wander to Liam. In my head, I ask him, why? Why did you make me fall for you so damn hard?

  Breaking a Habit, Snakes, and the Occasional Landmine

  I toss and turn; fold the cushion with a little aggression, shift to my left then right side. No position feels comfortable. And Christ, I’m sweating through these sheets. The village around me is silent apart from random rural nightly sounds of buzzing bugs, nocturnal animals, and the occasional howl. I’m bone-deep tired yet can’t fall back asleep.

  Each new day around here is another marathon.

  The days fly by in a blink, the nights, alone in bed, are another story. The nights as nights often are, are reserved for either deep sleep or deeper contemplations. Tonight belongs to the latter. Tonight, like many nights since I arrived. When I finally have time to hear my own thoughts, I feel restless. The feeling of unfinished business weighing on me. Or maybe it’s not about unfinished business, maybe it’s about second-guessing decisions and the mother of all missed opportunities.

  I give up and tear the thin sheet away. I grab a shirt, shrug it on and step out of my tukul, a dainty hut made from local materials which is my temporary home. The gentle midnight breeze is so welcome as it lightly strokes my face. I inhale deeply, walking over to the MSF mini-village joint kitchen in search of cold water. I pour myself a glass and sit on the tattered sofa, greeted by the bite of a protruding spring on my thigh.

  Feels like landing here three weeks ago was like being transported into a parallel universe where the main street is the only place ninety-six percent safe from landmines. Where snakes are common, but four walls to protect you from them are not. A place where patients are admitted with a gun wound and there’s very little chance you’ll ever know how it came about or what their medical history might be to give them appropriate care. Just today we operated on a little girl that had been shot in her leg by accident. An accident, we learned later thro
ugh the grapevines, happened during a clash between two families, neither of which were her own. We also learned she was allergic to morphine after she had a severe reaction and almost died.

  It’s intense and surreal, and I’m sure this will not be my last assignment.

  I take a drink of the water and do this thing I find myself doing absentmindedly from time to time. I pull out my phone and browse through the photos till I reach the set of photographs I took on my birthday – of Anna and me. I stop on the one of her with the deflated birthday whistle in her goofy smile. And then as ever, our one time together takes hold of my mind. It was the kind of sex that puts an intimate smile on your face each time you think about it. And boy does it cross my mind often . . . God damn it, how I miss her.

  They say it takes 21 days to break a habit, to “get over something, someone.” With enough focus and a solid emotional charge, it may take about 21 days. But it’s day 21, and speaking from experience it doesn’t seem to ease, not the least bit. It seems to grow exponentially if I’m being honest. If I managed to tuck the thought of her to the back of my mind some of the time, it certainly doesn’t work anymore. She’s always there. At times stronger at times less so, but thoughts of her just won’t go away. And it’s accompanied by a squeeze in the deepest part of my gut where I’m powerless to hide or run from things. It’s as if she’s the unspoken center of everything I do and am right now.

  Even before boarding the plane I had this feeling that something wasn’t right. What am I talking about? It started way before. When I left the hospital that night when her mother was admitted, the feeling of wanting to protect Anna wouldn’t leave me. If not in the literal sense, at least emotionally – to be there for her. Be the one she turns to when she’s shaken, for support. To talk or even just to be held.

  It feels so deeply profound that she should be mine. Mine to make happy, mine to protect and support and love. Mine. My be all end all. I don’t think now that I’ve had her I can do without her. Did I make the right decision? It’s insane. I’m fighting so hard the same thing I want so badly. Little by little I start to wonder . . . why?