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The way he says 'sorry' is far from sincere, but before I can say anything in reply - he turns to leave. It dawns on me suddenly that part of my brilliant revenge plan in cornering him like this was to make him pay for lunch. I never ordered any food, but he did. There's a plate of uneaten oysters in the middle of the table, circled by the very expensive drinks we ordered. At least we actually consumed those.
But now he's gone, and I'm stuck with the check. I don't even have any leads on the position at Bardot to show for it. If anything, I've dug an even deeper grave for myself.
I suck it up and pay the tab, knowing this is going to set me back in a way that stings when rent comes due. My shitty lab job can hardly afford fancy lunches at places like Festin. That's what I get for thinking I could waltz right in here and have a movie-worthy payback moment like the one I've been dreaming of for years.
And how did I think that would land me a job exactly? I don't even know anymore. Yes, Joshua owes me. He owes me a lot. But I was silly to expect him to recognize that. I can't believe I actually expected him to feel bad for what went down a decade ago. Worse than that, he doesn't even seem to know or remember any of it. Not what really happened anyway.
He can play the victim all he wants. Whether he remembers it or not, it doesn't change the fact that he was a lying, cheating scumbag who nearly destroyed me. I know the truth.
After paying the check, I stand and hold my head up high as I walk out of the restaurant. The whole ride home, I rack my brain for the next possible move.
I do enjoy that Joshua doesn't realize the full story of what happened. I want to let him think I was the one who hurt him, and not the other way around. That small satisfaction has wrapped my old wounds up in a soothing warm blanket. But if I let him think I don't know how wrong he was, I have no favor to call in. I can't leverage my old heartache to get this job I know I deserve and protect my pride at the same time.
If I can't do that, I'll just have to get my payback,andthe job at Bardot, in a different way.
5
Joshua
Imarch out of the restaurant, still reeling from seeing her again. The view from a distance at that damn party was bad enough. Being close enough to her to see the sheen of her lips, the gold flecks in her eyes, and to smell her perfume…it's more than I can handle after all these years, after the way she walked out on us.
The moment I'm behind the wheel of my car, I make the split second decision to work from home for the rest of the day. I have no patients waiting on me, and all of my research notes can be done from my laptop. More importantly, they can be done while I sip several more glasses of bourbon - which will hopefully wash down the dry, sour taste she's left in my mouth.
I spend the rest of the afternoon working, and the rest of the night after that drinking. During that time, I do a pretty good job of outrunning any thoughts of Vanessa in my mind. But by ten o'clock, with all the alcohol coursing through my veins, she becomes inescapable.
Once I accept that I'm out of ways to avoid thinking about her, I decide to let myself stew on it for a while. Maybe if I just let myself wallow in it tonight, it will all be out of my system by tomorrow and things can just go back to normal.
I walk to the bureau in my bedroom, clutching my glass of bourbon in one hand and using the other to open one of the small drawers at the top. Buried there, underneath rolls of socks, is a small box of photos. My hand flinches as I reach for it. It's a box of bones I haven't let myself open in years, but I never could bring myself to throw it away.
I carry it out onto the back patio where I already have a fire burning. Maybe tonight will be the night when I finally just let go of it all and toss the damn box into the flames. For all the women I've blown off and disappointed over the years, it's ridiculous for me to cling to the only one who's ever done the same to me in return.
If I'm going to finally burn the damn thing to ash, I decide it's worth it to at least get one last look at what's inside. In between slow sips of burning liquor, I flip through the photos featuring younger versions of me and Vanessa. I pause at the one where she's sitting in my bed, glowing in the light that's streaming in through the window, with nothing but my t-shirt and her panties on. Her head is thrown back in laughter and her dark hair, much longer then, is tousled from the hot sex we just had before this was taken.
It wasn't long after that when she vanished. Poof. Gone. Part of me worried something had happened to her. I asked around for her, and the consensus was that she was fine. The only natural conclusion was that she just didn't want anything to do with me anymore. She found someone new or got bored with me, and she didn't even have the guts to tell me.
The anger and hurt it stirs up inside of me is infuriating. Why the hell do I care so much? It was ten years ago. And truthfully, it was for the best. How does she still have her hook so deep inside of me?
Or the better and more perplexing question to ask - the one I have never been able to figure out…How did she ever get her hook so deep in me in the first place? It's a feat no one before her and no one since has ever accomplished for longer than a fleeting night or two.
But with Vanessa…ten years can go by and she still seems to hold a piece of me I can't get back. I wish I could tell myself it's just the whiskey talking. But if that's all it really is, then why do I still have this stupid box of mementos?
I didn't deserve her back then. I know that. I wasn't ready for a serious relationship. I'm still not. If we had done the cliche thing so many of our classmates did and gotten married after graduation, it wouldn't have lasted. We'd be just another divorce statistic by now…and I'd be left with much bigger piles of memories to burn.
Hell, I don't deserve her now, truth be told. My refusal to let her get her foot into the door at Bardot proves that. I'm sabotaging her work goals out of my own selfish need to not have to face her every single day. Well, it's not entirely selfish. One lunch with her and I'm already unraveling. I can't imagine what working with her every day would do to me, but I can confidently say it wouldn't be good for my work or for my patients.
She knows too much about me. She has too big of an effect on me.
The frustration of it all builds up inside of me until I can't take it anymore. This has to stop. In my desperation to make it so, I finally give up and hurl the box into the fire. But the minute I see the flames take hold of the cardboard, I seem to slip outside of myself for a minute. My body betrays my brain and lunges forward. I hear my glass shatter on the ground after I discard it, freeing up both of my hands to reach into the fire and pull the box back out.
A searing burning sensation spreads across my palms, forcing me to drop the box onto the cement patio floor. The minute it touches down, I start furiously stomping out the bits of the fire that the passing wind didn't extinguish on its fall downward.
With the photos safe from any further damage, I groan to myself and take a look at the burn marks on my hands.Fucking fantastic.It's nothing serious…or at least it wouldn't be if I wasn't a neurosurgeon who is pretty much useless without my hands.
I feel more pathetic than ever as I scoop up the half-burnt box and trudge back inside to wash and bandage the small wounds.
* * *
After a sleepless night,I'm in an even worse mood than usual and don't take too kindly to everyone's relentless questions about what happened to my hands. I just have to put up with a few days of this, and then I can take off these stupid bandages so everyone will get off my case.
