Let's Try This Again

by Woodtke, Jordyn;

  “I have loved you more than that from the second I met you.”

  I knew that, of course I knew that. And so now I had to say the thing that you’re never supposed to say.

  “You love me too much.”

  I watched the air leak out of him. With a small poke, I had completely deflated him. He sat down, just totally unable to comprehend how I had turned something like that into a bad thing – a reason to break his heart. I was an evil bitch; I was the worst person who had ever lived. Everyone should hate me all the time.

  “Carter, I love how you love me.” Once again I dissolved. The one person in this game who had no right to cry crumpled down next to him in a puddle. I was proud of him for not sliding close and comforting me. “I do love you, that wasn’t fake, and it was never a lie. You made me fall in love when all I wanted to do was forget how.

  You made being in love feel like a good idea. But it’s just not, and I don’t know if it’s ever supposed to be. It’s always a risk to put your heart in someone else’s care and expect them not to drop it. You are like the safest investment I could make, but I just don’t think safe is how the love of my life is supposed to be described.”

  “You want someone that’ll hurt you? Someone who’ll use you and send you home in a cab after you thought he loved you?” Carter lifted his head to glare at me. “That’s sick, Josie. That’s not what anyone really wants.”

  I shook my head solemnly. “No. That’s not what I want. And please believe me when I say what I want is for it to be you. But I want to be crazy about you, I don’t want to be content about you just ‘cause I know you’re a safe bet. This love…it isn’t equal. I know you have to feel that. I always feel like I owe you.”

  “Come on, Josie. Don’t turn this into something that’s my fault. Don’t act like I think you don’t give me enough. I don’t need any more…I don’t need anything other than you, whatever that means to you…”

  “I feel like I owe you because I don’t deserve it, any of it. I don’t deserve you loving me like this. And you definitely don’t deserve not getting it back in the full force way you give it out. You should demand that you get loved like that.” I took a breather (literally and figuratively). I was getting a headache, probably some kind of immediate karma reaction from crushing two spirits, one after the other.

  “Redamancy.” Carter exhaled a moment later. “No wonder you didn’t like the title.”

  “You should have that. With someone who dreams about you even when she’s waking up next to you,” I added, wiping snot onto my forearm.

  “I just want that to be you,” he answered simply, his voice breaking. I felt a crack splintering inside me.

  “How about this?” I turned to him. “Kiss the hell out of me. Change my mind. Make me feel like a total fucking moron. Kiss me.” I really did want it to be me. I really did want it to be him.

  “If it hasn’t worked already, I don’t think it’ll work now. I’ve already laid some of my best moves on you.” He bumped my shoulder playfully before putting his arm around me. At least he could joke. He was being so nice that it made me want to cry more, especially when I was begging him to kiss me when I’m sure he’d much rather punch me right now.

  “I’m going to miss you.”

  I would miss him so much. It would have been selfish of me to say that to him; I hadn’t earned the right to miss him. So I just held his hand and started missing him to myself.

  “Just—and I know I have no right to ask you for any favors right now—but please don’t let me—this—turn you into someone you aren’t. You’re so sweet and romantic and personal and open to making people happy. Stay in love with love. And make yourself happy. I don’t want to be the one who takes that away from the girl who’s really worth it all, when she finally walks into your life.”

  Carter nodded into the dark. We sat and listened to the waves collapse and pull themselves back together, and I wished it could be that easy for people.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  A Few Days Later

  On the last night of Molly and Ellie’s trip, having taken some time to decompress after the Night of Too Many Tears, we decided to get wine and cheese and stay in bed. We hadn’t said much about my conversations with either guy, but they knew it was over with both of them. Like they always had, my friends sensed what I needed from them without me saying it. And I think they knew I had done the right thing because neither of them had tried to talk me into reconsidering.

  We watched a Movies We Love marathon on E!, which happened to include The Break Up. Obviously, my love for Jennifer Aniston (and less importantly, Vince Vaughan) trumped the ironic awkwardness of the film’s content. I had always loved the ambiguity of the end but watching it this time, I felt certain that the look back moment wasn’t meant to signal a “will they, won’t they.” It felt friendly and full of love, but not the kind that keeps couples together. Some people are meant to fall in love, but not meant to stay that way.

  Some kinds of love you’re meant to feel but don’t get to keep. You need all kinds of love in your life to help you see clearly when The Love shows up. It would be so much easier if people could come up to you and say, “Hi, you don’t know me yet, but I’m going to make you happier than you could have ever imagined being. I’m going to kiss you in a way that makes you forget you’ve ever been kissed before. I’m going to fill your days with more light than you thought you’d be able to see. And you’re going to love me more than I can handle, and I’m going to love you more than you can comprehend, so we’ll chisel away at each other chip by chip until it feels like we’re not there anymore.” But you have to break, and you have to be broken to know how it feels when you’re made whole.

  Tomorrow, maybe, I’ll forget about them. I won’t think about Isaac when someone orders black coffee, which he hates, and I won’t think about Carter when I spray on the perfume he liked so much. But every time I fall in love with someone new, it’ll be because something in him reminds me of them in some small way.

  I am an unimaginably lucky girl, whose life has been filled with moments that have chilled her with their beauty and their chaos. I have experienced the extremes of life in profound ways. And it is just the beginning, which is the most beautiful thing of all. I can’t wait to laugh more, cry more, love more, live more. I feel everything so very deeply, and I can’t wait to feel it for you.

  Whoever you are.

  “You know, we’ve been thinking,” Molly said, interrupting my reverie. “California is so warm and sunny. And the boys here are just…” She literally licked her fingers. Getting cheese and cracker crumbs off them, but that seemed secondary.

  “What are you saying?” I wasn’t following. We were three bottles of wine deep, so I didn’t know exactly where her soaked thoughts might lead.

  “Neither of us have really found jobs that we really like yet,” Ellie added. “Back home.”

  I looked back and forth from best friend to best friend. No. No fucking way. “Really? REALLY really?” I jumped up on my bed. Thank god we had guzzled the wine, and the bottles were empty. Crackers flew everywhere though.

  “I mean, I can ‘market’ from anywhere.” Molly giggled, standing up to join me in the jumping.

  “And I’m going to be applying to grad school soon anyway.” Ellie laughed at us, bobbing up and down as we jostled her. “Why not go somewhere I can get a tan while I study?”

  I collapsed onto her, then Molly onto me.

  “Wait, wait, wait. You guys aren’t doing this because you think I need you to, are you? Not because like…you think I’m sad or whatever from all this…” Truthfully, if I had thought that something like that would’ve worked, I would have used it sooner.

  “Oh, shut up.” Molly rolled off me. “Not everything is about you.” She laughed and hit me in the face with a pillow. Clearly not worried whether I was in a state of depression so deep that I needed my friends to move cross-country to take care of me. Not everything was about me?


  Huh, what a concept.

  Not to be outdone, I swiped the pillow from Molly’s hand. I swung it backwards over my head to gain momentum, but when I swung it at her, the pillow flew alone, leaving the fabric case in my hand.

  For all my new dreams, and all the boys they’ll inevitably be about.

  ***

  One Year

  A few months later, we were out celebrating Molly and Ellie’s official move to Los Angeles with Trevor and Skylar. We were also unofficially celebrating my one year move-aversary. I’d survived one year of my new life (with a few bumps and bruises), only to be beyond thrilled now that parts of my old life had come to join me. We had already taken too many shots and were on our fourth margarita each when Trevor stood up to make a toast.

  “To being the guy here with the hottest bitches in the bar.” We all raised our glasses to that (’cause duh), and poor, drunk Trev shot his up in the air too enthusiastically (though the enthusiasm in such a brilliant toast was appreciated). It splashed all over him, and a little on us. He barely noticed, though, and tried to drink it anyway.

  “Hey!” he called out, confused, turning his glass over to make sure it truly was empty. “Who finished my drink?”

  We laughed at him, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so purely happy. I grabbed his glass from him.

  “I’ll go get you another.” I kissed his cheek before heading off to the bar. “Aw, the one without a job is paying for the refill!” I heard Skylar scold Trevor behind me.

  “She’s got pop star money saved up, she’s fine,” Trevor retorted. I could just see his hand flip as he said it. After Carter and I went our separate ways, I was done with the music stuff. It had never been anything I was particularly passionate about—it had been a great outlet. But that had mostly been about the writing—so that’s what I had turned my focus to now. Storytelling in different ways, shapes, and forms. I felt like I had plenty of stories to weave, and I knew that so many more were going to come my way. It was the most exciting and terrifying time of my life, but that seemed to be what LA was all about.

  And Trevor was right; I had a nice little bundle saved up from the EP sales, which had been pretty good. I was no Britney Spears (all hail), but I’d had my moment. In fact, after our break up, a couple of news outlets had wanted to interview me about letting love lost get in the way of my trek to being the next “It Girl.” I turned them all down. I didn’t have any interest in being “It.” I know. It surprised me, too. I guess I just want to be “It” for someone that feels like he’s “It” for me. One day I’ll find “it.” Right now I was just enjoying looking.

  Molly squealed somewhere behind me, followed quickly by Trevor’s laughter. He had probably either grabbed a boob or fallen off his chair. I smiled, holding back the giggle I could feel behind my teeth.

  “Whatever made you smile like that, I would personally like to thank it,” the guy next to me at the bar said. I looked over at him. Tall, scruffy, tousled hair. By all accounts, my type of guy. With a line like that, though, I was kinda ready to give him a “fuck off” glare. But his eyes were so genuine. Like he had never told a lie in his life – that’s how innocent his crystal blue eyes looked.

  “Thanks.” I turned my smile into more of a smirk and nodded at him. I ordered another margarita, and he went to pay for it when the bartender came back. “Oh no, you really don’t have to do that,” I protested.

  “No, I want to. Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to stand here and talk to me or anything just because I’m getting your drink.”

  “It’s not that, it’s just this drink is for my friend.” I pointed back towards our table. The table Trevor was now dancing on. “Though it looks like he doesn’t really need another, huh?” Bar Guy laughed and paid for the drink, which was now going to be mine.

  I was wearing my super dark lipstick, and drinking from a straw always gave me anxiety because it made it easier to get it on my teeth. I had had enough shots that I didn’t mind baring my grills and asking him if my teeth were purple.

  “You’re good.” He laughed again. “You’re funny.” And he hadn’t even heard my best stuff yet!

  “Really? That’s a surefire way to make me want to keep talking to you. Whether or not I now feel obligated because of the drink situation.” I took another sip of my free bev.

  “Ah, now you do have a little lipstick on your teeth.”

  “Woops,” I scrubbed at them.

  “Seems like it’s more trouble than it’s worth,” Bar Guy said.

  “It went with the outfit.” I gestured down to my all black getup.

  “Doesn’t it get in the way?”

  “Of what?”

  “I don’t know… Drinking from straws.” He smiled. “Kissing.”

  I choke-coughed a little bit, thrown off by the forwardness that wasn’t really turning me off. It just felt like he was being honest, saying exactly what he was thinking. It was nice.

  “Well, sure, I guess. But I spent fifteen dollars on this lipstick, and on nights I don’t plan on being kissed I make the most of it.” I pursed my lips to accentuate the “making the most of it.” He stared at me the way I imagined I would be staring at the Taco Bell Fourth Meal menu later tonight after this fourth marg—wanting to understand it, knowing it had the power to bring so much joy.

  “Okay, I know we’ve just met…I’m Darryl, by the way, but …”

  “Josie.” I pointed to myself. We shook hands and didn’t let go.

  “Josie.” He liked the taste of my name. “But it seems that a girl like you should always plan on being kissed.”

  If I said I looked at him for any substantial amount of time, truly trying to sense any bullshit, I would be lying. Maybe I just never get any smarter or maybe the way my bones felt he was honest was right. Darryl could be the next gem in a string of mistakes, or he could be the last, but I wouldn’t know which unless I tried.

  This isn’t a Nicholas Sparks movie; this is life. Real, fucking awkward, painful, full-of-stupidity life. We fall for people we shouldn’t—and I don’t mean “he’s a boy from the wrong side of the tracks who just needs the love of a well-meaning, good girl to turn both their lives upside down.” I mean we fall for people we just straight up aren’t meant to be with. We’re not going to end up together, and we’re not good for each other, and we know this will not end well. We’re not going to chase each other down a weathered dock and cannonball into a sparkling lake hand-in-hand. We’re not going to overcome the odds after spending twenty years apart and end up together. People fall out of love before both are ready, and you don’t get a say in that. We hurt each other past the point of no return and cry ourselves to sleep and stare at our blank phones until one day we collapse into the fact that it just wasn’t what we romanticized in our heads; it never would be. Sometimes you think it’s love until it’s over, and sometimes you don’t even realize it was until then. But hey, at least it means you’re not just waiting for someone to die in the end.

  I smiled because I couldn’t not and grabbed a napkin. I barely got the chance to wipe the purple from my lips before he grabbed my face and kissed me. It was like a hug from someone you knew; it felt warm and right and it reminded me of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  You should always keep trying.

  So let’s try it again.

  The End