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MIKEY: I am too. Trust me. Everybody’s mad at me.
TESS: Fruit.
MIKEY: Fly.
Five Weeks Later
TESS: Tell Ari he owes me fancy dinner. I kicked his ass this morning.
MIKEY: I hear. Are you headed to the shore?
TESS: Yes. Next couple of weeks finishing the final stuff on the book, then back to NY to plan the workshops’ fall slate.
MIKEY: Holla if you need company.
TESS: Maybe next week. Today’s the first day I didn’t wake up crying. Will you come to the shore? But need a moment.
MIKEY: Will give them all to you. Miss you.
TESS: Love you.
MIKEY: That’s a big step.
TESS: I’m done not using those words when I feel them.
Eight Weeks Later
MIKEY: Distraction. I’m in town.
TESS: Now?
MIKEY: No, in like two weeks. I’m staying for like ten days. Tell me you’ll be at my beck and call.
TESS: Of course. Gotta go. Meeting happening right now.
MIKEY: Proud of you. Love you, girl.
TESS: And I you, girl.
He never fails to check in on me. Especially on a Monday. It’s the strangest thing. We don’t talk about him and haven’t even said or texted the word Alex since it all went down. I know Mikey blames himself for everything ending, but we did it to ourselves. If we hadn’t had that moment, we wouldn’t be able to move on. Not that I’ve gone very far.
I’m headed into a meeting with Carlos. He still references our one kiss and how he’s willing to pick up where I left him that night. I just don’t feel that way about him. But many do. He can charm anyone, and it roils my situation at the moment, but I stay steadfast in my new selfish phase. Just me.
He’s been developing a series of workshops for middle school kids in predominantly Latinx neighborhoods along his next book tour. He’s writing the forward to my nonfiction book aimed at middle schoolers. My silly little idea of validating middle school kids helps me validate myself in ways I wasn’t even aware I craved.
It’s the beginning of fall, and I love fall. For the first time in close to a year, I’m unattached, and I’m fine. I’m better than fine. I feel as if, at some point, I could actually fall in love again. Alex showed me it’s possible to love something other than tennis and my work.
Of course, I’m going to have to fall out of love with Alex to truly move on. But I take each day as it comes. It’s been an agonizing couple of months, but I’ve stopped crying, so there’s that. Although lately, I’ve been weepy at the drop of a hat. Google commercials make me sob, so perhaps I’ve just channeled it elsewhere.
Recently, my mom’s been slipping from my mind, and it feels right. I held onto horrible images of her in a hospital bed and terrible fights as if they were worthy and kept her alive for me. But since Alex split my world open, I’ve started to sort through the silt and find solid footing. Maybe by making room for him, I realized what I could do without. It’s like I had an emotional yard sale, cleaning out all the crap that’s been clogging up my storage for so long.
I sold my place in Philly and have been renting weekly in New York, or I’ve been at my house at the shore. Although my work has energized my soul and aided in mending my splintered heart, I’m exhausted all the time. I think the adrenaline I’ve been running on for the past several years has finally been tapped, and my body requires me to regenerate. I actually took a nap the other day on Joan’s couch.
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Tess
