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But I guess I was alone in that. I let out a heavy sigh and then grab another chocolate chip cookie. I’ll work out tomorrow, but tonight I’ve decided to wallow. I’ve been holding myself together for the past few months—barely, but still. I go out with my friends, I laugh, I smile. I go to work, then the gym, never diverting from what has turned into a robotic schedule. I pretend I’m not still aching for him.
I think I deserve a night of being sad and lonely. Tucking my feet under me on my couch, I dip my cookie in my glass of milk, my eyes glued to the TV screen and a different pair of piercing blue eyes than the ones I dream about. My phone rings, and I glance down to where it sits on the armrest.
I put down my milk glass and slide the accept button. “Hey, Elise, what’s up?”
“Hey, Mom wanted me to call and check up on you.”
I can’t help but smile. “Way to rat her out.”
Elise just laughs, “Come on, you know how she can be. She worries about us.”
“Yeah, she does.”
“So…how are you?”
I let out a heavy breath, trying to figure out how to answer. I really don’t know. Some days I feel okay, other days, every little thing makes me think of him, and it feels like someone is trying to take my heart out with a sharp knife. Today I just feel weighed down with sadness, my whole body bearing the weight of my heartbreak.
“I’m fine.” It’s not true now, but someday it will be.
“I call bullshit.”
“No, really, I’m fine.”
“Uh-huh.” She pauses, and I nibble on my cookie while I wait for her to say something else. “I can hearThe Great British Baking Showin the background. How many times are you going to watch that show?”
“Shut up, Elise. The tent is my happy place. Leave me alone.”
She has the audacity to laugh, I’m pretty sure at me. “It’s your dead giveaway. You only watch that when you are depressed.”
“I do not!”
“When Will got engaged to Candace and you guys got in that huge fight and you swore you were going to lose him—you watched it. When Sterling Maxwell cheated on you—you watched it. When Brad broke things off and you said you were totally fine because it was just a little break, but really you were super sad? You watched—”
“Okay, you’ve made your point.”
She sounds smug, and I can just imagine the shit-eating grin she’s wearing. Little sisters. “So, you gonna tell me how you really are now?”
I rub my eyes and lean back against my couch. “I don’t know. I really don’t. So I can’t give you a solid answer.”
“How about how you’re doing right this minute?”
“I’m sad. I…” My eyes well with tears—another unexpected side effect of therapy now that I’m constantly asked to evaluate my feelings—and I take a minute to catch my breath. As I attempt to work through my shit, I know I am crying more than I probably have in my entire life. “I miss him. I miss our friendship too.”
“Is he still texting you?”
“Yeah.” Every week like clockwork. I still don’t respond, but it’s no longer because I don’t want to. It’s more that I’m still frozen and don’t know what to say. So much time has passed. That night changed things between us, and I can’t go back, but I also miss him with a fierceness that makes my body physically ache.
“Maybe one of these days you should text him back.”
“And say what?”
“What you just told me—that you miss him.”
I sigh, tired of thinking about him and this stupid mess we’ve put ourselves in. “What good would that do? It doesn’t change anything. He doesn’t want us to be more than friends. He made that clear. And I don’t know that I can go back to just friends.”
I’ve often wondered if maybe the sex wasn’t as good for him. He said it was, but that was in the heat of the moment, and I know he’s more experienced than I am. Maybe what I thought was perfect was just okay for him.
God, that’s mortifying. Here I’ve been super stubborn about not talking to him, and he’s probably just trying to figure out why I’m so upset over mediocre sex.
