Page 29 of My Infatuation with Isabella

He didn’t.

‘Til today, a part of me still believes that he didn’t cheat on me with Fran. Even though I saw her at his house so many times, even though he’s married to her now. He’s got me brainwashed on some fucked up voodoo shit because I still want to believe that what we had was real.

It wasn’t.

Yet it felt so real to me, and I just can’t bring myself to let go of that very elaborate fantasy. I got the tattoo because I wanted to always remember the fantasy. I wanted to remember a time when a guy made me feel like he loved me enough to never leave me.

But he did.

So I cling to the fantasy instead because the reality is too painful to endure.

“Can we please stop talking about this, Tom? I don’t know how much more my heart can take.”

“Okay.” He must hear the shakiness in my voice, because he walks up behind my chair and rubs my shoulders. “Do you want to hear about the bookkeeping course I’m gonna do?”

I drop my head back to look up at him. “Why are you doing a bookkeeping course? You hate numbers.”

“My love of the D is the reason I’m always broke. So, because this is a college radio station, they always have these people coming in to advertise different short courses in case the students are interested. During Melanie’s show, this super-hot guy comes in to talk about this bookkeeping course. After he was done, I needed an excuse to talk to him, so I pretended as if I was interested in doing...some bookkeeping. I got kinda carried away with the lie and signed up for the whole course.”

He gives me the full run-down on the hot bookkeeper guy, and when Tommy likes someone, he gives every tiny detail. By the time he wraps up, I basically know how many eyelashes this guy has.

“If you take him out, why don’t we all go to the night market? I’ll be the most inconspicuous third wheel. They have rainbow grilled cheese sandwiches there.”

“Really? We have to try that!”

“Right? That’s what I was trying to tell Diego earlier, but?”

“What’s going on?” Tommy abruptly cuts me off mid-sentence. “Why are all those lights flashing? Hang on.”

He walks around the table to the computer, and I peer over to see which lights he’s referring to. On the right side of some flat, wide gadget with lots of knobs and buttons, is a vertical row of small lights. More than half of them are flashing red.

“Do you know if these were flashing like this earlier?”

I shrug. “I don’t remember. I don’t even know what this stuff is.”

“I’ve done this for Jason a few times. Nothing ever flashes.” He looks on the sideboard of the gadget. “It says hybrid. What’s a hybrid?”

“Tom, you’re asking me questions like I know or care about the answer. Just leave it.”

“I can’t just leave it. What if something is broken?”

I groan my irritation and lift the headset from around my neck back onto my head. “It’s still classical music. Everything’s fine.”

He’s still not convinced. “Maybe I should just press this button to switch it off.”

“Don’t touch anything. What if you do break something?”

“I’ll just press this one and if stops flashing, then I’ll press the others.” He lets out a nervous breath, like he’s about to diffuse a bomb instead of just pushing a button. He waits a few seconds after he presses it. “See? It stopped flashing. Is the music still playing?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, then let’s switch the rest of them off. I think?”

“Hello. Hi. Can you guys hear me?”

My eyes widen at the unexpected female voice that comes through my headset. “Who’s that?”

“What? Who?” Tom looks around the room, and I point to my headset. He puts his one back on as well. “Is someone on the line?”

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