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“So, let’s hear it. What do you think it is?”
I laugh. “I have no idea.”
“Sure you do.”
I stare out the passenger window, and I don’t say anything for a few moments. “I thought, when I saw you and your wife that day you came into Lucky’s,” I confess. “I thought, now there’s true love.”
“I do love my wife. So—you weren’t wrong.”
“No,” I tell him half-grateful, half-irritated. “I didn’t think I was.”
It didn’t take long for me to fall from my high horse. Josie posted a picture last night on Instalook of Grant with their daughter, together, lying on the sofa, his hand on hers. Hashtag #greatestthingever. Then I remembered how childish I am. I remembered what he does for a living. Touching people, making them feel beautiful, making them feel seen—that’s his job. His hand on mine meant nothing more.
This was soothing and hurtful, all the same. I’m not special, and Josie Dunn is who she says she is on the internet. They do have true love.
I know because I scoured Josie’s page from beginning to end. Twelve hundred and ninety-two posts. I read and studied them all. Every minor detail. I had to know for sure I don’t have a shot. I had to know I’m right. I had to know, before I go any further, before I get in too deep. I had to know I’m not missing anything. I had to know she really is every bit as perfect as she seems.
In the end, I didn’t find anything to the contrary. Just yesterday, she posted a photo of herself volunteering at an old folks home, and I realized she is the real deal. I know for sure if I had her life, I wouldn’t be spending my time with crusty old people in places that smell like stale piss. Not me. I’d be hitting up the mall. I’d be traveling. Josie Dunn is something else. She’s on another level. Not only is she more attractive than the rest of us, she’s selfless, too, and this makes me despise her even more. But it also makes me like her, and that’s the scary part. I remember what happened the last time I got too close.
“Thanks for your number,” Grant
says jarring me, bringing me back to the here and now where I belong. I nod, and then he turns on some melancholic song I’ve never heard before, and I wonder if he’s playing it for me. I wonder if it’s a message. He gets me. This can never work, he’s telling me. You are not her, and I could never love you.
Eventually, he pulls up to the apartment complex across the street from the one I actually inhabit. It’s only slightly nicer. When he puts the car in park, I hand him his phone. His hand brushes mine, and it hits me in the pit of my stomach. I look away. He never does. “This way,” he says, tilting it in my direction, “If I need a quick fix I can just text, and you can have my coffee ready. Or— if you’re in need of a ride, well— now you have a direct line.”
“Thanks,” I say. My mouth twists, and I don’t mean for it to happen. It’s just that when he speaks, it’s so slow and deep. The tone of his voice combined with the smooth bravado I hear as words drip from his lips make the simplest of niceties sound so sexual. So inviting.
But maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
I frown. I don’t want to want Grant Dunn. I want him, and I hate myself for it. That’s what they don’t tell you. It’s painful to want something you can’t have.
My expression doesn’t go unnoticed.
“Iz—” he says, shortening my name the way Josh used to. He tilts his head and I look up at him. “Can I call you that?”
I shake my head slowly.
“You frown like you’re an imposition. But you’re not. You’re my friend.”
I don’t say anything in response, because I don’t know what to say. I don’t know why someone like Grant Dunn would want to be friends with someone like me. I don’t know why I always have to want things I can never have.
Thankfully, I get my answer, because in addition to being handsome and successful, kind and perfect, apparently he’s telepathic, too.
“From the first moment I heard the passion in your voice when you mentioned Josh’s name, I knew I had to know more. I knew instantly that you were the kind of friend I needed in my life. Loyalty is hard to come by, Izzy,” he says. His eyes are sad when he says it, and this makes me sad too. “But then, I’m sure you know that.”
“Yes,” I reply, and I think I do know.
He shifts in his seat and positions his body in my direction. “Speaking of which, you never told me about Josh. Nothing— other than he was your husband— I would like to hear more sometime.”
“I—”
“Not now,” he says. “Sometime when we have more time together.”
I swallow hard, and I’m glad he says that because I wasn’t prepared to hear Josh’s name, much less speak it myself.
“That would be good,” I say, and for the first time I realize Grant Dunn is the perfect confidant. He seems like someone I might want to tell about Josh.
Three nights later I’m walking home again. It’s the week before finals, and the teenagers pretend to be studying at Lucky’s, or at least that’s what they tell their parents, when really they’re just fucking off.
