Page 115 of Lessons in Heartbreak

Me:I don’t know about this, Lauren.

Lauren:The outfit isHot. Men love it when you wear something with their name on it. Makes them feel all primitive and shit.

Me:I’m not trying to make him feel primitive. I’m going to support my friend.

Lauren:Mmmkay.

Me:Don’t say it like that.

Lauren:Fine. If you want to kid yourself that he’s making this effort because you’re just friends, I’ll play along. But I promise...this is a man showing you that you’re important to him.

Lauren:I’ll be there in twenty. Just finishing up my makeup now.

I tossed my phone onto my bed and sighed, standing again in front of the mirror in my bedroom. On Lauren’s advice, I tied the jersey off by my hip, a slice of my stomach showing above the waistband of my denim cutoffs. When I turned to the side, the sight of his name on my back sent my pulse sky-high. She’d found me a brand-new Griffin King jersey somewhere in Denver when she was visiting Marcus. It was expected, she told me, that when you go to training camp to support someone in particular, you wear their jersey.

Apparently she knew everything now, even though she and Marcus refused to define their relationship. The man had literally tattooed her name on his ass a couple weeks ago, but they couldn’t call each other boyfriend and girlfriend. Their visits were usually limited to once a week, due to his busy schedule heading into the season. But still ... they’d each made the effort. And all that time, I’d been here, wondering why the less-than-two-hour drive to Griffin’s new place made it seem like he lived on a different planet.

It wasn’t like I didn’t want to see him.

Sometimes fear made for a stronger leash than we were willing to break.

My hands shook while I finished pulling back my hair. I’d braided it off my face, anchoring it to the nape of my neck with a dark-blue ribbon. And no matter how badly I tried to ignore it, my heart had been thrashing erratically all morning.

Anxiety, as it turned out, can do that to ya.

Even knowing it was nothing more than that—anxiety about seeing a man who’d climbed deep under my skin—I sat heavily on the foot of the bed and laid both hands on my chest. The curse of being the type A responsible one was only feeling comfortable in situations where the outcome was known. Where it was expected.

It didn’t really matter if the outcome occasionally changed; it was walking into something and owning a relative degree of confidence. Like Griffin. If I’d known how it would all turn out, would I have indulged even a hint of that relationship?

Staring at my own reflection in the mirror from my seat on the bed, I wanted to say no. I wanted to admit that I never would’ve walked the same path, but I’d be lying to myself.

The thought of never having Griffin in any of the ways I’d had him made my bones ache and my heart hurt in a different way than it had ever hurt before. Sometimes I closed my eyes and pictured his face—his wide smile and bright eyes—and it was all I could do not to burst into tears.

Was this falling in love, then?

Not being able to get them out of your head. Missing them like a limb. Replaying all the bursts of time where they made things better. Where their absence felt like a small sort of death to be mourned.

It was awful.

My phone buzzed on the bed where I’d thrown it, and assuming it was Lauren again, I grabbed it and tapped on the message bubble.

Mom:Look what popped up in my memories today. Glad you’re healthy and strong. Love you, my girl.

After that, she included a broken-heart emoji and a string of pictures that sent my stomach sinking down to my feet. It was my last hospital stay before they found a donor for my transplant. I didn’t even know my mom had taken these pictures, and looking at them had my chest going hard and cold, my throat tight.

She wasn’t doing this to hurt me—my parents were unfailingly pragmatic, just like me—but I felt it like a knife to the gut all the same.

In the first few, I was sleeping in the hospital bed, hooked up to wires and machines, a sickly pallor to my skin, and my arms and legs were painfully thin. Off to the side of my bed, my dad was slumped in a chair, his head resting on his hand as he slept in a cramped position. There were bags under his eyes, and it looked like he hadn’t shaved in days.

A tear spilled over onto my cheek before I knew I was crying, and the slow build of unease crawled up my skin as I looked at the other photos. I’d turned twenty-four not too long before I was in that hospital bed, and I remembered thinking that I likely wouldn’t see twenty-five. Making peace with the fact that I wouldn’t. Telling my mom that I’d prefer to be cremated because the thought of a coffin made me want to scream.

My eyes slammed shut when I imagined having a conversation like that with Griffin. Imagined him sitting where my dad sat. Imagined trying to make peace with any shortened life if he was the one I was saying goodbye to.

My fingers started tingling, and my breath came in choppy, short bursts. I dropped my phone and sank my head into my hands while I struggled to calm my breathing, waiting for the cold, prickly wave of anxiety to pass.

It didn’t.

It built. And built. And soon my legs were trembling, my head staticky and loud and horrible.

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