Page 52 of Come Back To Me

“I’d always meant to. So, I just stuck with it.”

“Has he tried to find you?” She drained the last of her beer, licking her lips and staring at me expectantly.

“There’s no way, really. I don’t have a Facebook, my number changed when I moved home. He knows very little about me.”

“But, he wrote you that song,” she says. “He’s trying in his own way.”

I turn away. “He’s angry with me. That’s why he wrote the song.”

“He’s angry because you left. He’s not angry you’re you.”

“That is me, though, isn’t it? I leave.”

Posey’s mouth pulls into a tight line. “Stop trying to convince the world that you’re more damaged than anyone else, Yara.”

The words come out immediately, an electric denial. “I’m not,” I say. But, maybe that’s exactly the narcissistic thing I was trying to do.

“You broke a man’s heart because you thought your love was so important it would damage him beyond recognition. And what’s a true artist anyway, Yara? What you say it is?”

I don’t even know how she’s figured that. I guess one just has to listen to the lyrics of the song. I could be angry with him for outing me like that, but the truth is I deserve it.

“I don’t understand why you’re being like this. You asked and I told you. It’s not fair that you’re attacking me for it.”

Posey touches my face like she’s searching for me underneath my skin. I don’t like when people touch my face, but when Posey does it I don’t pull away. There are too many years, too much familiarity. Her finger is on my forehead, pressing.

“You’re too much in here. You want to be a poet and you’re not. By the time you realize you’re not doomed, your life is going to be over and you’ll never have taken any risks.”

“You’re paying today,” I tell her, snatching up my bag when she drops her hand. “I won’t pay to be tortured.”

I’ve always told myself that it was only a matter of time before he found me. I study my face in the mirror as I put on my makeup. Do I look like I did the last time he saw me? My hair is shorter and I suppose my face is more lined. Posey claims that I look hollow. He’s coming for a divorce, I remind myself, not a reunion. But we had something real, and surely he wants to shout at me a bit, tell me what a worthless human I am, tell me about all the pain I caused.

I suppose there’s a chance that I may not be that important to him anymore. For the most part, men are better at moving on than women. When people come looking for you they want one of three things: closure, revenge, or money. I’m sure David has more money than he knows what to do with, so I can at least stand still and be a good target while he takes the other two. At the very least he’s coming for my signature.

Yara, Yara, the god of disbelief…

I meet up with Ethan for dinner. We’ve been seeing each other for around six months, and other than David’s e-mail, my feelings for him have been uninterrupted. When I see him my stomach always does this fluttery thing other girls like to call butterflies. To me it feels more like resolve fluttering to death in my belly. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love again, and while I’m not sure I’m there yet, it’s getting close. Posey assures me that we aren’t meant to fall in love only once.

“You can do it again and again,” she says.

But, she’s broken up with Samantha or whatever her name is, and I think she’s just trying to be hopeful for herself. In the end, Samantha wasn’t ambitious enough…or maybe she wasn’t interesting enough. I can’t remember. Posey always finds something wrong with them. I always find something wrong with me.

“Hey girl.” Ethan stands when I near the table, all six feet of him.

I eye the way the fabric of his shirt stretches across his shoulders. The muscular arms he has by going to the gym four days a week. I can’t go anywhere four days a week, I’m not that disciplined. He leans over and kisses me on the mouth. Not a peck either—his tongue slips between my lips and he moans a little when I kiss him back.

Just then David’s song begins to play across the restaurant. I break free of Ethan’s lips and have the urge to wipe my mouth with my napkin. Wipe Ethan away because David is watching me. Is it David’s song or my song? It follows me around, pissing on everything—the shops, work, walking down the fucking street. I tap my fingers on the table and search for the server. I need a drink, a very large, very strong drink. Ethan sings along as he studies his menu, and as always, I tense, waiting for him to realize the song is about me.

“So I was thinking,” he says.

“It’s never good when you do too much of that,” I interrupt.

He makes a face at me, the kind a stern father makes to threaten his wily offspring.

“I was thinking,” he begins again, “that it’s time to get married.”

I stand up. My chair grates across the concrete floor and people turn their heads to look. Ethan is laughing, every one of his bright white teeth showing as he throws back his head and holds his stomach.

“I’m just joking, Yara,” he says.

---