Single State of Mind

by Andi Dorfman

  “What the fuck really happened, how he’s doing, is he thinking of me, all of it.”

  I go on to tell them that something inside me is telling me that I need to fight for him. They’re even more shocked. They’ve never seen me fight for a man. In fact, me fighting for a man is so not the me they know. But then I start to tear up, and then I start to cry. And now they know the pain is real.

  Jess suggests I write him an email. I look at her like she’s crazier than I am. But then Ava agrees. They tell me I have nothing to lose. I tell them I still have my dignity, thank you very much. Somehow they persuade me to just lay it all on the line in an email.

  The next day, I go for a run. I take my usual route to my bench above the Holland Tunnel, gazing out as the sun sets over the Freedom Tower, and I think. Today I think about Jess and Ava’s pleas for me to just lay it on the line. I think and think until I remember the look he had in his eyes the night he told me he was in love with me. I abruptly get up, sprint home, and head straight to my computer, where I begin feverishly typing up a letter. I start typing and typing and typing, and before I know it, it’s midnight, and I have three different drafts of an email to a guy who isn’t even my fucking boyfriend. Someone call the closest looney bin, please.

  I text Jess and Ava at midnight that I wrote an email, and I send them all three drafts. If anyone can help me edit this thing, it’s the girl who works for a magazine and the girl who won’t let me look like an idiot.

  The next morning, I read the drafts again. The first one is a little too gushy. The second one is kind of bitchy. The third one is pretty damn good, I must admit. But I’ll let my girls decide.

  Me: “Check your mail. Ahhhh.”

  Ava: “Reading now.”

  Jess: “Same.”

  A few minutes go by.

  Jess: “I like the third.”

  Ava: “Agreed.”

  Jess: “Also, I’m sorry I didn’t realize how sad you’ve been.”

  Me: “No, it’s my own fault. I was embarrassed.”

  Ava: “You should never be embarrassed. We are your friends.”

  Jess: “I’m also really proud of you for putting yourself out there like this.”

  Ava: “I agree. Win or lose, it takes guts that I definitely don’t have to do this. Super proud of you.”

  Me: “Aww, love y’all. Thanks.”

  Ava: “Love you.”

  Jess: “Love you. Now send it!”

  I decide to read it one last time before I send it. Fuck. As I reread the email, I’m getting chills. I don’t know if they stem from being nervous, being delusional, or being on the brink of the most humiliating email I’ve ever sent. But the words are true.

  “I hope all is well with you. Before you read this, please know that I’ve debated whether or not to say what I’m about to say, considering that, as you know, I’m not the greatest at being vulnerable. After having some time to think, I’ve realized everything between us got so much more complicated than it ever needed to be. I understand how you feel about it all, and I know it’s unlikely that anything will change that. But in pushing aside my pride, I know that I owe it to myself to honestly and simply tell you how I feel.

  “Despite everything that’s happened, I can’t help but still believe that there was something between us that is still worth fighting for. What exactly that something was, I’ll be honest, I don’t know. Part of me feels disappointed and duped, but another part of me still believes that whatever we had was real. I’ve been in my share of relationships enough to know whether there’s something there or when it’s time to move on. I’ve never looked back and wondered ‘What if?’ But with you, and us, I do.

  “I replay in my mind the trip and the weeks of phone calls leading up to it, and I’m reminded of how happy and easy everything felt. Was it sudden? Yes. Intense? Yes. Scary? Absolutely. But above all, it felt different. At this point, I’m not even sure if you ever felt the same way. But whatever it was, it has made me not want to do what I normally do, which is run away at the first sign of trouble. And if you felt the same way, I don’t want you to run away, either.

  “The last time we talked, I couldn’t help but feel absolutely shocked and helpless. I understand your reasons for walking away were not because you were unhappy but because you were scared, the timing sucked, and you wanted to be single. All valid reasons. I get being scared, because I am, too. Logically, it’s easier for me to get out unscathed than to risk getting hurt. But emotionally, what I’ve realized is that the only thing that scares me more than getting hurt is being too scared to fight for a chance at something with someone I truly believe in. Maybe it works out, or maybe it was just a onetime thing and nothing deeper. I don’t know. I just know that I’d rather have the answer to that than always wonder what if.

  “If, on the other hand, this genuinely comes down to you not being scared but simply wanting to be single, and I was nothing more than a fun fling for you, then so be it. But if there is a part of you that felt something more and still wonders what could have been, then now is the time to say so.

  “Though it might not be the best timing, I guess sometimes we don’t get to choose when things and people come into our lives. I’ll admit, I wasn’t exactly looking for you or to have these feelings, nor do I know if I’m even ready for them, but they happened. So this is me, for whatever it’s worth, telling you I haven’t let go and wanting to say I did everything I could to fight for someone I care for.

  “I know this is all probably a little unexpected and a lot to take in. It is for me, too. Please know that this isn’t any sort of ultimatum. It’s just me, as out of character as it may be, needing to tell you how I feel. I needed to swallow my pride. Because at the end of the day, I’ve realized that no matter how hard I try to fight it, I still miss how things were. I miss talking to you and having you in my life. Most of all, I just miss you.”

  I may have taken this whole new career as an author a little too far. But fuck it. My hands are visibly shaking when I press “Send.”

  I’ll wait for his response in angst for what I’m guessing will be either about a week or forever. In the meantime, it’s summer in New York and between traveling and getting dumped, I’ve hardly been able to take advantage of it. Luckily, Jess has invited me to attend an event tonight that not only will take my mind off Mr. Seattle, but will make up for my lack of summer fun this year . . . the U.S. Open! We arrive at the Emirates Suite, where there is no shortage of men in suits talking to other men in suits as they all sip out of green Heineken beer bottles. What is it with men and Heineken? Maybe it’s their version of our Cosmopolitan. Scattered among the Heineken-drinking men are women holding silver trays of champagne, dressed in red flight-attendant uniforms. From their red berets securely fastened onto their gel-slicked buns, to the name badges, down to their nude hosiery and their shiny black stilettos, every inch of them looks pristine. Pristine but extremely uncomfortable. I wonder if they’re actual flight attendants or just servers dressed as flight attendants.

  We make our way past the dessert buffet and to the bar, where I order us two Honey Deuces. I have no idea what is in the drink, I just know that it’s the drink of the U.S. Open. And that it’s strong as fuck. I’m on my third, which has me feeling as electric as the crowd. There’s just something about a summer night at the U.S. Open. Maybe it has to do with my love of tennis, which I grew up playing, or the roar of the crowd that will cheer a player on one point only to boo them on the next. Maybe it’s just the fact that it’s oh, so New York-y. It doesn’t hurt that we happen to be sitting in the best seats, in the best suite, and all for free. As the bartender mixes us another round of drinks, I see a mass of people gathering in the far corner of the suite. I look over to see a ginormous black man with a bald head towering over everyone.

  “Holy shit! It’s Shaq,” I whisper to Jess.

  “Good God, he’s huge!”

  “I’m completely star struck right now.”

  “Over Shaq?�
��” She crinkles her nose.

  “You don’t understand, he’s LSU.”

  “You Southerners and your alma matters. Want me to introduce you? ”

  “You know Shaq? ”

  “No, but when has that ever stopped me? ”

  She’s right. Jess has the balls of a thoroughbred stallion. I’m sure her bravery is due to her years in the industry and the fact that she’s met everyone from reality television stars like myself to Madonna. Yet I have a feeling even if she weren’t in the industry, she’d be the same.

  “I’d legit die.”

  “Well then, come on!” she says, dragging me behind her as she maneuvers through the crowd. Next thing I know, we’re standing inches away from Shaq, and Jess is nudging me to talk to him. One final push.

  Here goes nothing. “Hi!”

  I reach my hand out and place it in his massively large palm. He’s enormous. My entire body is the size of his left thigh. Damn, I picked the wrong day to wear my flats.

  “Wait a second, I know you,” he says.

  What the fuck?

  “My girl watches that show, with the roses. You’re LSU.”

  “I am! Geaux Tigahs!”

  “Shaq, can we get a picture? ” a man interjects.

  “Yeah, man, one second,” Shaq says. “LSU, huh? What year? ”

  “Do you really want to know? ”

  He laughs.

  “Okay, 2009.”

  “Damn. I’m getting old. I was there until ’92.”

  There’s an awkward few seconds of silence, because I don’t want to be that girl and ask for a photo (plus, I can see out of the corner of my eye that Jess is standing two feet away with her phone held at eye level, capturing every second of this encounter), but I’m at a loss for any more words. So I awkwardly tell him it was nice to meet him, and he awkwardly gives me a fist bump. No big deal, just a casual fist bump between two old friends.

  “Holy shit, that was amazing,” I whisper to Jess as we walk away.

  We meander through the crowd toward the doors that lead back out to the stadium seats. As I pull the door handle, I hear, “Later, LSU!” shouted from across the room. I turn around. It’s Shaq.

  “Peace out, LSUUUU!” I yell back with as little swag as a white girl could have.

  I’m on a high as we take our seats. Jess hands me her phone, and I start scrolling through the burst of photos she took. Midway through, a notification pops up on her phone, so I hand it back to her.

  She looks at it. “Ummm . . . I think your ex just got engaged again.”

  “Oh, shit, that’s right! The finale of Bachelor in Paradise, huh? ”

  “Yeah, my Twitter feed is blowing up.” She scrolls with her thumb. “Yup, officially engaged.”

  “Gag.” And just like that, my Shaq high comes crashing down.

  Later that night, as I lie in bed, I can’t help but think about the man I swore I’d never think about again. Goddammit, Number Twenty-Six. Not only did he beat me to the punch by getting reengaged first, but he just had to do it in the most public way possible, on reality television. And not just any show. No, that would be too easy. It had to be on the spin-off of the show we got engaged on barely a year before. Thank God I knew months ago back when I was in Greece with Kelly. I check my email, like I do every night before I go to bed, and see that just like after the announcement of the new Bachelor, my inbox is once again flooded with requests for a comment. I don’t know what I’ll say, because I don’t think I’ve thoroughly worked out how I really feel about the whole situation.

  When I first heard the news back in Greece, I was too distracted with missing Mr. Seattle to really digest the fact that my ex-fiancé was engaged. But now that I’ve poured my heart and soul into an email, which Mr. Seattle still hasn’t responded to, I know there is nothing more I can do, I’m starting to think about how I really feel.

  It’s not as simple as caring versus not caring; there’s so much more to it than that. There is the way he got engaged: on a beach, with cameras and a Neil Lane ring. When your ex-fiancé gets engaged, this ranks among the worst in terms of ways to rub it in. It all makes me feel recycled. I think every woman wants to feel unique, especially when it comes to a proposal. It feels strange knowing that another woman has been proposed to by the man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. When we get engaged or married, we think it’ll only happen once. It becomes a sacred moment that you share with only one other person. But when it doesn’t work out and that moment happens again, well, it’s weird.

  But that’s just the act of him getting engaged. How do I feel about the fact that my ex, whom I did once love, is now in love with someone else and engaged? I keep repeating the question in my mind, hoping to get some sort of powerful, thought-provoking answer. But, honestly, when it comes down to it, I don’t really care. I’m not happy for him, I’m not mad at him, I’m simply . . . indifferent. The truth is, I look at him and all that he’s done since the show and since we broke up and I don’t even see the man I was engaged to. I see a guy who is just, well . . . kind of a loser. Honestly, if I hadn’t had genuine, honest feelings for him, I’d probably be mortified that he will forever be a stain on my romantic résumé. At the end of the day, when it comes down to it, my ex, like many other men out there, was a controlling asshole. And just like many other men out there, he is a closed chapter of my past that I have no desire to reopen.

  Who knows, maybe I’m masking pain that I’m unaware of with the pain of Mr. Seattle that I am very much aware of, I don’t know. Maybe I’ve simply replaced one heartbreak with another. Maybe I’ve realized that what I felt was love years ago doesn’t come close to comparing to what I feel is love now. All I really know is that when I dig deep and think about how I feel now that my ex is engaged again, I can sum it all up in four words: Not. My. Problem. Anymore.

  it’s three in the morning and i’m . . .

  Drunk. Not hungover, drunk. It’s all Mr. Seattle’s fault. Fuck him. Fuck every man on this Earth actually. He really is the reason I’m drunk. It’d been days since I’d emailed him and I’d yet to get a response. Then, yesterday I woke up and checked my email for the seventy-fifth time and there it is. His response. I don’t want to look. I can’t look. I have to look. I take a deep breath and start reading. It doesn’t take long to finish, considering it’s only a paragraph long. It’s a paragraph saying exactly what I thought he would say. He’s telling me how much he appreciated my letter and how hard it must have been for me to send it but that the way he feels hasn’t changed, and even though he cared about me and still does, he’s in a different place from where I am. He ends with “I hope you don’t resent me.”

  I feel like such an idiot. Why did I email him? What the fuck was I thinking? I mean, I was fully expecting this type of response, so if I knew deep down that this was how it was going to be, why did I do it? Why do I still believe that love can happen for me? Don’t I get it by now? Love is just not in my deck of cards. Failure after failure, and yet I still can’t seem to come to grips with it. What more will it take for me to see that I will never find love? Ever.

  It’s not just that I poured my heart out, it’s that I actually believed in what I was saying. I believed that what I felt for him was different and real. I believed in him. I believed that I made him happy. So much so that I was willing to put it all out there, to open my heart to someone, to dive deep into shark-infested waters with no cage. I was willing to fight for what I believed in. And everything I believed in was wrong.

  Now there was only one thing I could do. Round up the girls and get wasted. I group-text Jess and Ava to tell them about the email and they agree that a Sunday brunch is to take place immediately. I text Sarah, who is probably off somewhere getting her eggs frozen, as well as Emily, who hasn’t been around much lately because she has a new boyfriend. But he’s out of town this weekend so she’s all about a boozy brunch in honor of my broken heart. Not that Sunday Funday needs justification, but
it’s a well-known secret that every woman slightly enjoys it when one of her girlfriends is irate at a man and wants to take it out on some alcohol. And boy, do we.

  I arrive at Chalk Point Kitchen around two fifteen, and Emily is the only one there. Come to think of it, that’s probably why she’s the only one of our friends with a boyfriend.

  “Fiiiiinally,” she says as she greets me with a hug. She’s clearly annoyed at everyone’s tardiness.

  “Well, you didn’t actually expect anyone to be on time, did you? ”

  I help myself to the bottle of champagne and the orange puree in the middle of the table. This is why I love this restaurant. They offer bottomless mimosas, but unlike at other places, you get to make them yourself, which means none of that premade, watered-down bullshit. By two thirty, Jess and Ava have arrived. Sarah gets there about forty minutes later, as usual.

  I’m now on my third mimosa, aka champagne with a splash of orange juice, when Jess takes notice of my pace.

  “Someone planning on going hard today? ”

  “Planning on seeing how many of these I can put down in one sitting.”

  We all know that I am drinking at such a rapid pace today in order to numb myself from all things Seattle, but none of us are actually talking about him, the email, or what the fuck went wrong. I think the girls are probably waiting for me to bring it up, but I honestly don’t know what to say. I’m still in some sort of post-traumatic shock, and even though I know that it’s definitely over, I’m not so sure I’m ready to believe it is.

  “Four? ” guesses Jess.

  “That’s offensive!”

  “Six? ”

  “Better. Maybe seven, maybe eight. Who knows? It’s Sunday Funday, right? ”

  I’d be lying if I said I’m not a little tipsier than I anticipated when I stand up. We all are, but the day is far from over. There is a storm brewing. Literally. As we walk out of the restaurant, the dark clouds roll in over Sixth Avenue, and it begins to pour. We run across the street to a dingy bar, where we randomly spot a group of our guy friends sitting at a high-top table, enthralled in some “big game.” They are our party friends, the type you never see during the daylight unless you’re drinking. Seeing them always guarantees a shitshow, and unsurprisingly, it isn’t long before shots of Fireball line the table, vodkas are being passed around like water, and I have officially gone from tipsy to straight-up drunk.