Page 21 of Weather Girl

He gives me a tight smile, and then he’s gone.

8

FORECAST:

Clear skies and attempted optimism to kick off the new year

LAST YEAR, I spent Christmas with Garrison’s family in a postcard-perfect cabin on the Washington coast. We’d just gotten engaged, a moonlit walk through our neighborhood when he stopped to tie his shoe and then produced the box with that heirloom ring inside, and we were drunk on each other, drunk on the idea of our futures intertwined.

Most guys I’d dated weren’t Jewish, and even though I’d spent two Christmases with the Burkes, the rock on my finger turned me newly awkward around them. Eggnog lattes and Santa-shaped pancakes with his nieces and nephews and his parents asking “How’s your mother?” and my pinched answers. Hounding us about when they were going to get more grandchildren—“But really, whenever you’re ready! As long as it’s soon!”—which made me feel more like a pair of ovaries than an actual human woman. They even gave us a teeny stocking for our future mini Burke, though when I told his parents I was planning to keep my last name, they pretended they hadn’t heard me.

I looked for bright sides all along the coast, forcing a smile so wide it made my jaw ache. They’ll be different once we’re married. Probably not. Maybe next year they’ll care that I’m Jewish. Unlikely. At least the pancakes were good. Okay, I could cling to that one.

Whenever Garrison asked me if anything was wrong, I told him no and kept right on grinning.

This year, at least I don’t have to pretend I like eggnog. Hanukkah is over, and I take advantage of the holiday pay to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas. When you’re Jewish in the media industry, everyone assumes you’ll work on December 25, which is maybe not a great assumption to make, but I don’t hate the extra money in my bank account.

Even with my depression at manageable levels, every so often, I have a dark day. A day where everything feels heavy, the smallest tasks become impossible, and my brain can only conjure worst-case scenarios.

I’ll be miserable at this station forever.

Or Torrance will find out what Russell and I are planning and make sure I never work in this industry again.

My mom will reject all the help she’s getting.

I’ll never have a meaningful connection with another person.

As obvious as it sounds, I just feel really fucking sad, and while I can try to distract myself or reach out to my therapist, sometimes I have to let the fog run its course, the logical part of my brain knowing I won’t feel this way forever. In past relationships, I did my best to hide my dark days. I’d make a spa appointment I couldn’t afford, or I’d say I had errands to run and get in my car and just drive. Even if sometimes “just driving” meant grabbing Taco Bell and sitting in a parking lot for hours trying not to cry because I couldn’t summon the energy to turn the car back on. Most of the time, I don’t want to be around anyone, because forcing a smile on a dark day is a little like trying to turn concrete into gold.

Unfortunately, this dark day coincides with a text from Garrison. Two days after a Christmas I spend at a Chinese restaurant with my brother’s family, my ex asks me to come over and collect some stuff. I’m tempted to reply with Torrance’s “maybe later” gif, but instead I trudge from Ravenna to upper Queen Anne, intent on getting in and out as fast as possible. But looking for parking on my old street feels inexplicably heartbreaking. Sometimes it took half an hour to find a spot, and we’d circle and circle because no way were we paying $200/month to park in the building’s garage. I never thought I’d reminisce over struggling to find parking, but here I am.

As soon as he opens the door and lets me inside, I want to melt into the plush carpet, use the macramé rug as a blanket, splay my body on top of the walnut credenza. The idea of having enough space for a credenza suddenly seems revolutionary. God, I loved this apartment. So many of my touches are still here, and it hits me that we haven’t been broken up for that long. Of course the wall hanging I found at the Fremont flea market is still up, the arched brass floor lamp not yet replaced.

Garrison kept this place because he could afford a two-bedroom and I couldn’t. We talked about buying a house after we were married, but we were reluctant to potentially leave this place behind. I might miss our apartment more than I miss him, which is at the very least a sign I’m moving on.

Garrison is tall and white, with floppy dark hair and dark eyes that make him look like Standard-Issue Attractive Male, Aged 25-34. A small mole beneath his left cheekbone, a cleft in his chin I used to poke my thumb into because it made him laugh.

“Hey,” he says, sounding much softer than he did over text. “You look... really great.”

He’s lying. I just spent fifteen minutes walking up a hill after finding parking. My hair is a windblown mess and my breasts feel superglued to my bra. The nostalgia evaporated in about ten seconds, annoyance taking its place. I’d love one of those overpriced spa days right about now.

“I’m parked in a loading zone. I can’t stay long.”

“Parking around here is still shit, sorry.” The sheepishness in his voice tugs at my heart.

There were good times, too, though it’s harder to remember them the further I am from the breakup. We’d load the car with snacks and go to drive-in movies during the summer, making out in the backseat until someone forced us to leave, and then we’d giggle at being caught like lovesick teens. He’d pop an allergy pill and we’d go to a cat café, sipping lattes with kittens in our laps. Wherever we were, if anyone recognized me from TV, he’d glow with pride. It’s so cool that people know you, he’d say.

“Is that it?” I ask when he hands me a box with some kitchen supplies and other knickknacks inside. The remainder of my dark day agenda is waiting for me at home: weighted blanket, reality TV, Kraft macaroni with two cheese packets instead of one. Thinking about it makes me somehow feel better and worse at the same time.

“Yep. Wait—you don’t have to go just yet, do you?” He looks so forlorn as he says it that my shoulders sag, and I place the box on the floor. “I was hoping we could talk a little.”

Nothing about that sounds like a good idea. Nothing at all sounds like a good idea except for processed cheddar. But because apparently being back here has cut out my spine, I follow him over to the couch.

He asks if I want anything to drink and I tell him no, though I regret not requesting hard alcohol as soon as he picks up my hand and says, “I’ve missed you, Ari.” His thumb rubs a gentle circle on my palm, and I let him. “How have you been? Really.”

“Not bad,” I croak out. The sensation of his skin on mine is too distracting. I’ve missed being touched like this. I’ve missed being touched, period, and depression brain tells me I haven’t deserved to be.

“Not gonna lie, part of me was hoping you’d tell me you’ve been completely miserable for the past couple months,” he says. “But I guess that’s how you’ve always been. Determined to look on the bright side.”

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