Page 9 of Dying to Meet You
Before this week, she called himthat guy, and not in a nice way. She’d ask, “Are you making dinner? Or are you going out withthat guyagain?”
I couldn’t work out why she was so offended by his existence, when she can hardly be bothered to show her face when I’m at home. Before Tim, I’d had fewer than ten dates in fifteen years.
Our discussion is apparently over, because Natalie is lifting the car keys from the hook by the door and slipping her feet into...
“Wait. Those are my shoes.” They’re black Mary Janes with a slingback heel.
She offers me a shrug of one smooth shoulder. “You said they pinch your feet. Bye!” The door slams.
I wait by the window, watching as she backs the Volvo onto our street at a rate of three feet per hour. Backing up frightens her, and it should.Our street is narrow and littered with parked cars. I didn’t realize the car was capable of moving so slowly, but eventually she makes it, and I have to watch her pull away. She flips on the turn signal at the corner like a good girl.
And my heart is a mixed-up mess, like it always is. Natalie amazes me. She’s witty and clever and capable. She’s also stubborn and frequently selfish, and half the time we talk, I leave the room wishing I could list her for sale on Etsy. With free shipping.
Once her taillights disappear, I serve myself a generous portion of pasta and carry it to the sofa. This is more or less where I’ve spent every evening of this week, drinking wine and feeling sorry for myself.
I probably should have gone to the damn book club tonight. But at last month’s meeting, I’d giddily disclosed to my high school friends that I’d met someone. “His name is Tim, and he writes for theWall Street Journal.”
They’d promptly pulled out their phones to google his head shot as well as his bylines. “I don’t know half the words in this article, but he’s a DILF!” my friend Mindy had clucked.
“Wow, Rowan! It’s always the quiet ones.”
Here I sit four weeks later, feeling heartbroken.
Okay, not exactly heartbroken. But shocked. And angry and depressed.
Althoughheartbrokensounds more poetic.
Bottom line—I’m just not in the mood to go sit on the rooftop terrace of my friend’s downtown condo and admit that I’m still the only single person in the bunch. I prefer to lick my wounds in private.
Too bad I’m already tired of the typical cures for the breakup blues. I’m sick of sulking on the couch, and I already ate all the ice cream. Or maybe that was Natalie. I hope so. After his brutal dismount from our relationship, Tim Kovak doesn’t deserve to send me up a size in jeans.
I open my phone and read his breakup text again.
Tim: Hope you get this before you leave. But I can’t make it tonight. This thing isn’t working for me anymore. And I wish you the best.
That was it. That was the whole message. I read it five times in a row, trying to make sense of it. That night, I ended up texting a screenshot to Beatrice.
Rowan: Did this guy just break up with me a half hour before our dinner reservation?
The fact that he wouldn’t take my call was a pretty good indication.
Beatrice: Oh honey.
I spent the evening in a tailspin, at times cursing his name and other times redialing him to leave him voice messages.I don’t understand. Why won’t you even talk to me? Did I do something wrong?
No pickups. No explanations. Just radio silence.
It was baffling. So much so that I’d opened up the FriendFinder app to make sure he wasn’t waiting for me at the restaurant we’d booked. Just in case the whole thing was a misunderstanding. But nope. His avatar was at his parents’ place, where he’d been staying. That night, anyway.
Twenty-four hours later was another story.
And now I’m all worked up again. Just thinking about it makes my eyes feel hot and gritty. Ten weeks of dating followed by four nights of anguish, with nothing more to show for it than a few tears.
“I hate him,” I say into the stillness of my home.
Lickie whines. She comes to sit at my feet, watching me with sorrowful brown eyes.
“You want a walk, don’t you?”
