Page 76 of It's a Love Story

Me: I’m really sorry. I was horrible. I’m happy for you and Gary

Mom: It’s fine, and thank you. I know you’re having a hard time

Me: Movie Friday?

Mom: Yes please

That small bit of forgiveness loosens the knot in my chest, but the pressure there still feels unbearable. Even if Dan hadn’t blocked me and I could apologize, I’d still have ended up here under my desk eventually. Because even if he forgave me and there was love talk, it would have ended, and I’d have been back down here eating mini Snickers and hiding the wrappers.

On Wednesday I sit through an internal strategy meeting and stare at Nathan’s cavernous left nostril. I watch it expand and contract as he speaks, but I don’t hear a word he says.

On Thursday I call in sick. I lie in my bed and watch my ceiling fan spin. I don’t normally use it and I don’t ever dust it, so I watch it fling particles of death around my room. Dead skin and nails, the dust of things that were never meant to last. I close my eyes and hear a car pull into my driveway. I imagine Dan getting out and knocking on my door. I imagine myself jumping into his arms. He’d reel from the impact but smile at me and pull me close. Stubble scraping my cheek, lips catching my ear. I hear the car pull away, and I know it was just someone turning around. Dan doesn’t even know where I live.

On Friday night I am in a dark, overly air-conditioned theater watching a loud superhero movie with my mom. The other choices were love stories, and I know she was being thoughtful picking this one, but it’s backfired. There’s no getting away from thinking about Dan. I take in every scene and feel how much he would have hated it. I long to see the way he would have shot the scene when the villain climbs out of the junkyard in the moonlight. I run my fingers over my jaw, where he spent an entire day planting small, breathy kisses and saying my name. There is no getting away from him; I have been infiltrated. I can stop going to the movies, maybe, but I cannot get away from my own jaw.

“Sweetie,” my mother whispers. I hadn’t realized that I was holding her hand. And crying. “Do you want to go?” she asks with a squeeze.

I think about the offer. We could go to my happy place, her apartment with the old patched couch. We could order moo shu pork and experiment with liquid eyeliner. But my jaw would be there. And my raw, aching heart, turned inside out so that all of the hidden bits are exposed. I’m going to bring myself wherever I go now, and I’m going to have to get used to it.

“I wish I could go back and do everything differently,” I whisper, finally. A car explodes in the background to thunderous effect.

“I do too, Jane.” She squeezes my hand. I rest my head on her shoulder in the dark as a seven-foot-tall man kicks in a steel door on the screen. I think ofTrue Story.I think of Reenie and Cormack and the way she looked at him during his toast. I even think of Gary making my mom an omelet. And offering me one, like that was a thing I deserved.

We walk outside into the warm, dry August air. It’s wildfire season. I can feel it as I stop under the fluorescent light of the marquee. There’s something restless in the air, and I think of how fires lead to mudslides and how everything that happens on this earth was caused by something else. People jostle us as they exit the theater, but my feet are planted firmly in place.

My mom says, “Well, that was a terrible movie,” just as I say, “I know about my dad.”

It surprises me almost as much as it surprises her. She cocks her head a bit, but doesn’t say anything.

“When I was a kid, actually the same night I humiliated myself with Jack Quinlan, I found the letter. I know that he left us before he died. And that it was because of me.” The words come in fragments, like I’m forcing them out. The tightness in my chest burns up through my throat.

She narrows her eyes at me and then looks at my feet. “That’s not how it was.”

“Please stop lying to me,” I say, my words steadier.

“Should we go home?” she asks.

“Let’s do this here,” I say.

She takes a breath and straightens her shoulders. “He was young.”

“I know.”

“We were broke.”

“I know. And I know you lied because you thought the truth would hurt me. But I found out anyway, and honestly, the lying made it so much worse.” The tears come; they rise from my chest with a sob and just flow. People are still trickling out of the theater, and I don’t move my feet. I’m going to stand here and cry until my tears run out.

“Oh.”

“We could have just agreed he was a big jerk and moved on. That it was a shitty thing for him to have left. But the fact that you lied made me feel like it was something to be ashamed of.” I wipe my face with the back of my hand and it barely helps.

“I don’t see how that makes a difference.” I don’t blame her for being defensive. This must feel like a sneak attack.

“It makes a difference to who I am. There’s a difference between being a person whose dad died and a person whose dad left. It’s the difference between being unlucky and unwanted.” She starts to say something but I interrupt. “And don’t say of course he wanted me. I read the letter, he didn’t.”

She looks down at her hands. “He didn’t.”

The truth hangs in the silence between us. It’s so ugly, hanging there.

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