Chapter 3
Chapter Three
GRACE
Whoever designed Breakup Buddies underestimated how many characters were needed to excavate a broken heart. Sitting in her office long after the partners and support staff had gone home, Grace slammed into the character limit face-first. She’d sent Alix her number without thinking about it.
Grace looked at the glass door to her windowless interior office like an axe-wielding maniac might materialize. Seconds passed without anyone in Jack Nicholson cosplay showing up, and Grace relaxed her shoulders.
Grappling with her level of desperation, Grace accepted that she had, in fact, sunk low enough to confide in a stranger. The run-in with Julie had destabilized her and she needed to fast-track her healing.
She stared at the message and tried, for once, not to think about all the ways things could go wrong.
About liabilities and risk. When that didn’t work, she told herself that she’d gotten Pablo Castellano’s grandson probation after his multi-million-dollar illegal betting ring had been busted.
If someone who’d chosen Scissorsaurus as their screen name got crazy, she’d have muscle.
Muscle. She cringed at herself with her entire body and focused on her phone.
Alix
Look at us, Gator. We’re like officially friends now.
Grace
Friends, huh? When we don’t even know each other’s real names?
Alix
Wait… do you mean… your name is NOT Gator?
Grace chuckled despite her miserable mood. God, this was a new level of pathetic. The only time she’d laughed in weeks was sitting alone talking to a potential spree killer.
Alix
And you do know mine. It’s Alix.
Grace
You used your real name in your profile? Aren’t you afraid of putting personal details out there for anyone to see?
Alix
Chill, Gator. It’s not my social and blood type. McGruff the Crime Dog raised me right. No matter how many cute puppies are on offer, I’m not getting in your van.
Biting the inside of her cheek, Grace caught her laughter before it slipped out again. Alix, if that was her real name, wasn’t there to cheer her up. She was there to help her figure out how to stop thinking about Julie so she could move the hell on.
She considered making up an alias, but she’d lost her appetite for secrets and lies. She held her breath and typed out: I’m Grace.
Alix
Hi, Grace. The internets tell me you’re in Miami.
Eyes widening and heart dropping into her churning acidic pit of a stomach, Grace froze. She looked at the phone on her desk and debated calling building security.
Grace
What?
Alix
305? Unless you’re not there anymore. I kept my Colorado number when I moved to California.
Deflating with relief, blood returned to Grace’s limbs when she exhaled. A lifetime of her mother’s warnings that one wrong move would end with her floating in a canal crept up on her at the worst times.
Grace
No, that’s accurate. Miami born and bred.
She’d almost said that she’d been held captive since birth but stopped herself. Alix wasn’t gathering info for Grace’s wiki page. She was supposed to be talking about her breakup.
Alix
ohhh Miami. I’ve never been. Is it all that Will Smith led me to believe?
Unbeknownst to her, Alix had tripped onto the landmine of Grace’s pet peeve. There were few things she hated more than Hollywood’s misrepresentations of her city. Their love-hate relationship aside, the stylized image of a few blocks on South Beach did not represent Miami.
Grace
Do you mean is it a bunch of half-naked and hypersexualized gorgeous women, nightclubs, and drug dealers?
Alix
I’m sensing you have feelings about this subject.
Noticing that her jaw was clenched tightly enough to bring back the martini headache that had only just gone away, Grace stood. She paced the way she did when practicing arguments out loud to loosen her tension.
Grace
Sorry, Scissors, but don’t let anything you’ve seen anywhere fool you. It’s probably not what you imagine.
Alix
Few things are.
Grace wanted to ask Alix what she meant.
It was the second time in as many days that she’d said something like that.
Something that flashed with sadness when she’d just been lifting Grace’s spirits.
Grace wanted to pull the frayed edge of that thread.
To understand. But Alix wasn’t on the app to be dissected.
More than once, Julie had told her that she asked too many questions. Well, she hadn’t said that. She was too diplomatic for something so blunt. But she’d made the point clear.
Julie, Grace reminded herself, was the reason she was talking to Alix in the first place. Just half an hour earlier she’d had so much to say about her that she’d hit the app’s text limit, and now she barely remembered what prompted her to pick up the phone.
Grace
I ran into her today.
Alix
Oh, shit. At work?
Grace
Unfortunately.
Alix
What happened? Was she dramatic? Did she throw a drink in your face? Flip a table?
Alix
Sorry. I recently binged too much Real Housewives with my roommate.
Grace
It was worse than that. She was polite.
Alix
Noooo. Not the p word. What happened?
Closing her eyes, Grace was back in the shared kitchen.
She’d been using the touchscreen on the coffee machine to make a vanilla latte when Julie walked in with two of her associates.
Grace had kept an eye on her calendar and only ventured to a common area because Julie was supposed to be in trial all month.
The sound of her voice had been a kick in the teeth. Grace had managed to avoid her for so long, she was starting to believe she’d only have to see her at the Gunner Christmas party, and that was two months away. Certainly, she’d have eradicated her feelings by then.
But they were alive and well and roiling in her guts when Julie sauntered into the kitchen.
She was glossy perfection in a black dress with the matching suit jacket slung over her arm because October was nearly as hot as August had been.
Since they’d last seen each other, Julie had only managed to get even more poised and beautiful.
And then, Julie had spoken. And Grace wanted nothing more than to fucking disappear. The act had always come easily to Julie. So easily that Grace had started to wonder if the veneer was her true self and the woman she’d occasionally slept next to was the lie.
Grace
It was like we’d never been anything but colleagues. She greeted me, chatted about the weather, and continued on with the conversation she’d been having like I was just anyone.
What Grace really wanted to say was that Julie didn’t make her feel common.
She’d made her feel invisible. Like she was nobody.
But it was too pathetic to admit. Her vision blurred, but she shut her eyes and willed the tears not to form.
She was so tired of crying. So tired of feeling sorry for herself.
Alix
I’m really sorry, Gator.
The use of the silly nickname despite Alix having her name forced Grace to smile even as she dried her eyes.
Alix
That must have felt like absolute shit. No one deserves that.
There were no empty platitudes. No attempts to fix it. Nothing but a little validation and empathy. It shouldn’t have made Grace cry. But there she was, desperately trying to stop the flow of tears like an ASPCA ad had caught her at the height of PMS.
Alix
The fucking weather. That’s straight to jail, do not collect your $200.
Grace laughed into her tissue even as she blew her nose.
Grace
Right?? Who does that? I think I’d prefer it if she ignored me. At least then I could tell myself she gave a shit. Like maybe it hurt her too much to look at me.
Alix
I bet she felt seeing you like a kick in the teeth. Some people are just good at hiding their feelings.
Grace
Lucky people.
Alix didn’t have a follow-up quip. Typing and deleting the same text a dozen times, Grace didn’t know how to keep the conversation going.
She wasn’t ready to let the freedom of saying what she really thought go.
Alix was so effortlessly conversational, but everything Grace came up with sounded so unnatural.
Tired, and not ready to lose Alix’s attention, Grace was honest even if not clever.
Grace
What are you up to tonight?
The response came immediately, and Grace dropped against her office chair. Relaxed, without needing to put in a conscious effort.
Alix
Right now? Working and debating whether you work at a magazine or you’re a lawyer. My friends and I can’t agree.
Chuckling, Grace crossed one leg over the other and started typing.