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“Answer the question, or I’ll be forced to treat the witness as hostile.”
“You watch too many Law and Order reruns.”
“Come on, fess up.”
“It hurt,” Esther admitted, casting her eyes down. “It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be in a relationship. He just didn’t want to be in one with me.” She squirmed in her seat, regretting that she’d started this conversation.
Jinny’s expression softened. “You really liked him, didn’t you?”
There was still a box of memorabilia devoted to him on the top shelf of Esther’s closet. Ticket stubs, Post-It notes, a paperback book he’d lent her. So yes, she’d really liked him.
She shrugged like it wasn’t that big a deal. “He was the only guy I’ve ever been friends with that I actually wanted to sleep with.”
“Did you ever tell him how you felt?”
No. That would have given him a chance to reject me.
“I didn’t want to scare him off,” Esther said, reaching for her iced tea. “We had a good thing going.” She’d been afraid to change the status quo. Part of her had always wondered whether they would have stayed together if she’d done things differently. Maybe he wouldn’t have moved on—or maybe he’d have broken things off even sooner. She’d never know.
“Until he found someone else.”
Esther swallowed a mouthful of tea. “Yeah.”
“That sucks. I’m sorry.” Jinny reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “Now I’ve made you all sad.”
Esther shook her head. “It was four years ago. It’s not like I’m still hung up on him.”
“I’ll buy you a cupcake at knitting tonight to cheer you up.”
“Okay, but don’t say anything to the rest of them about any of this. I don’t want my love life dissected by the whole group.” Talking about it with Jinny had already exceeded her quota of sharing for the entire month.
“You know, talking about things can actually make you feel better sometimes.”
Esther broke off another piece of chip. “I talk about things. We’re talking right now.”
Jinny leaned forward, frowning slightly. “Do you think you have bad taste in men? Since you’re the one who asked the question in the first place.”
“I don’t know,” Esther said. “I never thought about it before.”
“What made you bring it up?”
She didn’t want to tell Jinny that she and Jonathan had been having a heart-to-heart about their love lives. Not after they’d just broken up. It felt disloyal. Esther reached for her iced tea again to cover her floundering. “Because of what you said about Stuart and Jonathan, I guess. It got me thinking about…things.”
Jinny nodded, stabbing at her taco salad. “You’ve met plenty of men—you’ve slept with even more than I have. But none of them are ever good enough to do more than just sleep with them. Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know,” Esther said.
Maybe she was broken inside. Maybe she just couldn’t love the way other people did.
Or maybe Jinny was right, and she was sabotaging herself. Because she was afraid. If you never let yourself care about people, it didn’t hurt as much when they didn’t care back.
It was easier to not want things, because then you couldn’t be disappointed when you didn’t get them.
When Esther got home from knitting that night, Jonathan was sitting outside her door, smoking a cigarette. She waved her hand to break up the cloud of smoke as she stepped over his legs.
He pushed himself to his feet and waved a handful of wrinkled papers at her. “I made some changes to the script and I want to know what you think.”
“Hello to you too,” Esther said as she shoved her key in the lock.
