Page 82 of Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts

I mulled over the best opener for a message like this. I wasn’t used to asking people for permission to mention them on the podcast—before all this, I probably would’ve changed his name and maybe added a few unflattering details for the sake of plausible deniability. But in this case, that would be counterproductive. I needed to talk to him first. Assuming he’d ever bother reading the message, let alone responding.

Distracted, I almost rear-ended the Prius in front of me and had to slam on my brakes. My bag went flying out of the passenger seat, Wrigley’s gum and loose change scattering on the floor. In the rearview, the guy in the car behind me was flipping me the bird.

Okay, so maybe this wasn’t my brightest idea. The message would have to wait. “Cancel,” I said before mumbling something to myself about calling him later. I wasn’t sure he’d answer, but Erin did mention that he hated texting, so maybe a phone call had a better chance.

“Calling Declan Walsh,” Siri announced.

“What? No, you can’t do that—”

But it was already ringing. I dug my phone back out of the cup holder, my thumb hovering over the button to cancel the call. On one hand, it was better to wait, but on the other, I was curious whether he’d pick up. It rang once.

Twice.

Three times.

He was going to let me go to voicemail.

I was in the middle of trying to decide whether I should leave a message when something clattered on the other line. Was that … the start of his voicemail? It sounded like him dropping his phone. But then I heard a muffled voice say, “Shit,” followed by ragged breathing. “Hello?”

I froze. Was he … with someone? My heart was beating so hard that it made me nauseous. I was teetering on the verge of hanging up, but he would’ve already seen my name on the incoming call. There was no point in chickening out now. “Sorry,” I said quickly. “I can call back if—if it’s a bad time, or something.”

“You’re fine,” he panted. “You just caught me in the middle of a run. What’s up?”

Relief flooded me. I hadn’t figured out how I was going to approach things just yet, but my brain kicked into overdrive, finding something to fill any awkward silences before they happened. “I just left my first meeting with your sister.”

“How’d it go?” He was probably asking to be polite, but I could almost imagine that this was normal, that we talked like this all the time, like I hadn’t just called him out of the blue.

“Good. I think.” I wondered whether Erin would relay her own version of events, including everything I’d said, but I didn’t have time to worry about that. “Listen, I wanted to get your permission before recording the final season for Seven Rules.”

There was a long pause before he asked, “Why would you need my permission?”

“Because I want to talk about you. Everything that happened between us.” The word us brought with it a familiar pang, because there was no us, but there could have been. “Not to use it as a story, but just to kind of explain to everyone how I fucked up. You know.” I cleared my throat in an attempt to dislodge the lump that had wedged itself there. “Clear the air. I can leave your name out of everything, if you want.”

Another pause. I thought maybe he would just hang up. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he did. “Considering my name was already published in the article, I don’t think that’ll make a big difference,” he said. “But as for the rest of it, yeah. Permission granted.”

“Thank you.” I should probably have ended the conversation there, but I couldn’t help myself. I blinked back tears so that I could keep my eyes on the road. When had I become the girl who cries at everything? When I got my heart broken, apparently. “I really am sorry for the way things turned out. I miss spending time with you.” I waited for him to say something, but I was only able to stand the silence for a few seconds. I sniffled. “Shit. I’m sorry. This wasn’t supposed to be that kind of call.”

“It’s okay,” he said, but his voice was strained. It didn’t sound very okay. It sounded like he wanted to get as far away from his phone as possible.

“I know podcasts aren’t really your thing, but I’ll send you the file after I finish recording, if you want to listen to it ahead of time. You know, for your approval.”

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll listen to it.”

It was more of a confirmation than I’d dared to hope for.

Season Seven, Episode Ten—Signing Off

10 min 54 sec

Margo: Which brings us to the present.

While I don’t feel I owe anyone an explanation, I wanted to give Seven Rules a proper ending. One that has hopefully addressed some of your lingering questions and set the record straight. This wasn’t the final season I’d envisioned; when we first talked about the possibility of breaking a few rules for the sake of generating new content, I believed I was immune to catching feelings. I had to learn the hard way that I had it all wrong.

I’m not sure I know what being in love with someone feels like yet, but I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of the falling part. You stop caring what the outside world thinks. I would have fallen for Declan either way, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that love doesn’t play by the rules in the first place. It’s taken me way too long to realize that, but better late than never, right?

To our listeners, I owe you all an apology. I’m sorry if you feel that we’ve misled you these past few years. I can’t make up for that, but at least now I can set the record straight: I was wrong. It’s possible to be perfectly happy being single, but you don’t need to follow a bunch of rules to do it. So forget the rules and live your life however you like. It won’t always work out. A lot of the time, it probably won’t. But at least you’ll know that you’ve been honest with yourself. And in my experience, that’s a lot easier to live with than living a lie.

Declan, if there’s any chance you’ve listened long enough to get to this point: I’m sorry. Maybe you’re going to hate the way I’ve gone about this, and that’s okay. If nothing else, I hope you’re able to see that you were a lot more to me than just another anecdote. I should have been honest with you from the beginning, but somewhere along the way I became so scared of messing up what we had that I ended up making it all worse. I don’t expect you to forgive me. I just want you to know that I recognize I was wrong. About basically everything. The one good decision I’ve made these past few months was getting to know you. You’ve changed my life for the better, even if you no longer want to be a part of it.