Once Upon a Heartbreak

by Cassie Rocca

  “Daddy says that I’m the most beautiful girl in the world,” replied Candice innocently, “and that if I eat everything he says, I’ll still be pretty when I grow up.”

  “Poor girl,” replied Liberty, who then suddenly got to her feet. “If you’ll all excuse me, I’m going to go for a walk. I think some fresh air will do me good.”

  “I’ll prepare a very light dinner for later on,” said Zack while he took her cup away.

  “Don’t worry, I don’t eat much in the evenings.”

  “I’ll make something that’ll tickle your palate,” he replied as he walked past her.

  Oh no you won’t! thought Liberty, but said nothing and left the room.

  The cool sea air made her flushed face feel much better. She sat on a white bench enjoying the perfume of the salty water and watching the waves coming and going. So far, the sea was the only thing that had made her visit to Cape May bearable. Watching its constant motion was enough to make all the tension she had accumulated evaporate, and it allowed her to relax and start thinking straight again.

  She needed to try and get her head around what had happened that day. It’s true that she hadn’t been expecting to see Zack Sullivan – not that day and not ever again – but fifteen years had passed since that awful evening, and a normal person would just have forgotten about it. It was also true that Zack had been the first and only boy to make her feel both in love and ugly and inadequate, but all those feelings should be long gone by now – and they were! And if she had no feelings for him anymore, she should try to have a distant but amicable relationship with him. At the moment, though, she wasn’t feeling amicable or indifferent at all. Probably the disappointment he had caused her was just too profound for her to forget. After feeling rejected by him, she had changed, and had stopped being the cheerful dreamer she always used to be. And the nasty jokes his brother and his friend had made about her had made her give up once and for all on her passion for food. The change had been hard, but she had managed it. Now she was thin and attractive, and she could certainly handle eating a meal prepared by Zack Sullivan, if she had to. She would just have to work out a little harder than usual.

  But the real problem wasn’t eating a meal.

  Letting herself be tempted by Zack wasn’t just hazardous for her figure, it was dangerous on many levels: for a start, it might start making her feel as clumsy, insecure and ugly as she had used to in the past. She actually still felt that way around him, even though she realized that there was no rational reason for her not to feel OK with herself. She couldn’t risk going back to the mental place she’d been in when she was teenager.

  “Hey,” called Zoe, saving her from those gloomy thoughts. She turned towards the door of the house and saw her friends approaching. They looked relaxed but curious to know what was going on with her.

  “Are you feeling OK?” asked Clover.

  “Sure, I’m just a little freaked out,” she sighed and forced herself to smile. “I couldn’t have eaten anything else or I’d have felt sick.”

  “And you didn’t even eat that much…” Zoe pointed out. She sat down next to her, stretching out and crossing her beautiful long legs. “If I didn’t know you and how indifferent you are to food, I’d almost suspect that you’re hiding something…”

  “What do you mean?” snapped Liberty anxiously. The idea that her friends had realized she’d been upset about meeting Zack again was too embarrassing for words.

  “You’ve got dark circles under your eyes, you’re always tired, you get nauseous at the mere idea of food… In a woman, those are clear signals of a pregnancy,” Zoe answered with a smile.

  “But you’re not expecting a baby, right?”

  Liberty put a hand on her heart and shook her head vigorously. “No, I am not! And if you care about me, don’t ever say anything like that again!”

  Clover rolled her eyes in amusement. “Let me guess – apart from refusing any kind of romance, you also don’t even want to have children. Am I right?”

  “Yes, I’m not planning to ever be a mother.”

  “And are you sure that Justin’s plans don’t include children either?”

  Zoe elbowed Clover to shut her up. “Don’t worry about what Clover says, Liberty,” she giggled. “Clover thinks life is like a film, and that’s why Cade likes her: with her, it’s like being always on a set!”

  Clover closed her eyes and raised her face to the sun. “Mock me all you want, but I don’t see anything wrong in living my life as if it was a fairy tale.”

  “Of course not, and you should live your life the way you want!” said Liberty, smiling. She remembered how good it felt to be a dreamer, and there were times when looking into Clover’s enchanted eyes was the best cure for her sorrowful heart. Sometimes she even missed her old self, but on those occasions she remembered how sad it is to suddenly wake up from a nice dream and find yourself surrounded by a completely different reality, and that was enough to make her appreciate her current life. She turned towards her friends to reassure them. “I like both of you just the way you are! I need your optimism, Clover, and your boldness, Zoe. I could never manage the shop without you two. Your personalities make the difference.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that, but don’t worry: I have no intention of changing whatever anybody says!” said Clover. “Anyway, enough with the serious talk, let’s enjoy our relaxing break at the sea-side!”

  “You’re right, let’s talk about something more interesting!” said Zoe in a mischievous voice, and Liberty realized immediately what she was about to say. “Isn’t our host super cute?”

  Liberty snorted and began to inspect her fingernails. “You tell me, you’re the expert.”

  “From one to ten, I’d say he’s a nine.”

  “Only nine?” thought Liberty – he was an eleven as far as she was concerned.

  “Well, Eric is my only ten, so I can’t give him more than a nine – but it’s a high nine!” laughed Zoe and then turned to look at her. “Would you give him a ten? Or do you think even nine is too much?”

  Liberty waved her hand in affected boredom. “I don’t know… I don’t even really understand the criteria you use to evaluate a guy’s appearance.”

  Zoe straightened up and started listing her criteria. “First of all: sex appeal. That basically means his general looks, not so much the details. Of course some of the details are very important – for example, his hair should be thick, his eyes should be expressive and his lips should be nice and fleshy…”

  “And don’t forget the nose!” Clover added.

  “Exactly – his nose must be handsome too.”

  “Why do you care about a man’s nose?”

  “Because it’s important!” Clover giggled. “Imagine a man who nuzzles your neck with his nose in a romantic way… Now imagine that nose being ugly, crooked or just plain huge! That wouldn’t be as romantic, would it?”

  The idea of Zack’s nose brushing against hers was pushed away when Zoe commented. “There are also a million other things that a pretty nose can do, and not all of them are romantic!” As soon as her friends’ laughter had died down, she continued. “Anyway, that’s enough with the face, let’s move on to the body. To get a good score, of course, a man must be tall and fit, with wide shoulders and a muscular back. A six pack wouldn’t be bad either… And he must have beautiful hands!”

  “I’d say he also has to have beautiful legs and he shouldn’t be too hairy.”

  Zoe glared at Clover. “We haven’t mentioned the most important part…”

  Liberty snorted in amusement. “Oh come on! Leave something to my imagination!”

  “Whatever you prefer, sister. Jeez, you two are such prudes!”

  “Okay,” replied Clover, “but you can’t judge that part of a man’s body without seeing him naked, and Eric would never let you check out any other guy naked, so—”

  “And that, in the case of Mr Sullivan, is a real shame! There are ways to find out if a gu
y is well equipped, but I’ll just say that I’d bet money on him!”

  Liberty blushed slightly and didn’t feel like adding anything else, while Clover smirked in approval.

  “He’s a cool guy, I told you. He can come across as a bit of a grouch at first, but when he relaxes he’s very friendly, even funny. Was he the same when he was a teenager, Lib? I can’t believe you two already knew each other, by the way!” she continued, shaking her head. “I mean, what are the chances, huh? My boss, and one of my best friends, is an old friend of Cade’s best friend! It’s like we’re all linked by destiny or something, right?”

  Liberty stood up and went over to lean on the railing, staring out at the sea. “To answer your question: yes, he was the same when he was seventeen – vaguely arrogant, too self-confident and determined to get exactly what he wanted.”

  “Does that mean you didn’t like him?” asked Zoe, looking perplexed.

  The face of Clover, who was always so good at reading between the lines, suddenly lit up with a realisation. “Oh yes, she did like him! And not just as a friend! Am I right?”

  “I was just a kid and I was forced to spend my afternoons at his place because I had to go with my cousin everywhere she went, and she was his brother’s girlfriend back then… His brother is a total idiot, by the way…” she snorted, attempting to change the subject.

  “So what happened between you and him?”

  “Nothing. I was a loner, and I was ugly and boring. I used to wait for my cousin Tammy in the Sullivans’ garden, usually reading a book. And on those occasions, Zack would sometimes ask me to keep him company while he tried his hand at some new recipe.”

  “And so you fell for him,” Clover nodded. “Well, if he was half as cute as he is now… I can’t say that I blame you.”

  “Let’s just say that there was nothing better to look at – but his attitude wasn’t as attractive as his appearance,” Liberty replied in a low voice, scared that someone in the house might hear them. “Anyway, it was just a passing crush. It didn’t last more than a few weeks, and it wasn’t reciprocated anyway. I clearly wasn’t his type, and now that I know a bit more about men, I can say that he wasn’t my type either.”

  “That’s a shame,” muttered Clever sadly. “I would have loved to have seen you and Zack together!”

  “Aren’t you forgetting about Justin? I have a fiancé, and I’m about to marry him, so who cares if Zack is my type or isn’t?”

  “You’re right, sorry,” giggled Zoe.

  Liberty glared at her. “Can you two please tell me once and for all why you don’t like Justin?”

  “I have absolutely nothing against him,” Clover assured her.

  “So why do you always forget that he exists?!”

  “I don’t know… He’s just a bit too… legal.”

  “Which, translated from Cloverish means ‘boring’ and ‘fusty’” explained Zoe while she stood up.

  “Well, so am I,” replied Liberty.

  “Exactly, that’s what I mean! It would be nice to see you with someone who was a bit less… organized than you!” Zoe put her hand on Liberty’s shoulder and said. “Don’t worry, we’re just kidding. If you’re happy with Justin, we’re happy too.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that,” replied Liberty with a smile.

  At that moment, Cade and Eric appeared on the patio, and their respective girlfriends turned to give them adoring looks.

  “What are you girls up to?” asked Eric, brushing a lock of curly brown hair off his forehead.

  Zoe took him by the arm. “We were talking about our host’s many excellent qualities,” she said cheekily.

  Eric grunted. “His excellent qualities?”

  “Oh yeah!” said Clover, raising a red eyebrow. “I see you’re not wearing your glasses today but I know that your special radar to detect any potential rivals covers plenty of distance, so I’m sure you know exactly how gorgeous Zack Sullivan is.”

  Cade walked over to her and pulled her hair. “You are forbidden from saying anything nice about Zack,” he said, with a slightly jealous expression on his face, “and if you don’t stop immediately I’ll have to punish you.”

  Liberty thought that watching the two couples kidding around together was sweet, but the thought that she and Justin would never share the same easy complicity they did made her feel a little sad.

  She went back inside and found Zack and Justin still sitting at the dining table chatting away. Her fiancé was having a liqueur while Zack was holding Candice on his knees and stroking her hair.

  The scene got on her nerves.

  Why hadn’t Justin come out to look for her the way that Eric and Cade had? Was talking with a stranger more important than making sure that his fiancée was feeling OK? And was drinking a liqueur at the table more pleasant than spending time with her?

  Irritated, she decided to go to the room Zack had given them. It was decorated in green and gold and had a big window from which she could see the beach. Liberty opened it wide and heard her friends still laughing on the patio.

  Sitting at the windowsill and looking at the horizon, she thought that Clover and Zoe would be spending their weekends with a person that they loved, and, in another way, so would Zack. She, on the other hand, was alone, as usual.

  “No, you’re not! You have Justin!” she said to herself, in an attempt to rationalize her feelings. “The only reason he didn’t come looking for you was because he was enjoying his lunch, that’s all.”

  But it didn’t work: the feelings of solitude and of not belonging that she had tried so hard to bury inside her had already re-emerged.

  Together with her craving for chocolate.

  4

  After dinner, Zack had cleaned up in the kitchen, put Candice to bed and retreated to his office to do some paperwork. For some reason, when he was on holiday he always seemed to have much more energy than usual and he could never manage to get to sleep early. When he was back in New York, he would fall asleep right after dinner, because it was also the only way he could face getting up before dawn to start working in the shop. It was already past midnight, and he was still working at his desk by the window when he noticed someone strolling along the sea shore outside.

  Before he had even seen her blonde hair shining in the moonlight, he recognized the solitary woman walking on the beach. He’d thought she had already gone to bed like all the others, but instead there she was, looking thoughtful and finally alone. He couldn’t resist the urge to go and talk to her.

  He switched off the lights in his office and silently slipped out onto the beach in pursuit of that woman who exerted a pull on him which was practically magnetic.

  His house was full of beautiful women that weekend, to be fair. Candice had nicknamed Clover O’Brian the Autumn Fairy because of her eyes, which changed shade depending on the weather, and her long red hair, and Zoe Mathison was The Siren, thanks to her slim, supple body and her dark bob. Zack’s attention, though, had been captured exclusively by the most elusive of the three – The Snow Queen.

  The only information he had managed to discover about what Liberty had been doing for the last fifteen years had come from her fiancé Justin Matthews, with whom he had been chatting after lunch. Justin had described a woman who was totally different from the one he remembered.

  “Lib is a very reserved, very organized person, whose main priority is always her job,” Justin had told him. “She’s not really much for relaxing or for spending time with her friends, and that’s probably the reason why she looks a bit uncomfortable right now. She doesn’t really know how to handle herself around people for long periods of time.”

  Zack had agreed with him up to a certain point: back when she was fifteen, Liberty hadn’t chosen to be alone, she’d just had to steer clear of all the idiots around her. She’d taken shelter in her books, and thought that time spent reading was much more productive than time spent wasting her energy on people who never looked beyond appearances. She did
come across as a bit of an introvert, at first, but if you managed to break the ice and appreciated her qualities, Liberty would open herself up to you like a flower opening its petals. She would reveal all her enthusiasm and sense of fun, and was quite capable of laughing at herself. She couldn’t have possibly changed that much, Zack thought, and he couldn’t understand why she would feel so uncomfortable in a room where there were only her partner and her friends. He deduced that the problem must be him.

  “Don’t take it personally if she doesn’t eat much – Lib has the appetite of a bird,” Justin had added while sipping his brandy. “I haven’t seen her enjoying a meal once in all the time I’ve known her. I think she only eats because she has to and that she would prefer to be fed intravenously, if she could,” he said with a laugh. “I know that it must be difficult for someone like you, whose whole life revolves around food, to accept, but Liberty would be your worst client!”

  It wasn’t just difficult to accept, it was impossible to accept, because he remembered vividly the joy they had both felt when they had been tasting his dishes. He couldn’t believe that she had eliminated that passion from her life so completely.

  But the truth was that after she hadn’t eaten anything for lunch he’d done his best to prepare a light, tasty dinner that evening – and she hadn’t touched his food anyway. She had just drunk plenty of water, taking a nibble here and a nibble there, and had categorically refused the dessert, which used to be her favorite food.

  He couldn’t stand seeing her refusing the cake he had so carefully prepared in the afternoon. He had chosen an Italian recipe, a Mimosa, because he remembered how fond she was of well decorated cakes. The Mimosa was yellow, like a mimosa flower, and had little sugar paste branches all around it. It was so beautiful that Candice hadn’t wanted him to cut it.

  But Liberty hadn’t tried so much of a crumb of it, and had stubbornly insisted on having apple instead.

  He had been upset by her behaviour, but Clover had tried to reassure him. “Liberty never eats dessert.”

  “That’s true,” Zoe confirmed. “I once tried to convince her that refusing to taste a birthday cake would bring her bad luck, and so she ate a spoonful of it, but that was it,” she added, “and after that, she punished herself by working out for hours!”