Page 91 of Fundamentals of Chemistry

“Fuck it,” I muttered and pressed dial.

The phone rang once. Twice. Five times, before going to voicemail.

“You have reached Jackson Cooper. I’m sorry I’m not able to take your call. Please leave your name, and I’ll give you a call back when I can. Thank you.”

Of course, he had the most generic outgoing message possible. I smiled to myself as the familiar husky timber of his voice rolled over me, but I hung up without leaving a message.

I missed him. Fuck me, I missed him so much it was physically painful.

I called him back, and after five more rings, listened to the outgoing message again. I let his voice soothe me like a balm for my soul. Or maybe a drug, lidocaine for my stinging nerves.

This time I left a message for him.

“Hey. I miss you.” Not a good start. Reel it in. “I miss your face.” Not much of an improvement, but I could roll with it. “I hope you’re having a good break with your family. It’s really nice that you have a family.” What the fuck was that? Was I drunk? “Anyway, call me back sometime. I miss you. Like—a lot. So much…”

I hung up before I could do any more damage and then leaned against the rough brick of the building exterior because my legs were no longer up to the task of holding me.

What the actual fuck was that? Never in my twenty-eight years had I ever done anything quite so embarrassing as that atrocious voicemail.

It’s really nice that you have a family.

What kind of insane comment was that to make? And had I really said I missed him three times?

If he didn’t call me back after listening to that, I wouldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to call myself back either. I was never going to hear from him again.

Groaning, I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. I was so fucked.

Even my first serious boyfriend hadn’t managed to have this much of an impact on me. In hindsight, I didn’t actually love Travis. I said the L-word because he did, and I was pretty sure he only said it because he wanted a blow job. I wasn’t upset when we broke up. I certainly wouldn’t have told him that I missed him three times in one voicemail.

I hadn’t said the L-word to anyone since. Silvia was the lone exception, but that love was sisterly and didn’t really count.

But that’s what this was, right? I was in love with Jack. That was the only explanation for why everything hurt so damn much.

“Are you all right, sugar?”

A croaking voice pulled me out of my spiral of self-pity. I looked up from the sidewalk to find a pair of brown eyes regarding me from under the brim of a knit cap, pulled low against the chill. They weren’t Jack’s eyes, but he was all I could see.

“Whoever he is, he’s not worth it,” the woman said kindly, before turning and heading off down the street.

It was only then that I realized a few tears had streaked down my cheeks while I was wallowing. I wiped them away with disdain and blinked my eyes a few times to make sure there weren’t any other tears in there waiting to fall.

When I got back upstairs, would Silvia be able to tell that I had been crying? I prayed she would have the tact not to mention it.

***

Thanksgiving Day came and went in a blur. Silvia woke me and Tim up before dawn and dragged us down to 5th Avenue to watch the parade. We were all thoroughly frozen when we got home and dug into the rotisserie chicken and instant mashed potatoes with gusto.

I tried—and failed—not to think about what Jack was probably doing. I imagined him in a large, bright kitchen next to an older woman with kind brown eyes and streaks of gray in her chestnut hair. They would be basting a turkey and making gravy and cranberry sauce from scratch. No cans, jars, or boxes for the Cooper kitchen.

Then, my traitorous mind wandered to my parents’ Thanksgiving. There would be no cans, jars, or boxes in the Burke kitchen either. Chef would prepare a multi-course feast from scratch, regardless of the fact that only two people would be enjoying it.

Afterward, my mother would instruct the staff to pack up all the leftovers—there were always more leftovers than food that had actually been eaten—and take them to the local shelter.

It never occurred to my parents that giving away their excess wasn’t generosity. It was patronizing. Or maybe it did occur to them, and they simply didn’t care.

I would rather eat day-old chicken and powdered astronaut potatoes with Silvia any day of the week, before going back to my parents’ table. There wasn’t enough money in the world for that. It didn’t occur to me until Friday that they hadn’t called to wish me a happy Thanksgiving.

***