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“I was…eventually.”
“Jake, that is so much worse.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“I don’t know if that makes any difference. I already feel like I exist in this space that is somewhere beneath you. Now, I’m always going to have to worry, every single time I’m not around, that you’re with someone that doesn’t. Someone prettier and better, and not a complete fucking mess like me.”
“There’s no one like you,” he says, his voice breaking just a little.
“Yeah, well, you would have gotten sick of that eventually. Everyone does.”
I feel eyes on me and realize we had made somewhat of a scene and a few of his neighbors had come to check it out. I lower my head and move around him toward the elevators. If Jake says anything else, I don’t hear it over the sound of the blood pumping in my ears. When I get inside, I don’t turn around until after the doors have closed. I don’t think I could have taken it had he still been standing there. I don’t think I could have taken it if he wasn’t.
The cold air hits me like a ton of bricks when I step outside, choking me, and I take the first my first noticeable breath since I got on that elevator, and it turns into a sob. I’m gutted. I lower my head and put my hands on my knees, taking deep breaths to try to reel it back in, and after a couple of minutes, it works like it should. I mean to go home, but the bus to Capitol Hill gets there first, and the next thing I know, I’m standing in front of Evie’s door. Now that I’m here, I realize that there’s a good chance that she isn’t, as she’s been spending most of her nights at Garrett’s for a while now, but that’s okay. If she isn’t home, I can let myself in and curl up into a ball of self-pity and loathing on her couch, behind a door with a latch, and at least feel safe for a while. After resigning my fate, I’m surprised when the door opens.
“Jesus, what happened? Are you okay?” she says upon seeing my obviously disheveled, distressed state.
“No,” I reply, and sink into my best friend’s arms, grateful to have them. They’re the only ones I can count on anymore to hold me up.
She brings me inside, and I tell her everything, starting with the conversation I’d had with Alex before the fundraiser. I tell her about the friends that brought up some other girl and meeting his mom, and about the break in and my fucking computer being gone. I tell her about being invited to spend Christmas in Aspen with his family, and then about how he told me he had lied about the picture and had cheated on me last week.
“And now, I’m supposed to go to work tonight and tell Dane that I’m a fucking emotionally stable adult capable of managing his business for him. And I don’t even have a door that closes. Tell me what the fuck I am supposed to do now?”
“Ruby, I’m so sorry. I mean this is bad. It’s a lot. Are you okay? Of course, you’re not okay. I mean, I know you’ve had more than your fair share of shitshows, but that’s a lot to process at one time,” she tells me.
“I know that, butwhat do I do? I need you, because you’re a normal person of sound mind, to tell me what to do.”
“Okay,‘sound mind’is a stretch. You know that it’s a stretch.” I roll my eyes, and she continues, “Okay, I know what you’re not going to do. You’re not going to call into work. You’re not going to mess up an awesome job opportunity for yourself because of this. He fucked with your feelings; you can’t let him fuck up your livelihood.”
“That doesn’t feel possible right now,” I tell her.
“It might not feel like it, but it is possible. I mean, you’ve always been pretty good at putting on your armor and hiding who you are and how you feel from the world. This is no different, Ruby. You put it on, go to work, accept the job, and act like nothing is wrong. Get mad about it if you want to. Use it as fuel. You can fall apart right now and you can fall apart when you get home, but you have to do this first.”
“I know that you’re right,” I tell her eventually.
“Of course I’m right. Also, before you go in, you should call your renter’s insurance about the door and your stuff.”
“I don’t have renter’s insurance,” I tell her.
“Well, you’re probably screwed there. Sorry. You can stay here for as long as you want, of course, and you can use my desktop. I don’t want you staying there with a door that doesn’t lock, Ruby.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you want some coffee?” she asks. “It’s fresh, but fair warning—I woke up feeling like I got hit by a truck and probably made it a little too strong.”
“Yes, please,” I tell her politely. “Fuck my world up.” She laughs and brings us both a full cup and a sleeve of cookies. She’s perfection.
“What do I do about Jake?” I ask with trepidation.
“I’m not in it,” she says. “But Ruby, if you want to stay with him, that’s okay. You don’t have to break up with him if you don’t want to.”
“I think he loves me,” I tell her. “Is that stupid?”
“No way, what’s not to love? I mean, I remember the day that you saw that picture, and when you kissed Alex. You said that you weren’t sure what you guys were free to do and that you’d never officially defined it anyway, right?”
That’s true. I had said that. I think I had even said that he could do whatever he wanted, and it didn’t matter to me. Of course, I had never said that to him, but I had said it to myself and to Evie, and I hadn’t meant it—the part where it wouldn’t matter to me. However, this was before he called me specifically to tell me that we were in a committed relationship and there was no one else and came home manic and crazy and telling me he loved me.
“I don’t want to break up with him,” I tell her, and when I hear it spoken out loud, I know that it’s the truth, “But I know myself. I won’t be able to let it go. I won’t be able to get it out of my head. I’m going to be uncomfortable all the time. I’m already doubting pretty much everything about him right now.”
